Help! Had Power Failure, now A400 won't boot...yellow screen

[marcfrick2112]

Hello, Hope someone could help me....Had a power failure
for about 25min. today. When power came back on, I found my PC
and my Amiga 4000/040 dead. The PC just blew its PSU, I could give a rat's
butt about it  now...

The 4000 won't boot, won't even try to boot a floppy. I can
hear the HD spin up (clicking) but only get a screen flash
then a yellow screen. I know this is CPU exception and/or
hardware failure.... Anyone have this happen? Any ideas what to
check? I need to try to fix this myself, as I don't have the
cash to send it to, say Amiga Center in France. As luck would have
it, I got laid off from work 2 months ago....

Worst part: both the A4000 and IBM had surge supressors....

Any ideas?

Marc

[zombi]

:-(

[countzero]

well first you should calm down, then check if the cpu card is properly seated. then I would check the psu lines if proper voltage is coming.

[zombi]

There should be a fuse in somewhere.

[marcfrick2112]

Thanks everyone,

@countzero: OK, will try to calm down...I'll check the CPU
card, but I can't see how that could be problem, the A4000
was working several hours before the power failure, surely
that couldn't have made the cpu card come loose??

@zombi and countzero: Any idea where this fuse is? In the
PSU maybe? I hope so, the PSU on my IBM-compatible had NO fuse.

[zombi]

ATX PSU's, i mean cheap ones, have no fuse. They have only a stupid capasitor thingy to cutoff current when there is a short-circuit.

I don't have any idea where the fuse in A4000 either it can be on mobo, somewhere near power jack, or on PSU. But there shuld be one in somewhere!  

[Astral]

I had a similar problem after a power failure, where my A4000 would come up with a yellow screen, the power light would flash, and the hard drive sounded like it was trying to boot. I thought that something was likely to be damaged. However, after reseating all the RAM chips all was fine. I know it sounds odd, and that the two do not seem related, but it fixed my A4000...

[Quixote]

:-? Hmm, I'll have to try that, too.  My own A4000 stopped workinging a while back, but I've never gotten it working again.  (But only because I never seem to have time to get around to it....)

[chiark]

ground yourself
reseat all the chips
cross fingers

Yellow is general CPU exception before bootstrap loaded, so I'd look suspiciously at the kickstart chips, memory chips and processor board.  In fact, every connection

[pierre]

yeah calm is the bast way to fix this type of thing.
Yes, it was working just fine a minute ago, but something came loose and once you open her up and firmly and nicely tighen her back up she will be back with you in not time.  This happpend to my 4k until I rebuild her...btw that something you will end up doing one or twice a year bepending on how it goes.

[Tomas]

 :-( That sounds really bad... Sounds like you had some power surge. Odd that the surge protector did not help.

[marcfrick2112]

Hi eveyone, thanks for all your advice,...I re-seated all chips,
cables, ROMs, processor board (twice) Still a no-go...

I will have to send it to a repair guy in KS (USA)

Think it may be a mobo problem

Again, thanks everyone...

[bertambala]

If you don't mind me asking, who is the repairman in Kansas?  I live in Colorado, so that might be useful to know. Thanks....

[motorollin]

Did you check the voltages coming from the PSU?

--
moto

[marcfrick2112]

@moto: Yeah, I checked the voltages coming from the PSU with a multimeter, everything was fine [shrug]

Regarding ther reapir guy in KS, his name is Ed Jeffries, runs  a place called Video Lab, seems very good (Ibought an A1200 desktop from him couple of years back..) Number is 913-403-0045