I got ripped off on a dead Amiga 4000

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I bought this from someone on Ebay via credit card.   280359148235
I'm about to contest the purchase and never use Ebay every again.  Let me also mention; please do not post any "send it to our repair center" type stuff in response to this.  If you do fine I can't do anything about it.  But just understand I'm not sending my hardware to someone else unless I know them personally.

Symptoms: not much, grey screen I guess you could say dark.  The Amiga is sending something to the monitor.  It flicks on when the Amiga is powered on.  It's a Amiga 4000/040 with a case design that looks like a microwave.  The guy who sold it to me has a much better camera than me so I suggest you look at that listing # to see what it looks like.  Please don't ask me to specify further those pics are better than anything I can get.

Condition it came in: the CPU board was totally loose in there for one.  And the floppy drive won't make a sound.  It's getting power.  I reversed the floppy ribbon just to make sure I got a power light and put it back the right way.  This box has the adapter that fixes the bad floppy cable that was shipped with these.  That thing is pretty weak it doesn't stay in place very well but it's also not the problem.

Why I expected it to work: In the listing it said it was working.  And one of the pictures was showing Workbench 3.0 working.  Unfortunately it only has 3.0 roms but I still wanted the box.  I totally expected to see workbench come up after the HD loaded.  But it's just this nothing grey screen.  Also in the listing you'll see many key points that make it sound like he had the maintenence done.  The RAM clips are new.  The battery is new.  

What I've done: I've tried disconnecting everything but the floppy and putting games in there as well as old workbench disks.  I've tried both AGA games and regular old games and quite a few bootable workbench 1.3 disks.  I do not have a Workbench 3.0 floppy.  Trying to make one on my PC right now but have no idea how to.  I kind of was under the impression you needed to use WHDLoad along with an Amiga with a HDD to do that.  Not sure though.  I've put just a CD-ROM on the IDE chain as I know the IDE chain on A4000 sucks and doesn't work correctly with 2 things on the IDE chain.  It doesn't do anything when I put a CD in.  The drive is off an old PC and works for sure.  And the disk spins up in there but NOTHING happens on screen.  I ordered IDE fix but haven't got that yet.  I wouldn't have ordered it if I knew this thing was dead.

Why?:  Why isn't there any of those colors it's supposed to show when an Amiga has hardware problems?  This monitor is a Commodore 1960 and I tested it on my PC in VGA modes and it works.  It definitely should be showing one of those screens.  It's a proper commodore VGA adapter too, the chrome 23 to VGA adapter.  The only thing it does at all is the HDD populates and light comes on briefly when you first turn it on, and it responds to control-Amiga-Amiga reboot, but there's nothing to boot.  The HDD repopulates and the power light goes on and off though so that's doing something.  The seller is super slow with responses.  He also I notice has in his listing that it works but also that he doesn't give refunds.  So geez I wonder why you wouldn't give a refund but you say it works.  I feel that I've bought someone's problem here.

But can I do something?  I don't take IC's (I consider any circut on a motherboard to be an integrated circut.  I understand that on Amiga they're referred to as custom chips because they handle functions for the CPU.) off motherboards like I've read a lot of people doing.  If this thing was truly not completely dead when the guy had it, then I shouldn't have to do anything like that.  Also it has this 2 power supply thing.  One is this Dataflyer PSU that I don't know why it's there.  The other is the regular Amiga 4000 power supply.  I've tried all kinds of different hookups.  Not hooking up the extra power to the expansion cards (there is a single PX4 connector with 3 wires in it for either full power or maybe only extra power to the Dataflyer expansion card side), hooking it up with the top power supply, hooking it up with the bottom power supply, tried some jumpers I guess there's 1 that switches between NTSC and PAL and another that's supposed to be some RAM switcher but according to info I've found it doesn't do anything.

