A3000-T-040 in a Coma

[Etherweet]

I've been watching this place a lot recently and when you all helped the guy with the dead 3000-T I got excited about getting mine working.

It was working just fine until after I moved from and old house to a new one.  I've wiggled everything inside and looked closely to see if anything got banged up during the move.

It is a 3000 Tower with the Commodore 25(?) MHz A3640 (?) accelerator factory installed.  It does NOT have an 030 on the mother boarfd - the place it belongs in is empty.

I originally  had a 180 MB Quantum as DH0: and then a 2 GB Seagate Baracuda as DH1: DH2: and DH3:.  I had a 2x Toshiba cady type CDRom internal, a JVC 2x CD Burner and Archive Viper  Dat Tpe drive external.  There is an ASDG Thin net card inside as well.  It has 2 mb Chip and 16 mb Fast Ram.
Oh, only one Floppy.

At the moment all it does is power up with a dim power led.  There is no flashing of the Drive LED at all and the floppy drive does not flicker or click.  All I notice with the Monitor is that it goes from the yellow LED to green and presents what looks like black video.

The Quantum (DH0:) and the Baracuda (DH1: DH2: DH3:) all spin up and calibrate and go to ready.

After running it about 5 minutes I measured the ORIGINAL battery voltage at 1.8 volts.  I also noticed a voltage of about 2.3 volts on the power connector to the motherboard.

I use the same monitor on my A2000 and I have attached the A3000 drives to the A2000 to archive them to tape and cd.

I am dealing with the fact this A3000 may never ever work again but I was very happy for the guy who recently got his 3000 going with your tremendous effort, help and knowledge.  If anyone has a magic wand that can resurrect my old friend it would have to be you guys.

As a side note im still licking the wounds from losing my SAS C books and DCTV as well as all original disks from stuff I had aquired.  At least my A2000 is working great.  

Thanks to all of you!

[djbase]

It might be just a dying PSU. How does the area around the battery look? Any leak?

[Matt_H]

I usually get those symptoms - dim LED and black video - with a loose CPU card. Those things can be real tricky to get seated right.

[Etherweet]

I think I have the schematics around here somewhere.  I would assume as old as the Amiga design is that it would only have + and - 5 volts and + and - 12 volts dc on the connector.  If thats true then the 2.5 or so I measured would in deed imply the supply caps have probably dried up.

The area around the battery is surprisingly very clean and healthy looking.  However, I do want to replace that one and the one on my 2000.

This week I am going to take the whole thing to my shop and take it all apart and blow it out and clean it.  I don't know what an Amiga does if you take the battery out.

I'll go ahead and take the cpu card and and look at it too, then shove it back in.  I THINK I had that very problem once a very long time ago.

I forgot to mention I purchased this thing for 6000 dollars from Pixar in 1994.  It's a celebrity!

Supposedly a member of a render farm.

THANKS!

I'll get back soon as I give it a bath.

[TjLaZer]

I have a 3000T and have the same problem with the CPU card.  I have a CS MKII in mine.  I have to crack her open once in a while and reseat the damn card for her to boot up.  Annoying!

[Etherweet]

Ok Ok Ok
I didn't ask for help and then not listen.

I grabbed a philips and pulled out the cpu card and jiggled it around and now the power light will go from dim to bright the first time i power up after reseating the card.

Since that made a change and the light goes back to dim, im thinking re-capping the power supply certainly isnt going to hurt.

[amigean]

Hi,

From what you say the power supply is almost certainly faulty - I would try to get a replacement rather than fix the power supply - PSUs can be dangerous I'm told. An AT (or even ATX) power supply can be adapted relatively easily, just google it.

Also, it's absolutely safe to remove the battery - don't hesitate for a single second that b****r would leak any moment and do nasty, irreperable damage. A pair of pliers are usually good enough for the job, though you could of course try desoldering it for extra caution.

[rkauer]

 If you want to hack a pc ATX power supply into your A3000T, look at Ian Stedman's guide.

 For reading first the pin assignments of the original PSU, look here.:rtfm:

[Etherweet]

Update:

I took the power supply out of the 3000t and noticed where there are some current limiting resitors and a cluster of capacitors, that something overheated badly.  

I am pondering re capping the supply as opposed to taking a newer at style supply and putting it in the amiga power supply enclosure.

It looks like it makes more sense to just stick an at power supply in the amiga power supply enclosure.

[rkauer]

 Better use an ATX PSU. AT units are not well-regulated. :headwall: