A4000 acts strange

[doctorq]

Hi,

I bought myself an used A4000 the other day with a lot of equipment. It's a tower model, a Micronik hightower, with a WarpEngine 040 accelerator, and a Retina Z3 graphics card. It also has an old harddrive and a CD drive, the harddrive is one of those which boots so slow, that the controller doesn't recognise it at startup.

But now to the problem I'm seeking an answer to. I started the computer up, after I had fixed all the cards which had to be re-inserted. The first time all went well. The purple screen came up (as it should because of the slow harddrive), and after a reset the Workbench loaded. Started playing around, and after half an hour I made a reset. Workbench loaded once again, and I decided to shut down for the day.

The next day I powered up the machine once again, and nothing happens. I tried turning the computer on and off a copule of times but it didn'tsolve the problem.

I then took out all cards that wasn't needed, so now the computer stands with the motherboard, a diskdrive, a floppy cable, the WarpEngine card and 2 MB chip (NB. No doughterboard, does it make a difference??). Trying to power up, but nothing happens. I then turned the floppy cable and the diskdrive LED turns on as it should because of the uncorrectly inserted floppy cable. Then turn the power off again and turn the cable once more so the cable is inserted correctly, and the computer starts up.

I thought this solved my problem, but I guessed wrong :-( Every time I have had the computer turned off and then power up the computer again it refuses to boot up, but if I turn the floppy cable 2 times as described above the computer boots almost everytime. I tried using a different floppy cable, but this didn't help. I also tried using my 880KB floppy from my A1200T, but that didn't help either.

Anyone got a clue what to do?

Another qick question... The mobo still has its battery attached, but I'm going to cut it off today. Unfortuanately the battery has leaked some acid but how can I remove this so it won't wreck the motherboard? It would be a truly sad story then....

[DanDude]

Which spare floppy cable did you get it from?

How bad has the battery leaked onto the board?

Power supply unit: is it the original?  Do you have a voltmeter that you can  measure its voltages including the +5VDC side?

Battery cleanup:
remove all damaged components (remember which).  Brush the entire infected area with pure Isopropyl alcohol and an old toothbrush.  Then rinse with 50/50 water-alcohol solution.  

Hope this helps.  :-)

[doctorq]

Which spare floppy cable did you get it from?

It's the one from my working A1200T, so I guess that this isn't the problem.

How bad has the battery leaked onto the board?

An area left to the battery. It has become green, so I got to get it removed. Thanx for the tips on cleaning the board.

Power supply unit: is it the original? Do you have a voltmeter that you can measure its voltages including the +5VDC side?

I haven't got any tools to test, but as I wrote in the first post I have had the computer to startup.

[Madgun68]

Make sure the Warp Engine is still firmly in place in the processor slot. With my tower, this is one problem I kept having if I did anything inside the machine.. The processor card would eventually work up a bit and the machine would fail to boot. (It'd just sit there with a stupid look on it's face.. :-o)

[doctorq]

Noone else with the same problem as me? Oh, then I'm looking at a couple of hours in front of the machine, hoping to find the error.

[Druideck]

try rebooting and hold down the keys longer
to give the hardrive time to spin up.
I think the floppy thing is just coincidence myself.

[doctorq]

The harddrive isn't attached, and it doesn't help holding the reset combo for longer, as the computer won't boot. I have tried it though...

[Stew]

  Do you have the daughter card riser installed? My 4000 will do nothing without it.

Stew

[doctorq]

I have tried both with and without the daughterboard, but mainly without the daughterboard, so it's time to get up on the horse again :-)