Despite how I sound I'm not too shabby at fixing computers.  Usually there's never a problem I can't fix.  But there's something really messed up with this computer.  Of course with PC's you just yank the part that's bad out of another PC since there's probably 4 dead ones laying around my house, dead just because I don't have extra HDD's for them.  There's just no leakage or anything you can see that would be wrong with this thing, yet it's not working at all.

Please please help.  Please no "just send it to our repair center" answers.

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Power on the Amiga whilst holding down both mouse buttons.

Do you get the startup screen with boot options etc?

it's gone white.  hmm.  that's something vastly different.  progress?

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ok we're getting some kinda luvin now.   White screen then flips green and stays...

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I'm still looking for this other post to reply to but wanted to address this.  Amen brother.  I can't believe some people think you should buy something as "working" then have it not work.  Also there is an advanced lookup on Ebay.  When someone's a jerk about responding to questions, or they take days to do so, after you spent $380.69 on a broke old computer, you can do this thing advanced lookup.  This guy left a number that wasn't only fake, it was "a single mother of 4 who knew nothing about computers."  Thankfully I left a civil message but it was like "Hi my name is Greg I bought a computer from you and it doesn't work.  Please call me and left my #."  This lady was so confused and wtf about the whole thing.  And I had to apologize and look like more of a fool than I already know I am for buying a used weird computer on Ebay.

I know it's old.  If I can fix it you bet you this seller's not hearing another word from me.  But he IS a jerk!

Oh and do you see how much he sells that it's working and what cool stuff he put in it?   I bought a 500+ a month ago that the guy didn't even know if it was working.  I gotta do the battery resolder but it wasn't leaking yet at least or close (voltage tests good) and it works.  Guy had it in a closet for years and it works.  Probably what looks to be a nice beer spill or 2 on it.  But he didn't blow it up and say it was the greatest Amiga ever.  Like this guy.  It is sad what this guy did and I don't care how great of a tech you are, you buy something that says it works, and it doesn't, you got ripped.

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I have had a dead 4000 with simler problem and it was the BUSTER CHIP not seated properly , so check it. i removed it and put itback in.

this has some merit for sure.  i happened to have purchased a bunch of extra ram clips for the 4000, so i put those in instead for the hell of it but nawp not the RAM.  there's these cool clips as mentioned in the listing.  clicks in much easier than any ram in any PC i've ever worked on i must say.  but you gotta take them all out to take the back one out is the only hard part (not really more of a pain).  There's still a little mixing and matching I can do but I think all the 72-pin SIMM's are good so reseating was best I could do.

This Buster chip is definitely there.  You need something called a chip extractor to remove those things without breaking them, or a needle nose pliers that's not 1000 years old.  I think it's was my grandfather's or something.  But I'm going to break my Buster chip if I try pulling it out with that.  suggestions on how to pull one of those out without a chip extractor?  I see 2 sides of the square shaped seating have a little plastic blocker and 2 sides don't, upper right and lower left don't have the little blocker thing.  When I barely touch that Buster chip, i get some weird differences in alternating from just black(very dark grey) to whitish green or really bright green(this is when I actually boot up and turn it off again, not flashing to different colors in the same attempt).  I tried to inch the Buster chip out with something that wasn't small enough to help at all, and then I got just dark grey.  Then I sort of pushed it gently further in and got the bright green or whitish green again.  Looks like for sure I'm going to need to get a chip extractor for getting this out.  I need something to get in there on both sides and lift it out gently.

my A4000D was doing something similar.  Turned out there was corrosion around the crystal (I think that's what it's called the 4 Pin DIL connected box on the motherboard) which was causing it to not connect always and I would get a dark gray screen or a black screen with everything cycling but nothing else.  So check those, I think they're called crystals, there should be 2 on the motherboard, they are socketed, so carefully pull them out and then put them back in the board in the exact same way you pulled them out, then try to boot the system.  It's worth a shot.

Not too sure what you mean about this.  Are they near the power supply connection to the motherboard?  At this moment I screwed the HDD back in so maybe I'm not seeing these.

