I got ripped off on a dead Amiga 4000

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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.

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it is a very strange box you got there, looks a little homemade so the technical solution might not be perfect. why dont you diconnect all that second psu stuff in the first place. i really dont get what this is for anyway.

It sure looks homemade but I think it was actually sold like this!  It's the A4000/040 as opposed to the more commonly seen(I guess, none of these computers besides maybe the A500 is common) A4000/030.  It doesn't sound like this one is any more dependable unfortunately.  I guess A4000 is a really cool but really unstable computer.  But yeah the big high case is because there are 2 daughterboards (see ebay listing # at very beginning for pics if you haven't already), 1 is 3 ISA and one weird I think it's called "graphics express" slot or something.  then it has another daughterboard that plugs into the top of the 1st one that is 4x Zorro III slots!  It has extra metal props and stuff to keep the case from stressing on the top of the 2 daughterboards too much as well as another strut in there between the 2 daughterboards.  I don't like having this thing open at all because you have to actually remove some of these important support struts to have it open.  There's nothing really supporting the top daughterboard with the Zorro III slots ATM it's only anchored by the slot it goes into in the bottom daughterboard, which I think is also a Zorro III slot but not sure.  The bottom daughterboard is also the thing actually labelled as the "highflyer expansion card."  Like the case says.  This was sold as a productivity workstation and they sold very few of them.  I don't remember which site I was looking at but it was showing figures of how many of each Amiga sold.  I think they sold a few thousand of these and I don't know how many they made.  It's not an everyday computer though.

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Open the claim, call your visa if you don't get money back.  The machine should work, even if shipped and packaged properly.  If you get it fixed you can always close the claim.
is this the auction #: 170350466586???  from photos you can see battery leakage.
if not pls post auction #.

Just because some dude ran a Commodore dealership means nothing to me.  I've seen plenty of those guys and some of them are "as clueless as a  blonde".

Nope that isn't the auction.  It's at the very very beginning of this post the auction number.  I'm still not at all made up on wanting rid of this and there's lots of chance it could work so nobody get too concerned about anything plz.  If I can't fix the box I don't want to keep the box.  I know it's a cool box if I can, but yes of course.

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I'm at pretty much every time I turn it on I get a white screen now.  If you hadn't read back at that post the seller and I are talking now again.  Here's what he says:

"When it turns white that means it passed all the tests and it is ready for boot. You should see the following sequence, dark grey the hardware test passed next comes the light grey the software (kickstart) passed and then the white what I already mentioned it is ready to boot. So try the following motherboard with daughterboard the original chip RAM and only the chip RAM and no keyboard mouse floppy or hard drive attached, keep unplugged for minute or two and then try to boot see if you can get up to the boot screen where it is requesting the workbench. Let me know."

Unfortunately I don't get any workbench insert disk screen.  I had it stripped down to the motherboard without daughterboards, the one with 3x ISA + 1x video toaster (called something else) slot and the other with the 4 zorro III slots.  For those who haven't been following this they stack on top of each other and some extra chassis holds them up.  Last night I had nothing at all hooked up including no keyboard or mouse or floppy or ide (there's a 540 MB HDD in there) and it was giving me green.  I have right now all RAM clips back in and floppy and IDE HDD hooked up and daughterboards back in and I get white and it doesn't change.  left it on for some time now to check that.  another really weird thing about this computer (maybe not to an amiga tech) is it has 2 psus, and they inter-connect correctly if they're on the same dedicated circut.  If I turn on main Amiga 4000 PSU then quick plug in to the other spot on the electrical outlet (w/out surge protector or anything) it magically turns on both power supplies when I press power!  monitor using is a commodore 1960 if you didn't see that part.  it's got a real weird power hookup where it hooks to the back of the computer.  The computer only does the dark grey color if you don't hook up the second psu it seems.  The colors on the cables on the second PSU are more standard and they go with the colors of the fan on the case and the daughterboard.  Complicated description isn't it?  Sorry bout that.  Really all I have is a crappy phone camera look at very top of post and read auction number and look up for the good pictures.   I think about the 7th post down on page one guy made direct links to the pictures that the guy took of the inside and out of the computer.

