getting it together

[Will-i-am]

Well I am finally coming to grips with the concept that I just am not going to do very much with my Amiga hardware. I'm broken up about it but I'm 56 years old and increasingly I find it hard to sit for hours working on hardware issues, to the point that the meds I'm on for pain confuse me and screw up my memory. So I am left with, among other things, this A3000 all taken apart in the attempt to diagnose why it won't boot except from a floppy. I think it might be a problem with the cables, maybe not but I have run out of ideas. I have swapped myself blue in the face. On eBay there is a shop manual for the A3000 with about 5 days left. Is there a chance that this manual will have information in it that will help me reassemble the Amiga and make it boot? Or does it simply contain schematics and techy stuff that a simple user will be unable to utilize? Because if I can't make the damn thing boot it is a fancy doorstop and I already have several. I'm pretty systematic and all but Neurontin trashes your short term memory and I can't always remember in what order I am doing things, so maybe I just need to put it all back together one last time with some jumper set a certain way except I don't know which one and in what direction... :getmad:
Maybe I should just sell it and go back to my working Amigas? How much crap would you be willing to deal with before selling or dumping your hardware? This is like my first marriage, and that ended badly so I'd like to figure something out before we get that no-fault divorce. Any suggestions, comments on that manual, or on the A3000 in general?? Am I being obsessive?

[doctorq]

If I were you I would write down the things as you try them out. Only adding one thing at a time would also help.

[Boot_WB]

There are a couple of New-Yorkers around on this forum who might be able/willing to help.

Anybody?

[mrbill317]

Im in PA. Im not sure how much I can help. You could try cleaning the floppy drive , I dont have an extra one to try or cables atm.

Softhut is in PA , they might have cheap cables.

I have A500's if any of those cables might help

I have gutted 500s too so let me know what you need.

[Will-i-am]

I have several floppy cables since I have 7 Amigas (!?) and a few are open so I have swapped out the cables from various machines. You have no idea how trashed short term memory can be!! I kid you not sometimes I forget what word I am typing as I am typing it! Can't let the mind wander for a second and if I try to back off on the pain meds the nerve pain jacks up immediately. Doc says "It will always hurt, and it will only get worse." Not a lot you can do about nerve pain and degenerative discs.

I think the floppy drive in the original A3000 was maybe not working and I have since lost track of where it got swapped to so that's a problem. It boots with an external floppy/workbench and the HD shows up and all but no matter which floppy I try to cable inside with whatever cable I can pull it seems unable to read it. If the cables are good and the drive is good what else would make a df0: unreadable, especially if it can boot from a df2: external? Yeah I suppose I could just use the external but it burns me that you can't have a floppy drive inside where it belongs! Oh yeah... if it can read the HD once it boots from the floppy, why can't it boot from the HD? It all looks like it should unless there's a jumper somewhere that precludes a HD boot? I get no error messages. sigh.

[leofoe]

Forget about the manual. It's for free in this thread.

[Will-i-am]

Well, this is getting suckier all the time. I was 3/4 through this post when my fat stupid fingers found a keyboard combination to erase everything I typed. Now the lights down here in the basement computer room have decided to get obnoxious. I need to wire real ceiling lights in and discard the shoplights. Dang. Okay, make it sweet and short and post it . The A3000 mobo is dead. Steve from Florida did a valiant job helping me by phone to test pretty much everything we could think of. I can't even get a white screen off it. The power supply works and I am not sure which of the various chips are salvagable but since I have no other A3K it's a moot point. I plan to keep the HD since it's a scsi and I have 3 A2000s maybe I can do something with it. Everything else is not much use to me. It did not come with a keyboard but seems to have a working floppy drive. Kinda hard to be sure...

If somebody wants what's left drop me a pmail and make an offer. I lost about $75 in the deal and that's sad but so is life, so if nothing comes up in the next week or so I guess it will be junked. The case is in good shape. sigh. I guess I'm still looking for an affordable flicker-fixer.

[leirbag28]

@Will-i-am

Hey how are you doing Fellow New Yorker.............we chatted a few times back and forth via email remember?

My recommendation is this:  Life is too SHort....Sell It and use the money to buy a Fully Working machine!, they come on ebay every now and then.............if anything, go for an A4000 or A1200 with at least an 030

Let someone else fix your A3000

[Lando]

I agree.  I don't have the inclination any more to bother with trying to fix broken stuff.  With these old machines, 90% of the time it's not user fixable anyway, unless you're a component level electronics expert.  Better to just split it, sell the parts, and put the money towards something that works.

[Will-i-am]

leirbag28 wrote:
@Will-i-am

Hey how are you doing Fellow New Yorker.............we chatted a few times back and forth via email remember?

My recommendation is this:  Life is too SHort....Sell It and use the money to buy a Fully Working machine!, they come on ebay every now and then.............if anything, go for an A4000 or A1200 with at least an 030

Let someone else fix your A3000

Well, except for some bruises from banging my head against the floor while screaming obscene remarks about computers, I'm doing moderately okay. I donated blood today, I detected a leaky fuel pump in the old Volvo, and it's so hot I'm back in the basement catching up on email.

Re buying a 'new' computer with any money from the old A3000 (RIP) I'm not sure I'd get enough for it. I'd like to get my money back and maybe not pay to ship it away. Breaking even in my family is cause for a huge celebration. Our motto has always been "Buy high, sell low". I think it orginates from a typo back in the dark ages but we have locked onto it like a pit bull raping a prize poodle. But I do plan to get rid of the thing. It'll just depress me. Besides, I have the Beast to rally my spirits. I figure there isn't anybody else with such an Amiga up and running so I have something to brag about. Kinda like having a laptop Miggy or something like that. An '060 A4000T with custom shop-built mobo....yeah!

I also have the A4000 desktop with Cyberstorm '060/PPC and that one boots every time. The three A2000's are fun, although only one has a monitor right now. I keep looking at Salvation Army shops to find another NEC 3D or something else that doesn't need a flicker fixer. But I think the A3K needs a new home. and I need a new beer :-D