Crashing A1200

[Homer]

Might be worth mentioning where you live to see if you can borrow one for fault finding :-) Much cheaper than buying one !

[maffoo]

Homer wrote:
Might be worth mentioning where you live to see if you can borrow one for fault finding :-) Much cheaper than buying one !

Good idea  :-) I live in Leicester (England.) Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[maffoo]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I've got hold of an A500 PSU and the A1200's run for over an hour without crashing, so I think it was the PSU.

Just out of interest, is the A1200 PSU any use (eg. can it be fixed?) Or should I just chop the power connector off in case I ever want to adapt an AT PSU and throw the rest away?

[Homer]

If it carries on working well, it would be worth thinking in the long term about a higher power psu, especially if you wish to expand it more (as explained in other responses - the A500 psu will slowly overload and may eventually die the same way as the weaker A1200 psu). You will find that different hard drives can take very different amounts of current, so the simplest change will throw you over the overcurrent edge again !
I don't know if anybody would be interested in the main body of your A1200 psu, I also chopped the lead off mine before it went in the bin ! (Take note of the pin outs which if I remember correctly are shown on the case).
Could be worth looking around for a PC AT PSU which you would probably find in your friends and family's throw away pc's !!!
Good luck :pint:

[Brian]

Only use of it would be if it has the connectordiagram on the buttom showing what lines go where.

For repairing I don't think so. Depending on what kind of PSU it is you might be able to use the casing with a different lowprofile PSU from some other stuff and mix em together to get a propper looking Amiga PSU again. Unfortunatly every A1200 PSU I've seen have been soldered in the plastic (not screwed together) and the inner electronics of that have been covered with plastic making a solid square lump of none servicable electronics.

[Homer]

Nice idea Brian, I didn't think of changing the internals ! Didn't matter to me as I was thinking of putting mine in a tower case at the time, which simply meant I tried the new AT psu and it all worked correctly  :-D

[maffoo]

Homer wrote:

the A500 psu will slowly overload and may eventually die the same way as the weaker A1200 psu

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how likely is it that the A500 PSU will overload? I had a look at Epia Center's Power Simulator to get an idea of the power reqirements of 2 CF cards (one in place of the HDD and one in the PCMCIA slot) and it looks to be around 1W for the pair. The comp.sys.68k FAQs say the 030 should take 2.6W, so say 10W for the whole card. Assuming the A1200 itself needs all the power from its original 25W PSU, this brings the total to 36W, which should be well within the A500 PSU's specs (it says 60W on the bottom.)

(I expect the figures I've quoted for the Amiga and accelerator are way out - hopefully I've over- rather than under-estimated the power requirements!)

I'm considering putting the computer in a tower eventually so hopefully the PSU won't be an issue, I'm just wondering if it will definitely overload. (I suspect it will die of old age eventually, hopefully not in the near future  :-) )

[dandelion]

Just to second the comment here about Amigakit, i've been very impresed with their prices, website, range, and service to the Amiga community. I'm in the process of coming back to Amiga-land and you can be sure all my upgrades will be coming from Amigakit. You're such a force for good in the Amiga world!

[Homer]

Mafoo: Absolutely ! Just remember that these standard psu's were not designed for long term overcurrents due to unexpected extra devices being fitted to greatly expanded machines. This includes using an A500 psu on an a1200. It is still a short term fix for an ongoing problem. Plan early and minimise your data loss !
Good luck  :pint: