I think I nearly killed my AT A1200 with a Goliath PSU - Please help!!

[StevenJGore]

I got myself a (almost) brand new Amiga Technologies A1200 from eBay... My old Commodore A1200 has yellowed badly and only has 3.0 ROM's.

Anyway, I used my Goliath PSU that I bought in the mid-90's (can't remember where from) and my new AT A1200 refused to boot. The Caps Lock key kept flashing about every 3 to 4 seconds, the hard-drive kept making continuous clicking noises, and the power light kept dimming and brightening every second or so. When I plugged the Goliath into my old Commodore A1200, it worked fine, as it has always done. I plugged it back into my AT A1200 again, and the same thing happened as before. The AT A1200 works fine with the standard black AT PSU.

Any suggestions why this is happening?

I will be adding a hard disk and an accelerator, so I'm assuming that the 25W standard black AT PSU won't be enough?

Thanks in advance guys,
Steve.

[mikeymike]

Try unplugging all add-ons and boot with the PSU you normally use?

I don't think there's a great deal of risk of toasting your A1200 because of the PSU, unless the PSU is smelling odd, making unsavoury noises or getting especially hot (if you could burn your hand on it by holding it there, that's bad).

I take it you're not in the habit of unplugging the PSU from the A1200 that often?  It might be worth checking connections inside the A1200 where the PSU plugs into the motherboard, IIRC that wasn't the sturdiest of interfaces.

As a precaution anyway you might want to unplug your hard disk until the problems are sorted, because if the Amiga is power cycling quickly, the hard disk heads will be going ape.

[StevenJGore]

No, I hardly ever unplug the PSU from the back of my A1200. I will try unplugging the HD from the new A1200 (leaving a bare-bones A1200), and see if that works with the Goliath. Since it is fine with the standard AT PSU, it may not solve the problem, but it is worth trying I think. I will also check the ends from each PSU, and the power connections on the back of the A1200's just for comparison.

Am I right in thinking that the Amiga will draw what power it needs from the PSU, rather than the PSU forcing all its power into the Amiga?

[Damion]

>Am I right in thinking the Amiga will draw what
>power it needs from the PSU,

As far as I know you are correct. Given the
proper voltage, it should only draw the
necessary current and no more.

[mikeymike]

Otherwise the CPU would go pop very very quickly, they don't tend to react well to that kind of thing