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Offline Will-i-amTopic starter

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mostly dead a3000
« on: February 03, 2006, 02:15:38 PM »
It's not dead yet. It's feeling better. It would like to boot up now. Actually it's the a3000 I bought on ebay and mentioned in another thread, which really belongs to another person so I thought I would start one on my issues here.

Okay, so upon powering up we get zilch except for a slight clicking sound from the HD, like some tiny technician was trying to tap out a message but was weak from lack of food. If I hold both buttons down we still get nada. I tried another scsi HD from another machine... one I'm not 100% sure is any good but wottheheck... I tried disconnecting the HD and trying to boot from a floppy. At this point I will say that the one thing that seems to work is the light for the floppy. It comes on and stays on thruout whatever I do. I seem to recall having this problem with another machine but that problem was a bent pin and this doesn't seem to be the case.

In the other thread somebody mentioned (of course) the battery and examination shows a slightly fuzzy battery end but not a lot. Still, this morning I looked and it reads about 1.5 volts instead of the 3.6 volts. I assume this is significant so the next task is to remove the battery from it's soldered connection and wire up this other fully charged battery I have on a small board from some previous life. We'll see what that does. If someone knows that this battery problem would cause the machine to not boot whatsoever, I'd appreciate it letting me know. So far I have  pulled out everything I could, checked the connectors and put it all back together again. Nothing yet. sigh. My first A3000 and it's a pisser.
 

Offline Argus

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Re: mostly dead a3000
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2006, 02:30:34 PM »
Could be a dead power supply, check the voltages or switch p/s with a working machine.  Remove that fuzzy battery pronto, and thoroughly clean/douse with isopropyl alcohol. Check for trace damage around the battery, especially near SuperDenise.  Other than that, gently push down/reseat all your dip chips, including the ram chips (but use electrostatic precautions before, of course).  Check also the floppy and harddrive cable connections so they are seated properly.
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Offline jiffydos

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Re: mostly dead a3000
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2006, 02:39:38 PM »
Sounds like all goo advice to me.
 

Offline Amiga4k

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Re: mostly dead a3000
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2006, 07:13:30 PM »
The battery IN or OUT has no direct function except to store the clock program data, and in some cases, the mem-batt program, if this program is executed.
You stated it had 1.5v at the battery. So, you do have a volt meter. How about the hard drive votages? -- Check the hard drive plug from the power supply.
The 2 center holes are ground, the yellow should be 12v.The other end should be 5v. The motherboard is powered by the same 5v. If you not getting these within .5v then your Power supply is weak or even worse if it's lower. Any electrically functional drive will spin, and seek. Just connect the drive, hold it in your hand, and power up. You will feel it's rotation.
If you have no hard drive attached, and the floppy drive worked, it can take several minutes for an A3000 to revert to the floppy boot up screen.
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Offline amigagr

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Re: mostly dead a3000
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2006, 07:31:23 PM »
i had to remove the chip ram chips and clean them carefuly to finaly make my a3000 to work ok. it had and a register near the paula chip burned out that i change but that was a minor prob... you can't imagine in how many points/places can the problem that you have can hide... be patient and good luck :-)
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Offline Tomas

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Re: mostly dead a3000
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2006, 01:03:29 AM »
i think the a3000 should work just fine without the battery afaik.. It sounds more likely to be a power supply problem of some kind, since the HD wont even start up properly.
 

Offline Plaz

Re: mostly dead a3000
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2006, 04:10:41 AM »
The battery's not needed. Carefully cut it out. Do your best to reseat all socketed chips. Wiggle them in their sockets, mash on them a bit or remove them and put them back in. If you not experieced with removing chips then don't do it. It's too easy to bend a pin when you put them back in, then you have a whole new problem to find. Pull the daughter card out, clean the contacts with an eraser. Then use one of those 10cent cardboard nail filers to run back an forth gently a couple of times in the slot the daughter card sits in before replacing it. Does it have a CPU card? If so, reset that too. (maybe yours only has the soldered-on CPU). If you still get no life out of the system, then it's likely one of the two 8520 cia chips could be bad. One runs the floppy, the other handles other IO and bus task. If you say the floppy is clicking, then that one is probably still good. Try swapping them in the sockets. If the second is bad, then swapping them may allow the 3000 boot but then the floppy will be dead and not click. If they both are good, then the floppy should keep clicking even after you swap them. If the floppy dies when you swap them, then you just need to find some one with a spare 8250. I've found CIA from the 500/2000/3000 very interchangable, but the 1200 and 4000 use a differnt surface mount type. I've repaired 500/2000/1200 and 3000's by replacing bad 8520's so it's a fairly common failure. Hopefully reseating all the chips and cards will do the trick. If reseats don't help and both CIA's click the floppy, then you have a very deep problem indeed that would need more help from a serious repair tech.

Plaz