Amiga 500 - Strange Symptom

[Xamiche]

I pulled an Amiga 500 out of storage yesterday and tested it to see if it works. It fires up okay, but when I double a disk icon to open it, it completely freezes. I tried a few different things and found that if I eject the floppy disk, then reinsert it, the Amiga un-freezes and continues along with the task. The same thing happens when I try to run an app like a shell or open the pref window. I bought the computer many years ago from a garage sale and never got around to testing it until today. As I tend to waffle on I'll ask some explicit questions.

1. Is it the even CIA that handles the floppy drive?
2. If so, could this symptom be a sign of a bad CIA chip?
3. Why does Santa live at the North Pole?
4. Has anyone here had this symptom in an Amiga 500?
5. Would anyone fancy a pint?

[bigmac]

Hi! try swapping your cia chips around to see if this fixes the prob I vaguely remember a prob I had once with an olD 1000 that was similar.

Shoud,nt the last question be a "schooner" :-)

[Xamiche]

bigmac wrote:
Hi! try swapping your cia chips around to see if this fixes the prob I vaguely remember a prob I had once with an olD 1000 that was similar.

Shoud,nt the last question be a "schooner" :-)

I'll try that. See if it helps out. I have a couple of spare CIAs if the one in the Amiga turns out to be bad. And I only drink pints. :-D

[Cass]

Sounds to me more like a mechanical problem. Check the microswitches on the right side of the floppy drive slot, and try testing it with a freshly copied disk (no read/write errors). ;-)
:pint:

[Xamiche]

Cass wrote:
Sounds to me more like a mechanical problem. Check the microswitches on the right side of the floppy drive slot, and try testing it with a freshly copied disk (no read/write errors). ;-)
:pint:

It's not the drive. I tested that in another machine and it works fine.

I'll try a more thorough description. I power the Amiga up and get the familiar Hand requesting a disk. I pop in WB1.3 and it boots through to the desktop. I double click the WB disk icon to open it, it high-lights on the first click, and then freezes the system on the second. No drive activity, no mouse activity/movement, nothing. Completely frozen. I remove the WB disk from the drive. Still frozen. No disk LED activity either. I pop the disk back in, the drive senses it and the system un-freezes and continue with the task. The floppy drive works fine on my other Amiga 500 so it probably not the drive.

I'm going to try the CIA swap and see how that works out.

[orange]

IIRC I had somewhat similar problem once, and it was power related. When you start the FDD motor, it takes more current..

[Xamiche]

orange wrote:
IIRC I had somewhat similar problem once, and it was power related. When you start the FDD motor, it takes more current..

The thing is though, the system freezes before the floppy drive re-powers up.

[Xamiche]

Bingo! Bad CIA chip. Thanks for the advice all. :-)

[bigmac]

Great mate, if you need a spare pm me and I,ll send you one.
cheers

[Xamiche]

Thanks for the offer. :-)
I have a couple spare from a dead 500. I've just pulled one of those and popped it in, and it's working perfectly now.  8-)

[JimS]

Great....

If the machine has been in storage for a while, I'd recommend going over it and push down on all the socketed chips.... That is if you've still got it opened up.

[Xamiche]

JimS wrote:
Great....

If the machine has been in storage for a while, I'd recommend going over it and push down on all the socketed chips.... That is if you've still got it opened up.

Good idea. I'll do just that. :-)