A4000 boot failure

[Shamus_]

Hey all. This has me frustrated. 2 days ago I managed to get my old 4000/040 to display the Workbench - which it hasn't done in years. I did get a DF1:?? notification on the WB  but I wasn't worried about it.

Anyways, I now find that it won't boot at all.  If I disconnect everything but the PSU and the '040 card I get the familiar "Insert Disk" logo. As soon as I connect a harddrive (any harddrive, even an old 2gig drive out of a Winbox), all I get is a dark grey screen. The drive spins up for a few seconds and then just sits there. There's no "click click" of the floppy drives either. Disconnecting the floppies doesn't make any difference. Nothing seems to initialise. I pulled all the fast RAM out thinking there may have been a problem with it but it didn't make any difference.

Can you guys think of a reason for this at all? The m/board  and '040 are in mint condition. No battery corrosion etc. I've tried 4 different IDE ribbon cables. Different ribbon cable for the floppies too. Different mices (mouses?). The only thing I haven't changed is the keyboard. Would that affect it? There's no blinking light at startup. Help, please?


Shamus....

[Miloo]

I had a similar problem ages ago when i got my A4000 but it turned out that my mobo wouldnt accept eide cables - i had to use the original old skool type ide cable. Also i did put the cables in the wrong way round! So the marked red strip on the cable goes to pin 1 on the mobo.

[Shamus_]

Miloo wrote:
I had a similar problem ages ago when i got my A4000 but it turned out that my mobo wouldnt accept eide cables - i had to use the original old skool type ide cable. Also i did put the cables in the wrong way round! So the marked red strip on the cable goes to pin 1 on the mobo.

Well, I know the cable is around the right way. (Checked it and checked it and checked it). :-) I'm also using 40 wire ribbon cable which is what Ami uses and I'm stumped. I don't want to think that the IDE controller is shot/knackered. I had 2 different drives boot up the other day and now nothing works. Can you think of anything else?

[TjLaZer]

Also make sure IDE drives are jumpered correctly.  Some need Master, some no jumpers when used alone, etc.

[Shamus_]

TjLaZer wrote:
Also make sure IDE drives are jumpered correctly.  Some need Master, some no jumpers when used alone, etc.

Sadly, that isn't it either. The drives booted the other day without any problems. Without changing anything they now fail. I've tried everything I can think of and nothing works. Just a dark grey screen and that's it. It goes no further. *sigh*

[Kin-Hell]

Ground yourself to a Good Earth.
Strip the Amiga so all you can see is the mobo on the Chassis. Check the tops off all the Capacitors for ruptures. They will be domed if they are blown.
Also check for Capcitor leakage. This looks like it's sweaty & has a wet syrup like feel to it. Not always easy to spot.
If nothing shows abnormal here, keep earthed & Gently push down on all the Custom Chips which are socketed. I prefer doing this out of the chassis on an Antistatic mat tbh. You might "over-push" whilst on the Chassis stand-offs & break something!
Make sure all the Ram is contacting good & rebuild with Just Floppys. Make sure the PSU is healthy. Make sure the Molex Connectors are secure & Connecting good. If for putting the hard drive back on, you still get a Grey Screen, I'd say you're CIA Chips are Shot! These are surface mounted so you will need to have good soldering skills (Proffesional) or send it to JJB at Amiga France.
To avoid knackering the CIA's NEVER plug or un-plug ANY device into your Miggy when shes Powered Up.

Good luck however it turnns out for you. :-)

*Edit - Shades of grey are huge & different monitors can display different shades of Grey!

Dead Machine


Amiga Hints

[Shamus_]

Thanks for your input.  :-) I'll have a look at the things you've pointed out but I'm starting to suspect a serious problem with the m/board itself. I have another couple of A4000 boards here but they have a fair bit of battery corrosion on them.

I suppose once I check the things you've  suggested, the next option is to toss in another board and see if things work. If they do work, I might have to throw a carton of beer at a workmate to swap the batteries over for me. A little rubbing alcohol should clean things up in the meantime, shouldn't it?

