Damn A2500, PLEASE work!! Amiga.org, advice is appreciated!

[Beast96GT]

Guys,

I'd like to see if I can get some kind of display out the 2500 I grabbed off fleabay.  I got really impatient since I can't find a scandoubler, and I'm still waiting for an A520 to come in, so I hooked up the TV tuner card I use on the PeeCee to the video "mono" from the A2500.  The screen comes on, but I just get a grey screen.  The hard drive spins every once in a while, but no disk drives light up.

Is the miggy looking for a connection other than mouse/keyboard or there's no output on the RCA video "mono"?  I really hope this thing works.  

Thanks!!

Chris (Beast)

[Beast96GT]

rkauer wrote:
 That "grey" screen could be any solid colour. Open the Amiga and start pressing the chips back in place, specially the ROM chip.

 Also check for battery leakage.

Thanks for the reply.  The grey screen looks like the one you see when you first book up the miggy... but no workbench screen.

Can the chips really pop out?  I mean, I always thought that was the joke, "drop the amiga 6" from the surface to re-seat the chips".  

Anyway, the battery is great:
Battery

I guess my real question is, SHOULD I get a picture out of the video out in the back?  

If so, I'll start pulling cards and diagnosing the thing.

Chris

[Beast96GT]

tone007 wrote:
First thing to do with any old 2000/2500 you pick up, look under the drive sled to see if the battery has leaked and wrecked the motherboard.  Pushing on all the chips in the world generally won't help that.
 
Happens too often, unfortunately.

Thanks for the note, BUT... again:  BATTERY

It looks fine.  I think the best thing to do is start pulling cards till I get a work-bench icon.  

[Beast96GT]

After pulling all the cards, drives, etc, I've narrowed it down to the Nexus hard card (unfortunately).  It will boot about half the time, otherwise just give me a grey screen.  It was a little tricky since it still boots every so often with the card still in.

I'm guessing I can just move the hard drive to a different card?  

Anyway, when I finally saw the disk prompt screen *finally* show up I was elated.  I mean, I knew the night was blown since I would do nothing but tinker with the thing.  

[Beast96GT]

amigaksi wrote:
Could be the hard drive and NOT the nexus card.
Perhaps, hard drive has reached the MTBF or boot block of HD is corrupted and Amiga is getting stuck trying to get it to boot (if set to boot mode).  I once had a hard drive failure, but my controller had a method to disable autoboot so I was able to boot from floppy and then after running some HD utility enable the HD and retrieve files from the failed hard drive.

Will it boot without the hard drive and with just the card in the slot?  I do have another hard drive, I think it's a 250 meg, but I'm certain it's an axillary not a boot.  Maybe just hook it up to see if it boots?