Commodore A3400

[Kin-Hell]

4pLaY wrote:
Hehe i could but im afraid i have no interesting using it for anything =).

Nice hoard there m8, perhaps you should eBay it with a HUGE Reserve. That is a SERIOUS collectors piece.
Quite amazing to see someone boast to actually own one.
Brilliant!  :-)

[4pLaY]

Kin-Hell wrote:

4pLaY wrote:
Hehe i could but im afraid i have no interesting using it for anything =).

Nice hoard there m8, perhaps you should eBay it with a HUGE Reserve. That is a SERIOUS collectors piece.
Quite amazing to see someone boast to actually own one.
Brilliant!  :-)

The thought has crossed my mind :-).

[uncharted]

No offence, but I haven't seen such a poor quality picture since my mate tried taking pictures on his camera phone during my stag night. :-)

Something like that really needs to be documented properly.

[4pLaY]

uncharted wrote:
No offence, but I haven't seen such a poor quality picture since my mate tried taking pictures on his camera phone during my stag night. :-)

Something like that really needs to be documented properly.

Well i thought it would be better then nothing :-) i dont have a digicam anymore so the phone was all i had.

[Cyberus]

4play

I thought you sold that prototype last year when you had a major clearout of your Amigas, citing the girlfriend as the reason...?

[4pLaY]

No i didnt! the GF? you mean when i moved? no girl can get me to sell computer gear =).

[nasty]

no girl can get me to sell computer gear

Make a note of that Effy :-D
and thanks for sharing the photos 4play!

[Iggy_Drougge]

We're having troubles with our A3400. It boots fine, but it doesn't recognise fast RAM. There has been some battery leak, but quite modest compared to what others post about here.
The motherboard is rev. B, with the barrel battery mounted north-south, as opposed to some 3400 motherboards where it is aligned west-east. In other word, it is mostly identical with an A4000 motherboard.

[tonyvdb]

"There has been some battery leak, but quite modest"

Hi Iggy_Drougge,

The first thing you MUST do is remove the old battery even if it still is working (you do not need to replace it with anything right away). You then need to clean up the area around it with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohal. Make sure that you look closely to make sure that all the traces on the mb are clean. Once done test with a tester to see if you have any broken traces anywhere around the affected area. Battery leakage no matter how small can cause serious dammage if not cleaned up right away.

[Iggy_Drougge]

Of course removing the battery was the first thing I did. Then I polished the corroded area with a tooth brush and some washing liquid. Now, a week later, it turns out that the F245 chip which sits next to the battery was not only corroded superficially, the acid had even managed to get under the chip and between the board and the pins. I hope changing the F245 will do the trick.

[TjLaZer]

I had a similar problem recently with my A3000T.  It had a very minor leaking battery.  The battery actually looked like it was not leaking at all but I looked real close and saw some acid on the battery itself and the board looked and worked fine!  I removed it and installed the lithium hack. Of course I also cleaned up the area.  Well a year or so later the computer would not boot.  I inspected the area and saw corrosion where the battery was and where the acid had apparently trickled down (board sits vertical) and corroded some traces. So the point is you have to do a very thorough job in cleaning even if it looks like it did not leak much!  I ended up fixing the bad trace and the A3000T is happily running now!

[Iggy_Drougge]

I will try to find my fibreglass pen, but I think the others have cleaned it out further now.

Apparently, it had been stored on its side, so the acid had got into the Zorro slots as well. Some Zorro pins look like old copper, with a green coating. That still needs some cleaning-up.

[Iggy_Drougge]

Update:
A mate in the club measured up the spot beneath the F245 chip. Very bad connections. So he took single copper strands from a cable, soldered one end to the SMD pads, led them through the vias and soldered them on the other side of the board. Thus, the traces were recreated. Then he placed a fresh F245 chip on top of it all, and now the 3400 has fast memory.