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You can't expect a computer system such as this with all its socketed chips, daughterboards, etc. to NOT come loose in transit. Hell, A500's and A2000's have had to have their Agnus chips reseated after UPS hauled them away from Commodore back in the day!

The seller looks legit and the screen did have Workbench up. If you are going to own an Amiga system, you MUST NOT be afraid to remove and reseat chips and components. That's common sense 101 when dealing with vintage computers.

Using a very small flat blade screwdriver, you may carefully pry up one end of a chip (I.C.). When you feel the pins have moved up slightly, you may then press down on the chip to reseat it. That "fixes" most chip/socket problems. If not, the more aggressive thing to do is remove the chip completely (working your screwdriver from one end to the other carefully and slowly) and press it back in again. Assuming the legs/pins did not need to be cleaned. Look for oxidation on the pins and if necessary, light sand paper or better yet: a fibreglass brush may be used to clean them up.

The Busters people talk about require a PLCC chip removal tool (if it's not directly soldered to the board that is). Rat Shack sells them for $10 and are a necessity. NEVER try to remove one of those square chips with a regular screwdriver!!

Other scenario is that the capacitors on both the 040 card and audio sections could have been soldered in backwards. + <> - got reversed, causing the caps to blow up and leak their acidic spunk all over the board. VERY common when buying someone else's old Amiga 4000's.

One more thing: be sure to tighten the motherboard down with all the screws AFTER you've determined that the capacitors did not blow up. Good grounding is necessary for our Amiga's to behave properly. Removing the 040 board, observing that all those TINY pins are in alignment and reseating *IT* is also something you're going to have to do...

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@Ceaser,

You can't expect a computer system such as this with all its socketed chips, daughterboards, etc. to NOT come loose in transit. Hell, A500's and A2000's have had to have their Agnus chips reseated after UPS hauled them away from Commodore back in the day!

The seller looks legit and the screen did have Workbench up. If you are going to own an Amiga system, you MUST NOT be afraid to remove and reseat chips and components. That's common sense 101 when dealing with vintage computers.

Using a very small flat blade screwdriver, you may carefully pry up one end of a chip (I.C.). When you feel the pins have moved up slightly, you may then press down on the chip to reseat it. That "fixes" most chip/socket problems. If not, the more aggressive thing to do is remove the chip completely (working your screwdriver from one end to the other carefully and slowly) and press it back in again. Assuming the legs/pins did not need to be cleaned. Look for oxidation on the pins and if necessary, light sand paper or better yet: a fibreglass brush may be used to clean them up.

The Busters people talk about require a PLCC chip removal tool (if it's not directly soldered to the board that is). Rat Shack sells them for $10 and are a necessity. NEVER try to remove one of those square chips with a regular screwdriver!!

Other scenario is that the capacitors on both the 040 card and audio sections could have been soldered in backwards. + <> - got reversed, causing the caps to blow up and leak their acidic spunk all over the board. VERY common when buying someone else's old Amiga 4000's.

One more thing: be sure to tighten the motherboard down with all the screws AFTER you've determined that the capacitors did not blow up. Good grounding is necessary for our Amiga's to behave properly. Removing the 040 board, observing that all those TINY pins are in alignment and reseating *IT* is also something you're going to have to do...

BTW: Great price you got there! Well, if you can get it to work that is  ;-)

This Buster chip was not a soldered down chip.  However there were 2 chips under the CPU board, I'm dumb about Amiga I think they're the Kickstart 3.0 ROM's actually, but those definitely would've broke if I tried to jimmy rig them out.  So Buster chip was in the type of socket that you can shimmy it out a little with a small flathead and I blew a tiny bit of canned air on it and the socket.  Reseating that is what seems to put me from black or very dark grey to the green (I guess meaning RAM error screen).  It seems to be key.  When I mess with the seating of Buster, it goes black(after of and on again not during because that would be lame to remove during operation) then green when I mess with Buster.  I stripped it down to the motherboard all the way.  For this chip extractor at Ratt Shatty Shack you are talking about chips like the ROM's under the CPU board only?  many of those chips are not socketed and I really don't know what you do to service those in any way.  So reseating Buster wasn't a problem.  He came out of his socket super easy as soon as I found a small enough flathead not to scratch up and ruin it taking it out.  Also I must ask but am pretty sure the processor is not in a ZIF socket on the Amiga CPU boards?  I removed the heat sink and again blew some canned air in but was surprised there wasn't a clip or anything I could see to remove the processor itself.  I suppose you just replace the CPU board if your CPU goes bad.

