A1200 not booting up (screen remain black) Please help!!

[spaceman]

Hi everyone,

I am really happy I found this incredible website. I use to be a big Amiga gamer when I was younger and am trying to get back into all the classic gaming. I have quite a big collection already but just pickup an A1200 with which I have problems. Hopefully someone here can help me. Here are the details:

A1200 Rev 1.D.4

The system came with 2 hard drives. Inside is a 2.5" Seagate st9051A which is about 40 Meg (might be the original one).
Also, there is a power hack (from the inside of the A1200 connected where the power supply plugs-in which power up a second hard drive which is mounted in a little black box outside the Amiga. It's a 3.5" (with a cable that convert) which a Samsung SHD-30420A (420 MEG). You connect the 2.5 end of the ribbon inside the Amiga 1220 I think therefore it seems you can use only one or the other. I have no idea what’s on them, but assume they would have been setup for the Amiga as it comes with it.

Also, it seems like a Blizzard 1230-II (15/93 78 60 EL)
68EC030 @ 40 MHz which is fitted inside which contain 2 72 pin SIMMs (not sure which size).

Now I have plug all this using an A500 PSU and my A1084S cable to the monitor. When I turn it on, the lights turn on, the yellow led flash and you can hear the hard drive spin and then the yellow led flash again but nothing happens and the screen remain black (I know the monitor is plug ok as if I disconnect a hard drive or else it remain yellow).

I have tried with both Hard Drive (individually); without any; without the Blizzard expansion, all without success. If I put a disk in the drive nothing happen either. I have rebooted many times using the Ctrl A A and that works but still nothing happen.

Hope someone get me any tips or things to try. Hopefully it's nothing big (although it's not looking good). I couldn't wait to set myself a nice Amiga 1200 and try some AGA games for the first time and some old classics. (I have about 800 disks to try on).

Thanks
Jon

[doctorq]

Hi Jon, and welcome to Amiga.org.

When you have on of the harddrives attached, can you hear if the drives is ticking, like when accesing data?

Are you aware that the A1200 is taking a long time before it boots when you have nothing attached? Try removing all the additional stuff that isn't needed, like accelerator and hdds. Then try to power up and wait for about half a minute, maybe a bit more, and if the purple screen comes up, then the computer is okay.

[Morley]

Uhmm.... most 1084's have a switch on the front to switch between RGB input and composite (CVBS/RGB). Check this :-) often it is the m ost obvious that could be wrong, hehe. Also make sure you are using the right video-connectors,- you have to plug the 1084 into the 23 pin RGB contact if you have this lead, or the composite video output if you're using composite. The RF output is for televisions.
Hope you're not offended, but as I said, the most obvious is often the problem,  :lol:

-EDIT-

The screen is yellow when you disconnect HDD's...hmm, have to check that out. It's some sort of error-code, these colored screens.

-EDIT yet again-

-link-

[spaceman]

Hi Doctorq,

Thanks a lot for your nice welcome and precious help.
With both hard drive, when I turn the A1200 on the power up and you can hear them ticking for about 10 sec but then nothing.

I wasn't aware of this. But I have tried without any hard drive following your recommendation. I have also tried with and without the expension and still after like 5 minutes, just black.

I guess this isn't a good sign. Let me know what you think or if you have any other ideas.

Thanks.

[spaceman]

HI Morley,

No offense at all. I really wish it would be something simple as well. I have tried with the 23 pin RGB (making sure the witch are allright) and the composite as well. I use the Amiga monitor often either with my A500 or with my video duplication equipment. So I am usually not too bad with it. But it's was definetely worth checking into and I really appreciate your help. Unfortunately it seems like it might be something else.

About the different color screen, I got this from somewhere on this website:

-Black
Opening screen
Initial Hardware tests passed
Initial system software tests passed
Final initialisation test passed

-Red
ROM error, reseat or replace Kickstart ROMS (this can also be caused by worn insulation covering the back end of the pins that connect an IDE cable to a hard drive, aka short).

-Green
Chip RAM error

-Blue
Custom Chip(s) error

-Yellow
68000 detected error before software trapped it (software or hardware error

The yellow sceen happen just once and I think it's because I had a hard drive plug the wrong way around, so that was to expect. It kinda prove me that at less that was detected (same with the keyboard which reset when pressing the right keys).
As for the Black screen it says here that it's the opening screen and that every test hhas passed. But then why doesn't get to something else after. If I coudl at least load from a disk I would be able to load workbench or else to look into the hard drives. But seems like the problem is before that.

Let me know if you think about anything else.
Thanks again, I really appreciate.

[Morley]

@spaceman

Tear everything out, including the floppy. If the floppy-cable is in the wrong way or the floppy itself is broken, you could end up with a black screen. AFAIK you don't need the floppy connected to get to the kickstart-screen.