So white screen right now.  Daughter cards both in and psu's both hooked up.  All ram in, chip + 4 fast RAM modules.  CPU card seated as well as possibly can be and IDE + floppy are hooked up, as well as keyboard and mouse.  no purple floppy insert screen achieved and no sound from floppy drive.

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have you gutted it and just hooked up the bare necessities as stated earlier in this thread?  man, i hope it works... looks like a very nice system.

i really appreciate the enthusiasm!  i'm really dying to fix this too and i don't think there's any soldering required.  i think it's close to working.  if it were a pc i'd put it under the stairs and give it up for now but it isn't.  i have an Amiga 1000 under there waiting there that works.  it'll get some service finally probably after this thing is working.  i just know if i can't figure it out i'll be sending it to Jean in France and spending tons more money before I know it!

I don't know why I didn't think of this before.  I have an extra A4000 power supply.  So I'm now using this to be a dedicated power supply to my Commodore 1960 that has the weird power cable.  DUH!  So maybe just maybe things will test different if I repeat the tests tomorrow, like stripping down to just the motherboard and chip, then just motherboard and daughterboards and chip and going on and on.  But that could've made a big impact on the results.  Not to mention this monitor originated from Germany and I'm in the USA.  The A4000 was able to send correct power to it but I don't know maybe it was because it was eating up 220V and thus sucking power from the A4000.  The 2 PSU thing is quite strange to me as well.  If anyone has any other suggestions still let me know but this might have been key.  I'm not sure if the monitor has an internal switch that makes it work on 120V, but maybe it does, so maybe this wasn't impacting anything.

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The daughterboard needs to be inserted for the a4k to work btw.
Best of luck to you.

right this has the highflyer daughterboard that is the one that's attached to the motherboard and it has 3x inactive ISA slots + 1 toaster slot (forgot what it's called but it's for video toaster 4000) then another daughter board with 4x Zorro slots that's the original one.  but this one came shipped with both daughterboards.  you mean they both have to be in it for it to work for sure?  or just the main zorro card one?  It effects the whole power scheme and everything the highflyer expansion card even has it's own connector for that second power supply.  does seem like nothing happens when using just the zorro daughter card

after putting back in the highflyer expansion card, chassis and daughtercard: you need both those cards for it to white screen.  don't know what help that is though.  all those jumpers were in the right place.  i just want a purple insert disk screen already seem to be getting no closer to figuring this out!

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I rule I fixed it!

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dismantled every piece (see ebay listing # at very beginning of post for actual GOOD pictures) about 20-30 times.  in the end man i wish i knew.  i took out the buster chip, all ram, cpu card, HDD and ide cable, floppy and ribbon, highflyer expansion daughter card + zorro daughterboard.  eventually I guess it was highflyer expansion in and daughter card out then turned on while holding both mouse buttons.  then realized oops i forgot to put the zorro daughtercard back in, did that turned on again with no mouse buttons and boom it was floppy insert.  put in heimdall 2 aga version (for amiga 1200 it says on it LoL) and it booted.

i got a problem that i know is going to be easy still.  it's just kinda lame but i don't know anything about amiga so... why is my mouse click registering but not any movement??  i tried 2 mice :/

i m still dum

*chip only with floppy and only highflyer card, then turn on + 2 mouse buttons held, then turned off and inserted the other daughterboard (zorro one) and boom insert disk screen finally appeared.  turned off,  then proceeded to put the ide HDD back on there and boom, workbench 3.0.  time to grab some 3.1 roms now and a bunch of other stuff for it

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As for the mouse make sure you have in plugged in the correct port.

The Dawg

It's in the right port for the mouse.  Not sure what I have to do to make it work I tried input and pointer in preferences in workbench and they didn't seem to do anything.

