HELP! My Amiga 4000 isn't working!

[Invisix]

What the hell...

I've had it in a closet for a few months, and tonight I hook it all up, and I get nothing on the screen, so I start to trouble shoot, I took the top case (it's a desktop A4000) off, unhooked the Ethernet card... still nothing. I reseated the flickerfixxer + scandoubler... still nothing. Unhooked the CD-ROM... still nothing...

I hear the HDD churn as it winds up, I hear a "beep", it's very faint, and i'm assuming it's the CD-ROM booting up... I have no floppy access what so ever, and the system keeps resetting, or so it seems... like when I open the CD door, it'll autoshut.

So then, it starts to show some of thr GURU(?) codes... it shows Red, then goes to Yellow, then it remains blank / black (I dunno if it's color, or just blank).

I know that the following Guru codes of:

RED = Bad ROM
YELLOW = CPU Exception Before Bootstrap Code is Loaded, or something along those lines.

Honestly, I dunno what could be wrong? It worked fine before I unhooked it, it has been sitting quietly in my bedroom closet for hmm... maybe 4 months or so... if even that, maybe less. :cry:

I dunno where the ROM chips are, or else i'd try and reseat them. Are they under the CPU card? (I think that's a CPU card).

It has no battery, so thankfully that's not an issue.

Any help is much appreciated!   :-?

[Jeff]

Please tell us the battery hasn't corroded and leaked all over the motherboard :-o

[Invisix]

Nope, no battery is installed.

[Jeff]

Sorry, I didn't see that the first time. I would check to make sure that the CPU card hasn't worked loose next.

Jeff

[Invisix]

I took out the CPU card, pushed on the ROM chips "just in case". Reseated the CPU card, put everything back together, and still nothing...

RED then Yellow then Blank / Black. :boohoo:

How the hell could this happen though??? It was sitting in a closet for maybe 3 months... it was working perfectly when I took it down.

[TjLaZer]

Could be chip ram is bad or bad roms.  I would remove everything and only add a 4MB SIMM in the top simm slot and see if it comes up.  Give it like 30 secs or so as the IDE will be looking for a drive.

[Dr_Righteous]

The colors are normal POST. The faint beep however is comming from your hard drive... Sometimes this is normal, sometimes it's not. Try disconnecting it and see if it comes up to the "insert WB" screen. If not, disconnect everything and try it. Also be patient while it boots, it does take a few moments to start churning from cold start.

[Invisix]

The "beep" is immited from the CD-ROM. I've tried different configurations, and nothing is working.

The system is in a vicious "reset" loop, and the IDE light stays lit, and never goes out, the HDD is quiet except for it spinning. The CD-ROM light goes on, the system resets, the CD-ROM light comes on... over and over.

I dunno what's wrong, it could be the ROM's though, which if so then I can fix my A4000 for around $50 or so USD with replacement chips.

I might go the long road and just buy another A4000 all together.

I *DO* have an A1200, however no tower, and no ethernet card, etc. It does have a Blizzard 1260 / 060 CPU @ 50Mhz.

However I dunno what's wrong with it either... I bought it, and the Blizzard from SoftHut (around 2 years ago), and I think SoftHut screwed me over on the Blizzard card... some tech demos such as Lapsuus (shows only top left half of the demo... but that 1/4 fills the whole screen... I then see rainbow color streaks, and the system reboots, it does the samething for the tech demos Perfect Circle and Little Nell by The Black Lotus... any ideas on what may be wrong with the A1200 + Blizzard 1260 combo? :-?

[Invisix]

Bump

[TjLaZer]

Remove all the drives, HD and CD ROM.  Remove all the SIMMs and take one from the bottom and install it on the to (Chip RAM) and report back.

[Invisix]

Nothing, except little white lines that flash across the screen at random.

When I plug in all the SIMMs I get the red screen, then yellow, then blank. The floppy is not reading discs, the HDD doesn't do anything. When I removed the CD-ROM the IDE light no longer stayed lit all the time.

Any ideas?

[Thomas]

As always, please, look at the power LED first. All colors on the screen do mean nothing if the power LED does not behave normal.

The power LED should go on with half its brightness after power-on and about half a second later it should switch to its full brightness. If it does not do this, the computer does not work at all. Usually caused by a loose or defective processor board.

If it becomes brighter ok, then it should blink about ten times while the screen shows the error color. Then the computer resets and all starts over again. And again and again.

If the power LED does not blink and the computer does not reset after ten flashes, the colors do not have any meaning. Because the first thing the Kickstart does is to switch the power LED bright. If it does not come past this point, the processor does not work and without the processor, there is nobody who could switch colors.

I cannot tell you anything else than the others: to remove the motherboard from the case, remove any periphals and try it alone. Just plug in the processor, the LEDs, the monitor and the power supply. Then switch it on and watch the power LED. And the screen. Easiest way to test the blink/color+reset mechanism is to remove the chip RAM. Without chip RAM the screen should become green immediately (after the power LED has become brighter). After the power LED has flashed ten times, the screen should go black for a short time and all should start again.

Bye,
Thomas

[Invisix]

Say what?  :huh:

I don't recall the power led on my A4000 ever being dimmed a bit, then go brighter... if I remember correctly it does do this with the above mentioned on A1200 though, which seems to function correctly.

However my main concern is my Amiga 4000 not working after being disconnected for 3 months.

[Framiga]

and if all the above suggestions didn't help, the rails to take are 2:

1- try with a trip to Lourdes

2- a little check to the PSU as well :-)

If its the original one, it would have all the rights to be "tired".

Fire up the multimeter and check the voltage on the +5v and +12 v at least (during the boot as well)

[Invisix]

Ok, I took out the CPU card, and end up with just a black screen on startup, so I know the CPU card seems to be working correctly, since when it IS plugged in, I get the colors on the screen.

If this makes any difference, the Amiga 4000 is a Commodore Amiga, not Amiga Tech.