But main thing is green is all I'm getting.  When I said white in my 1st post I was wrong.  I just had the monitor brightness jacked up too high and so it looked white.  I gotta close it up for tonight it's just going nowhere since I got the nothing/black to goto green.  Reseated RAM.  Actually had bought some extra 4000 RAM in case something went wrong.  Noticed one of the 72-pin RAM chips was a DIMM and could only be put at the back of the set because it was too wide to fit in any other socket as it would squash too close up against the other clips of RAM, thus preventing them from seating properly.  It didn't matter a bit which chips I put in and whether I put 3 72-pin SIMM's in or all five, the DIMM at the back or all SIMM's.  Sorry I been to too many computer classes and I just mean the RAM that has chips on both sides is DIMM and the one that has chips on only one side is SIMM.  This is all the memory clip I'm talking about here though.  Very nice connectors that hold the RAM.  Better than any RAM clips I've ever seen on a PC.

It'd be a travesty to not get this box working.  I won't rest until I have it working.  Unfortunately I must sleep and my brain does burn out from time to time.  Let me know should I get Rat Shack's chip extractor for the ROM's under the CPU board and reseat them?  I understand you need a chip extractor to get some of these chips out but which ones I'm asking.  Also it would seem since your Buster wasn't in the socket type that you can just get the chip out with a tiny flathead, our 4000 boards are probably different.  Do any of the other chips without the obvious socket like my Buster was in, come out with the chip extractor?  I'm definitely not afraid of taking things apart.  I just have to be aware of my level of knowledge and what is worse than having something broken is breaking it worse.  Lots of good input thanks.  Let me know if you have any further answers.

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Don't even try. Accidentally damaing the socket is not an unlikely outcome, which will be incredibly annoying/difficult/expensive to repair.


The crystals are underneath the CPU card. I think some machines don't have them, depending on the CPU card installed at the factory.

All mine has under CPU card is 2 ROM chips which are Kickstart 3.0.  They aren't something you'd take out without extractor for sure it'd break.  Nothing that LOOKS like you'd call it a crystal.  So I don't think I have those.

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colors on boot: white: cpu failure
grey: could indicate different contact problems or hw failures, basically the machine went through checking hardware but couldnt start the system anyway if i recall right
green: basically faulty chip ram but could be something else too.

you say you are getting green when pressing on buster. it could be that buster legs are bent. it might happen if it has been removed before and carlessly reseated. it isnt that difficult to pull this chip but normally pushing it deeper into the socket is enough. i think applyin pressure to buster you bent the whole board a little and the flaky contact should be sought elsewhere.

to eliminate further possible failure sources i would pull the daughterboard and the fast ram. examine the cpu card contacts, assure the jumpers under cpu board are seated correctly (they could got loose or lost, lol), check the roms. reseat the card.

edit:reason: the seller might have exchanged ram without checking, and a4k are sometimes quite picky about the modules.

That would be a shame if Buster's legs were bent.  And it could be true.  I really was pretty gentle with that chip though.  To clarify I never got white, I had my brightness jacked up too high on the monitor because it was that dark dark grey before.  So it's been whole time either the dark grey or the green.  And it doesn't seem to make much sense what I do for it to change, just that when I take stuff out or put stuff in, that's when it'll end up alternating colors.  But it's only one or the other.  I'm going to mess around with those RAM clips a little more since that's almost safe.  When I removed buster, I saw that the side I hadn't lifted on had what looked like a little scratch.  I don't know why someone would've removed that chip before unless they were having a problem, and if it really was just serviced by a pro last year, it shouldn't look like that.  I don't even know what that chip is supposed to do.  I'm guessing some memory stuff since agnus in 500's were in those type of sockets and they were memory.