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If it's registering clicks, but not movement, assuming you've not got two duff mice, I would suggest plugging it into the other port, just to be sure. It may be that the positions pointed out on the box are incorrect...

nope the positions aren't marked wrong.  it doesn't register clicks when i plug it into the joystick port.  it's real unlikely that the mouse ports are broken, because this is one of the things the guy had replaced, the mouse & joystick port were redone by a pro and they're nice metal ones.  RAM clips were the same done pretty professionally.  i just gotta goto bed i know this is going to end up being something easy.

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the key lock on the front is in the locked position, and i don't have a key!  and i've tried every single possible tool in there and nothing will make anything budge.  there's no option anywhere to disable this thing.  i'm screwed.  the amiga is disabled and noone sells those keys.

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removing the jumper doesn't unlock the keyboard. i don't know why.  yes i heard this from a bunch of other people or read from a bunch of posts on this and other forums

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While I doubt it will help, the A4000 lock will open with the vast majority of keys (all?) for modern removable hard drive bays which have cheap crappy locks.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130317037142

Why the feck they have keys I dunno cos they are not a security measure cos they are all the same.

i think that's the key size.  so far everyone has told me to just remove the jumper for the key from the motherboard but it's behaving still the same, like this thing is locked.

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yes played pinball illusions AGA version on it today since that game happens to not detect mouse.  so close so close :|

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that's how this seller is talking too.  like he doesn't know wtf.  also if you read the auction, and he DID have mouse and joystick ports replaced.  They're replacements and they look like they were properly soldered on and attached.  But damn I'm thinking if there's a jumper or a resistor that controls those, there's something messed up with it.  I have to find the info needed to replace mouse & joystick ports and look at it so I can diagnose.  I'm pretty sure that's what we're dealing with since yes, keyboard jumper just disconnected should do it.  Also again let me state I have a good, not tank, Amiga mouse along with the one that came with this 4000 so I know it's not the mouse.  I don't know what it needs.  There is a couple weird jumpers on the A4000.  This one I won't mention because I forgot and it's not the one but this one, CN404 is near the back and by the audio and video outputs and has no jumper on it.  But J975 is right by the mouse and joystick ports and has no connection to it and looking kind of like a place for some sort of power connection but I don't know.  Doesn' look like you're just supposed to stick jumpers there.  CN975 and CN976 are the mouse and joystick ports respectively.  And there isn't anything that looks like a resistor or and jumper spot near them really, besides the PAL/NTSC jumper.  My monitor is a Commodore 1960, so it can handle either just fine and I keep the jumper on NTSC.  I've tried seeing if that effects it anyway but it doesn't as you'd think.  It's just the only jumper close to the mouse so I tried it.  Nothing doing here though.  It's like either more likely mouse port is bad, even though it is this nice replaced one perhaps has come loose (CN975 and maybe CN976 too for joystick), or, this A4000/040 highflyer model happens to have the key hardwired to those in some way other amigas don't.  And you need to maybe solder a resistor in to hack around it or something.  That sounds too crazy to be true but it's anything worth thinking about right now.  It plays and loads games and apps so it's not like I can turn back now!

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*chip only with floppy and only highflyer card, then turn on + 2 mouse buttons held, then turned off and inserted the other daughterboard (zorro one) and boom insert disk screen finally appeared.  turned off,  then proceeded to put the ide HDD back on there and boom, workbench 3.0.  time to grab some 3.1 roms now and a bunch of other stuff for it

the real hardware issue was just that the cpu mainboard wasn't seated properly.  it came off during shipping and it's on weird plastic pegs that are meant to be easy for it to pull off i think because it gets unseated easily.  so to make it totally clear, the real thing that fixed this box was just making sure the cpu card was VERY perfectly seated.  it went out again and i went for the kind of hard to reach cpu card this time.  had to remove the HDD to get at it properly.  you can't seat it right just sticking your fingers in without removing the HDD which is directly behind it. there's not enough room.  still problems.  I really did find this aligator clip that's the right exact size and it turns and clicks perfect into lock and unlock.  and everyone is saying you can disconnect the key.  so it's got to be something wrong somewhere on the motherboard.  it says missing some stuff when workbench starts up but that's nothing to do with this because the mouse doesn't work in games either.