[alexh]

1) Check all the jumpers, maybe something is busted.

2) Play games off floppy?

3) Buy a Zorro III SCSI card.

[Shamus_]

1. Jumpers haven't changed since it booted up the other day.

2. Pretty pointless having a 4000 and not using the HD. I clearly remember playing Heroes' Quest on a 500 and swapping disks all the time. Not something I want to go back to. :-)

3. I've got one around here somewhere. It's not the harddrive that's failing. It's the hardware. It's 11pm here. As good as time as any to head out to the garage and pull it apart, I suppose.

[Shamus_]

An hour and a bit later......


I tried 3 different motherboards, 2 different '040 cards and an '030 card and tried 3 different sets of both fast and  chip RAM. All 3 m/boards exibit the same strange behaviour, that being if I remove the chip RAM, only about half the time do I get a green screen. Possibly a PSU problem? What do you guys think?  

[Kin-Hell]

Shamus_ wrote:
An hour and a bit later......


I tried 3 different motherboards, 2 different '040 cards and an '030 card and tried 3 different sets of both fast and  chip RAM. All 3 m/boards exibit the same strange behaviour, that being if I remove the chip RAM, only about half the time do I get a green screen. Possibly a PSU problem? What do you guys think?  

Sounds very possible. Only a swap out will conclude!

Be real sure that processor card is well seated. They can appear "in", but arnt "in" sometimes. Do a visual with the CPU cards edge connector in relation to the Mobos Connector edge. Be sure they are paralell & fully mated. Thats MAXIMUM insertion...if you'll pardon the expression!

I have an ATX to Amiga A4KD Convertor here if you cant find another PSU. I'd like £12 for it + P&P. Excuse the "Sales Pitch" Admin, just trying to help! ;-)

Good luck!  :-)  

[Shamus_]

Kin-Hell wrote:

Sounds very possible. Only a swap out will conclude!

Be real sure that processor card is well seated. They can appear "in", but arnt "in" sometimes. Do a visual with the CPU cards edge connector in relation to the Mobos Connector edge. Be sure they are paralell & fully mated. Thats MAXIMUM insertion...if you'll pardon the expression!

I have an ATX to Amiga A4KD Convertor here if you cant find another PSU. I'd like £12 for it + P&P. Excuse the "Sales Pitch" Admin, just trying to help! ;-)

Good luck!  :-)  

Apologies for the delayed reply. I had a blonde moment lasting several days.


Well, I've torn my place apart looking for the other Ami PSU and I can't find it anywhere. I dunno what the hell I've done with it. After swapping damned near every component in my 4000 I'm pretty much convinced that it's the PSU.

If your kind offer still stands, flick me a PM and we can work something out. Thankyou.

[Kin-Hell]

You are lucky to have lots of hardware to swap around. Just dropped you a PM & btw, RE Blonde moments, have a look at this:

Microsoft Word for Blondes

LOL, Speak to ya l8r.  :-D

*edit* Did you look at the screen colour codes on the earlier links. You may be suffering a combination of things/problems. Board sag under the IDE connector can be a total sod, If the IDE header isn't making full 40 pin contact, it can do wierd things! :-o

[Audun]

I have just about the same problem man. The things I've tried include switching out and trying with different PSU, ram, cpu board, harddrives, cdroms, all kinds of ide cables, I also tried cutting the wire1 (red wire) from the IDE cable - which very interestingly made it boot up the first time I tried it from HD, but then wouldn't reboot when I tried that. My board also have no corrosion whatsoever anywhere, no battery leakage (new battery was inserted long before the old one sprung leak), I tried with a new IDE controller, didn't work. Now I'm getting my ppc card back from repair so I'll try a scsi disk over the weekend to see if that works. If not I will buy a new mainboard- but reading that you have tried that I'm a bit discouraged, however I suppose our problems could be of a slightly different nature, yet somehow perhaps related. Anyway just sharing some experiences, I will post if I get scsi drives working. Good luck in the meantime.

[Kin-Hell]

Shamus...check your PM's mate!  :-)