Thanks for the input and let me know if you think of anything else.  I said in answer to someone else it would SUCK to not get this computer working.  It's a cool computer.  And the reason I'm trying to get a hold of the seller is I want him to reveal to me what he knows.  I need to ask him what prompted him to get his Amiga serviced and sell it only a year later.  If I had that box and it was working I would NOT let it go for $340 (+40 shipping) but as some others have said to me, that's a good price, if I can get it working.:angry:

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if he has it listed as working you cant blame him for the shipping damage.   If you do end up going that route, I hope you dont rip him off and file a claim and end up keeping the A4000 and the refund.  (its happened to me before..theres losers as sellers and buyers)

Do what others have posted to see if its something that needs to be reseated.  I hope you know what you're doing and dont screw it up more.  (I've had that happen to me also)

that's the last thing I want to do!

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It looks like it got damaged in transit.  The listing and seller look legit.  The system is old so please try and be understanding.  You got a good deal for it and even the case is rare.  I would just keep it and buy another MB, IMHO!  It would be worth it.  Or you can send it off to Amiga Center in France to fix it.  Well worth it.  I know you are mad but this stuff happens especially for vintage computer gear.  The 4000 is not very stable to begin with.  I have had a few 4000's die out of the blue too.  I now have like 5 as backups! LOL

I would disassemble it down to the bare MB and reconnect the floppy, PS, memory chips and daughter board and CPU card and see if you get a KS boot screen (purple insert disk screen)  Give it about a minute for this screen to show up if there is no IDE device connected.

In a perfect world I'd send my Amiga off to the good repair center in France but I just wrecked my vehicle again and was already broke before that.  If I can't fix it myself, it won't get fixed, and that'll be a tragedy.  Who cares about the seller by the way?  He got money for this and it doesn't work until I fix it.

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Who cares about the seller by the way?  He got money for this and it doesn't work until I fix it.

nevermind he's talking to me again. heh

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nevermind he's talking to me again. heh

Yes I got a hold of him again now.  He's a former Commodore store owner he states.  So hopefully he knows what to do.  I was getting green screen error but now getting white.  going to try to reseat the cpu card more gently maybe it's in too far.  i guess white is cpu problem.  messed up.  dark grey seems to come often enough too.  it has 2 psu's and they wire together in a very strange way.  the secret was to plug in the main one before you plug in the additional "dataflyer" psu.  then they sync and both turn on only when you push the power button.  it seems to like having those both hooked up like that.  and if you plug in the additional psu before the main, it'll grey screen and the additional stays on.  no switches on the back of course
so yeah i'll get it going.  the hardest problem is to find out what's broken.  if it's the motherboard then it wouldn't be showing these error report screens, common sense would dictate.  so there's a chance.  what choice do i have? there's lots of computers under my stairs that are pieces of crap and they'd work if i wasted a good HDD on them.  But this computer is actually cool.

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it looks white when the brightness is up high.  it's really the green.  almost sure of it.  so i'm going to bed now.  done 4 tonight

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This may be of some help to you.

http://home.arcor.de/r69/amiga/A4k-HW3.html

The guy who sold it to me thinks it's the U261 RAM clip that's bad.  That's the first one in the sequence, so If you had all the RAM in you have to take them all out before you can get at the U261.  He's had the clips upgraded so it snaps firmly in place with metal clips but it IS consistently doing a green screen.  A few times I got the light grey like it's going to use the HDD to boot to workbench (3.0 is what's on it), but it doesn't.  Maybe it almost gets past the chip RAM test and then just has enough time to go green before crashing.  That page is great though.  I'm going to use it as a reference thanks.