A4000 startup problem

[ShawnDude]

I just acquired an A4000 which has a cyberstorm MK3 060/50 processor board in it.  I can't seem to get it to startup, when I power it on, the screen shows a light grey color, the hard drive spins up, floppy drive light flashes once, cap lock light flashes once.  It is a revision B motherboard with revision 11 buster and 3.1ROMs.  I have removed all cards from the daughter board.  I have tried to boot without the hard drive, but same thing.  The floppy cable puzzles me, as it appears to be a PC style cable (dual drive with stright thru wires on one connector and twisted wires on the other).  I have tried it with both connectors and had no luck.  The processor board appears to be firmly connected. I have removed the battery which didn't appear to have caused any damage to the board.  I have trimed the power supply pins on the back of the motherboard and no shorting was found there.  Anyone with any suggestions of what to check for or try?  Anyone know where I can send the board to get it check/repair?

[WolfBack]

Hmmmm... Are you sure that your problem is the motherboard itself? The hard drive seems to boot normaly to you? The flashing light stops after 30-40 sec? As your description above, the machine seems to trying boot-up or something (normaly, I think..).
Did you check the monitor itself? If the monitor is a PC screen meaby you should experiment with a C= one, like A1086 or something... If you don't have any of this, then try to see  if the A4000toPC monitor adapter is just fine (I was change 2 or 3 of those 2 years ago...)
 help you!
If this no help, I hope someone here could find a solution for that!
Good luck!!!



  :-)  :-)  :-)

[nex4060]

gray boot screen as i recall means that the Amiga has passed hardware check sucessfully.

remember that the ROM3.1 will wait for a long time for the HD if it is not able for some reason to see it.

You can find the manual for the CSMKIII here, I think that the card has an early configuration menu.

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/cybermkiii.html

btw: the floppy cable does look the way you describe it  :-D

[Ilwrath]

As your description above, the machine seems to trying boot-up or something (normaly, I think..).

Personally, I don't think so.  But it's good to check for this, anyhow.  There is an easy way to test for this theory.  Do you get the "Early Startup Menu" if you boot the machine with both mouse buttons held down?

If you get the menu, then the problem is your hard drive or it's software.  

If not, it's something more sinister.

Try warming up your monitor for a few minutes and then powering up the computer.  What colors do you see the machine cycle through before it reaches the light-gray?  That should shed some light on how far the machine is reaching in it's self-test before hanging.  I've never had a Cyberstorm MK3, but the Cyberstorm MK2 helpfully displayed a rainbow pattern in the startup colors of the machine.  It's very likely a healthy MK3 should do something similiar.  I'm sure someone here could tell you what to look for.

[Argus]

According to the Phase 5 manual, you need to install the Cyberstorm software (68060.library, etc.) ***before*** you install the MkIII.  This means you need to set everything up with another accelerator board (an old A3630 will do).  The MkII is different, it will boot without a startup sequence and you can then manually copy the necessary libraries to your harddrive.

[ShawnDude]

I'm using a 1084DS monitor, I did get another amiga to work on it.  So it isn't monitor problems.

[ShawnDude]

It doesn't seem to try to boot at all.  Just a plain light grey screen, no drive activity.

[ShawnDude]

I tried to get the early startup menu to appear, but nothing usually happens.  I did manage to get it to appear about 3 out of a hundred attempts, and when booting with the hard drive I got some drive error.  When boot with workbench disk, it went all the way into workbench.  But I haven't been able to get it to boot again after many attempts.  Nothing appears loose. I have removed and reinserted all cables.  Can this be a bad power supply?  I might try tonight to get one of my spare pc power supplies rigged up to power the system.  When I turn on the system it goes right to light grey and no other colors.  Press Ctrl-A-A and the caps lock light and power light flash, but I don't notice any change in the screen color.

[ShawnDude]

I downloaded the MkIII manual and read thru it and noticed about installing the software before the card.  My problem with this is that the computer only came with the MkIII, so I have no other card to install with.  Anyone have a spare working 030 or 040 they can lend me?  I would think that I should be able to get the early startup screen to show without the libraries, since they wouldn't be loaded at that time anyway.

[Will-i-am]

I have an original ec030 card I could loan out. It came with my A4KD and worked fine right up to the point I replaced it with a T-Rex '040. I figure even if it wasn't much of a cpu it might come in handy. Maybe it would be adequate for your purposes. Plus I figure it's highly unlikely anyone would be tempted to hang on to it, so I'm sure I'd get it back. Interested?

[Ellis]

I had a similar issue with my A4000 power tower ;which also had a mk3 card.The mk3 is great and you will not have any problems with it but if you have anything(system) like mine ie.. video card, cdrom ,catweasel and on and on on! Like most amiga's we keep putting all this stuff in them and the system tends to get unstable.

I take it you do not have a video card ;so this is one less thing to check.BTW- get one AGA SUCKS ie.. very slow even with a 060.

You have to get a start up screen(hold mouse buttons) and then boot without user start up;then you will get a cli type in loadwb.Your user start could be part of the problem.Once you get the system booted you can load your Mk drivers. The cyberstorm should work without the drivers but to get the most out of it you need the software.  

Check all your drives ie.. cdrom first this almost always a problem.Do you have one? disconnect each drive and see if the system boots.        :-D

[ShawnDude]

I got it working. Kind of.  I took it completely out of the case and set it on my desk and when I was looking at the Cyberstorm board I noticed some gunk on the cpu socket and some of the pins.  This I did nothing with just yet.  But I reinserted everything on my desk and it powered up and started to boot.  It seems like the hard drive is messed up though cause it give a read error while it tries to boot.  But bypassing the hard drive it will boot floppies.  I guess i can just put in another hard drive, I have a few laying around from 500mb to 80gb.  So what is a stable hard drive size if I am looking at buying OS3.9?  Will the 80gb drive work without much trouble?  Also that gunk on the cpu socket, leave it as is or is the a safe way to remove it?  Thanks
Oh, and one more thing I also have a toaster 4000 and flyer I can put in - is it really worth getting a revision 11 buster or just leave revision 9 in the socket?