A4000T appears to be dead

[X-ray]

Well, it was a day that started happily enough: I bought a PPC from one of the users here and it arrived today. It came with a 9gb UW SCSI drive that had been attached to the PPC when it had been in his A4000T. He had a PIV and I have a PIV, so it should have been a simple case of plug and play.
Anyway I put the PPC in, attached the drive and booted. Well, I got quite a few gurus and then a series of recoverable alerts, and after clicking them away the system booted. PIV worked fine, I ran some tests, it all seemed okay, but only 64mb of ram showed on the PPC and the guy told me it has 128mb. Also, if I attached my old drives to the onboard SCSI of the A4KT, then I would have a situation where the machine wouldn't boot (I made sure the PPC drive had the highest priority). After a while, I decided to ditch my drives for the time being and just modify the PPC boot partition so that I could get my CD-rom recognised  and then adapt that Workbench from there. (I was going to do a fresh install from my OS3.9 CD) But when I tried to boot again, all I was getting was gurus. It got so that the only success I had was to remove all the HDs and then I could see an insert disk screen. I took the PPC out and put my MKII 060 back, and.....nothing.
The Amiga will not boot. Its a black screen that doesn't change, there is no floppy drive activity, no insert disk, nothing. These are the things I have tried:

MKII and floppy disk only
PPC and floppy disk only
Spare 030 and floppy disk only (changed clock jumpers temporarily to test the 030)
All three CPU cards with one HD
All three CPU cards with my original CF boot partition
Checked all the ribbon cables, power cables, simm modules (on the mobo too)
Tried to feel for hot chips (I don't have any diagnostic tools)
I even tried a spare disks and AV module, no joy

Nothing.

Is there anything I may have overlooked? Has anyone had a non-booting Amiga after installing a PPC card?

Any suggestions are welcome, no matter how simple or obvious they may seem.

(I haven't tried my spare CIAs yet because that will involve some poking and prodding because I don't have a puller, but they are new and they don't feel hot.)

[metalman]

Are all SCSI devices unplugged? A locked SCSI bus will stop the boot process at a black screen

On a A3000 if the daughterboard is not seated it will stop the boot process at a black screen.

Does the power supply have 5 and 12vdc present?

[X-ray]

@ metalman

Yep, all SCSI devices removed, even the cables.
I have found out one dunce-worthy thing I did: I thought my MKII was running on EXT clock jumpers, so I didn't change them for the PPC.
This means I ran the PPC on INT jumpers. I don't know if this could have damaged the mobo, but I'm surprised the PPC worked how it did.
Anyway, setting the jumpers to EXt and trying again with the PPC yields nothing, and setting the jumpers to INT and trying the MKII yields nothing.

I am beginning to think to myself "that's another fine mess you've landed us in, Stanley"

[X-ray]

A few other things I have tested:

Repeat toggling of the Caps Lock key: works. I can do it as often as I like, it doesn't freeze.
Also I can now get the rainbow reset pattern on the MKII, but that is all. No floppy access, no Kickstart screen, just black.

And here is a strange thing: there is a 'static' sound coming from the internal speaker. I only noticed because the speaker led was flickering and when I toggled the button to make the sound come through the internal speaker, there was the static. It comes and goes though. Very weird. Maybe I should call Mulder and Scully?

[Argus]

Did you happen to not properly plug in the floppy drive?  I did this once with my A4000 and it gave me a sound like something was shorting a/k/a static.  Check all of the drive cables and power leads to make sure a pin hasn't been missed.

[X-ray]

@ Argus

The floppy is connected correctly, no missed pins. If I change the connection around I get a solid drive access light, so it must be right how it is now.

[Argus]

@X-ray

I'd still check all of the connections to make sure you don't have something not plugged in right or not all the way.  Maybe the ROM ICs or one of the daughter cards have wiggled loose?  It's worth a shot.  Black screens may mean there is a short somewhere, or perhaps the PPC and SCSI drives are drawing too much power for the p/s to handle.

[metalman]

Can you test individual parts on another machine identify working components?

Black screen = Power Supply, SCSI, CPU or Memory

Check that all chips are seated in the motherboard sockets.

[Framiga]

Hi X-Ray,

first of all:

CSMK2> INT CLOCK

CSMK3-PPC> EXT CLOCK

then . . take a look at the CSPPC Bios config (ESC during the boot) and check if something is screwedup (there is a  switch to enable-disable the internal SCSI A4KTower controller)

Try to disable MapRom and play with the RAM configuration too (you can't damage anything)

Good luck :-)

EDIT- check to have the right 040 and/or 060 libs
If you have AOS3.9 with BB2 and a 060, you can install only the 68060.library.

Or you will need, all the 4 libraries with the 040 dummy one.

68040.library    
68040new.library
68040old.library
68060.library

[Doobrey]

X-ray wrote:
Repeat toggling of the Caps Lock key: works. I can do it as often as I like, it doesn't freeze.
Also I can now get the rainbow reset pattern on the MKII, but that is all. No floppy access, no Kickstart screen, just black.

Sounds promising. At least it shows the CPU is working, and the AGA is outputting OK.

When you tried without a HD, did you remember to disable the onboard SCSI , or at least terminate it at both ends?
Cos it looks like it`s stuck on scanning the scsi bus.
(BTW, how long did you wait until you decided it was a 'no boot'?)
 Also, as someone else said, check and double check the floppy cable for correct fitting..including making sure none of the pins on the floppy are bent, that had my A4000 in a non booting state for a few hours  :pissed:

[X-ray]

@ all

I don't know what's going on but ten minutes ago I got the 030 to work (I had a kickstart screen) but now it won't work. And the other 2 cards won't work.

I've checked what I can (cables, SIMMS nicely socketed), removed everything, even the battery and the speaker, checked under the mobo for signs of trouble, and still I have no luck. I couldn't ahve toasted both 060 cards, because the MKII hasn't been used with the wrong jumper settings/any other kind of potential damage, so I must guess that there is an intermittent problem with the mobo that is stopping it from booting.

@ metalman
the only soceted chips I have are my CIAs (and that is not usual for an A4000T, but I doubt they are to blame.

What I want to know is whether any chips can produce intermitent problems

[X-ray]

Last thing I tried before going to bed:

spare AT PSU (new old stock)

No change, I'm still bootless  

 :-(    

[Karlos]

X-ray wrote:

What I want to know is whether any chips can produce intermitent problems

Dodgy buster?

From what you have described it certianly sounds like a mainboard issue. Have you ensured all the connectors etc are clean and the usual mumbo jumbo?

[TjLaZer]

I've had some trouble with CPU cards.  Make sure they are seated well.  Try reseating it.  I had to do this with my 3000T when I was testing stuff on it last.

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

I also think it is a mobo problem. This morning I tried the 030 again and it worked. I tried the MKII straight after and I got nothing.
So the question is: what is there on the mobo that is likely to affect an 060 but not an 030 card?
Can the Buster do that?


Edit: tried the 030 again straight after the MKII and it doesn't work

 :-?  :-?  :-?