[doctorq]

As Morlay said, try to pull the floppy cable off as well. You don't need it to power up the A1200; the boot procedure would only take longer. If the computer boot up fine now, there is a problem with the drive or the floppy cable.

You said that you weren't familiar with newer Amigas. From Kickstart2.0 and up you can access a menu by holding down both mousebuttons, either on boot up or on reset. See if you can access this menu. It should be displayable on your monitor.

If you say the A1200 will access the harddrive, my best bet right now would be that the previous owner have had a Multisync monitor, and therefore has set the screenmode to Multisync, which isn't displayable on a 1084.

Try the following
1. Hold down both mousebuttons on bootup
2. If the screen comes up, press "Boot with no startup-Sequence
3. Type "Devs:Monitors" (without the " of course) and hit Enter.
4. Type "Delete #?"
5. Reset. If my guess is right about the Multisync monitor, then you should be able to see a Workbench screen at this moment.

My final suggestion is to let the diskdrive be attached, put a floppy disk in the drive and power the computer up. If something happens, then it's okay, but if not, the mobo is broken I'm afraid.

[spaceman]

Thanks again dotorq and everyone else.
I have tried without a floppy,and the first time I booted I got it all, Yellow than Purple than Black. Tried the rebbot with teh Amiga Keys and got Blue and Black. Then nothing much else apart from Black. The hard drive dont boot I think they just make the 10 sec noise because they being powered but not more. Nothing start from the floppy either. I have tried holding the 2 mouse button and nothing either, it just remain black. Soit seems like this is it and there something majorly wrong (properly the motherboard as doctorq suggested.

If someone think about anything else, let me know, if not than I'll guess I'll have to try and get another Amiga 1200 that work so that I can at least try some of the component I had with this one. I actually also got a CD32 with SX-1 component which I'll try and the week-end. If it possible to conect the hard drive on that? (alhought workbench or rom might be different).

Thank sagain everyone, you have been extremely nice. I'll definetely get involve here more...

Jon

[Ilwrath]

I have tried without a floppy,and the first time I booted I got it all, Yellow than Purple than Black.

Egads!  That does sound a bit hosed.  :-(  Usually, the Amiga will pick a fault color and stay on it.  (I've never seen one leave a yellow screen to go to another color -- the only way out is a reset)

For a laugh, though...  Power the machine up, wait about 20 seconds, and then try cycling the CAPS LOCK about 20 times.  Most likely after about 10 on/off cycles (twenty presses) it'll freeze, as well.  (The CAPS LOCK light will stop responding)  In my mind, that would be the final test to eliminate a simple display failure as cause of your problems...

I actually also got a CD32 with SX-1 component which I'll try and the week-end. If it possible to conect the hard drive on that? (alhought workbench or rom might be different).

If you can physically/logically connect it, the contents of the HD should be fine for a CD32.  Workbench revision would be compatible.  :-)  Of course, the startup-sequence may need both HDs in order to properly finish.

[spaceman]

Ilwrath wrote:

For a laugh, though...  Power the machine up, wait about 20 seconds, and then try cycling the CAPS LOCK about 20 times.  Most likely after about 10 on/off cycles (twenty presses) it'll freeze, as well.  (The CAPS LOCK light will stop responding)  In my mind, that would be the final test to eliminate a simple display failure as cause of your problems...

Just tried that, it actually took 10 times only (or 5 cycles) and the caps look was frozen.

So I guess I'll see what I can salvage next time. Is the Blizzard 1230-II board worth much providing it would work well?

Thanks again to everyone.

[Ilwrath]

Just tried that, it actually took 10 times only (or 5 cycles) and the caps look was frozen.

Yeah... I never counted how many presses it actually takes, so I just took a guess, and added a few for good measure.  :-)

So I guess I'll see what I can salvage next time. Is the Blizzard 1230-II board worth much providing it would work well?

Seems to depend on region.  They tend to draw more in the US than in Europe.  (They were much more common on the other side of the pond, I think.)  Personally, I keep holding out hope that I'll find one for cheap around here, eventually.  (It would be a nice touch for my retro A1200D.)

[tormedhammaren]

@spaceman:

The most important thing to check is that the Power LED (green one) is dimming up after about half a second. If it isn't, Exec (kernel) hasn't been started. Turn off your machine immediately if this isn't happening! A "Caps Lock" light that isn't responding after 10 times, is probably indicating the same, as the keyboard can buffer 10 (or thereabout) inputs before it needs to pass them over to the system.

You should try booting your system with another PSU. I had a problem similar to yours on an A4000T. The problem was partially solved. Thread: dead A4000T. This machine would sometimes start Exec, and sometimes not. That was because the main board didn't get enough power (bad connection).