Amiga 4000 HELP!!!

[Abou27]

swoslover wrote:

The monitor lead itself has a cut almost like it has been lying under the monitor which has worn it away.  This is where the blue spark comes from and you have to hold both ends of the lead and push it together, I will invest in some tape as it seems to work ok when the conncection is secured.

I'm sorry, but it is absolute madness to continue to use a lead in such condition.  Not only does it pose a danger to yourself, it might well have caused your problems which, I note, are being pinned upon the seller.

Not so much 'buyer beware' but 'seller...

[swoslover]

The monitor cable itself is nowhere near the amiga and as such is not going to affect it, there is no connection between this lead and the amiga.

As for seller beware, as a seller myself I would never send something out like that in the first place!!  So can I ask do you condone someone sending a dangerous item out as long as the buyer doesn't play with it?

To think all I came on to ask was if I can use any standard cd-rom drive with the a4000.

@rich It's hard to try the keyboard on its own, when I have the caps lock is not respondong, although this may just be non-functional due to natural wear and tear.

I will give a game a shot tomorrow when hopefully I can give a full day to getting the miggy up and running.

[davideo]

swoslover wrote:
The monitor cable itself is nowhere near the amiga and as such is not going to affect it, there is no connection between this lead and the amiga.

@swoslover

I think me and the rest thought you meant the monitor lead that connected to the video out on your Miggy. When in fact it sounds like the lead to the power connector on the monitor.

Even so I'd be reluctant to use the lead and try and find a replacement for safeties sake  :idea:

Don't forget we are all trying to help you in our own ways - the same as we would anybody that asked for help  :-)

And to be honest I can't remember you asking in this thread about using any CDRom with this 4000 - unless I missed it in an earlier thread  :rtfm:

I thought this was about your keyboard and mouse not working  :-o

Dave G  8-)

[Boot_WB]

I'll add my voice to the chorus and strongly recommend you get the monitor lead sorted out. Even if you just strip away the outer plastic shielding and put insulation tape around any individual wires which have been worn bare.



EDIT : Ohhh, the power lead. I too thought you meant the monitor data cable.

PS - you can control mouse functions with the keyboard on the miggy - a good way to test if the keyboard is working! Hold the right amiga key down, and use the cursor keys to move the pointer. Right Amiga key + right alt = right mouse button; left amiga key + left alt = left mouse button.

One other thing I'd recommend, open up the miggy and diconnect the keylock wire form the motherboard. It could be that this is shorting even though the "lock" on the front is in the open position. The header is at the front of the motherboard, just behind the ram slots.

There are three headers - power, disk activity and keylock. It's marked on the silkscreen which one is which.

Regarding CD rom drives - most will work, some older ones may not (but this is rare). There's no danger in trying. IDEfix97 is probably the easiest package to use to test it out, as the finddevice utility is really user friendly.

Regards



Rich

[swoslover]

@rich thanks your advice is very good, simple (what someone like me needs) yet effective.

Re cd-rom drive apologies if that wasn't clear I meant came on for last night.  Ditto monitor lead if I wasn't clear.

I wish this was 10 years ago when I was 15 I knew so much more but unfortunately didnt have the cash for anything but a standard a1200, now I do have the cash i've forgotten everything!!

I might have to look out my old af's there were always useful guides in there.

[swoslover]

Well after spending all afternoon with the a4000 on without actually using (trying to blow away the cobwebs from what i suspect is years of non use) and opening it up yet again all seems to be well.

Dave I took your advice and looked at the 3 connectors they seemed ok.  However I gave them a quick blow to remove any dust and re-inserted them.  As well as this I took out what I think is the daughterboard and gave it a quick wipe before putting it back in place.

All I need now is a cd drive.  Is it possible to use the most modern ones, not a dvd drive but a fast cd drive, with ide fix 97?  i have found some old disks from another amiga I bought and have found ide 99 but this seems only to be for a1200 would it work with a4000?

[Boot_WB]

Great news! Glad to hear that all is working ok. I guess it must have just got a few bumps during delivery, adn cleaning/reseating everything sorted out some loose connection.

Never heard of IDE 99, but you can download IDEfix 97 from Aminet.

You should be able to use pretty much any modern CD drive, although dpending how fast it is, speed will be limited by the cheapo IDE bus of the A4K. This won't cause any problems with reading CDs, but if you were writing a CD you may experience buffer underrun.

Regards



Rich

EDIT: Is that the EIDE99 adapter from Elbox (kind of wedge shaped, socket on the bottom, two pin headers on the side)?

If so, the connector on the bottom is 44-pin, and will not physically fit onto the 40 pin IDE header on the a4000 motherboard.

Assuming you have only one hard drive in the A4000, you can just attach the CD rom drive to the same IDE cable, and set it as slave using the jumpers on the CD rom drive.

[davideo]

Assuming you have only one hard drive in the A4000, you can just attach the CD rom drive to the same IDE cable, and set it as slave using the jumpers on the CD rom drive.

My CD drive is connected in the above manner and that way you don't need the IDEFix software.

Mine's running os3.9 which I believe includes full cd support without having to use IDEFix or anything else like it.

Dave G  8-)

[mbrantley]

Glad you got everything working. Now comes the fun without the frustration! :-)

Before you go buy any modern CD drive, make sure you get one that is not too deep from front to back. Some (a lot actually) are so deep they will not push back all the way into the 4000 and leave room for the cabling and a clean airflow to the power supply.

I found a CD-R burner made by LiteOn that fit perfectly. There's not much difference in price between a CD reader and writer these days, so might as well get a burner, I say.

You can download MakeCD software with free registration now. Search the Amiga.org news items from the past year for info on downloading and registering MakeCD. I found the program rather confusing at first, but finally I got the hang of it. It's certainly not as intuitive as something like Toast on Mac.

Have fun.

[swoslover]

Thanks for thr hrlp guys.

Dave it is just a couple of floppies there was no actually hardware device, I thought it was a software solution.

I will try and find a cd drive.  I did notice that the spare bay on the front was conveniently sized for a cd-drive.  Was this its original intention or was it for another floppy?   I only have wb 3 i think, I was wondering about upgrading to 3.9 is this worthwhile.  I have never tried either 3.5 or 3.9 but am definitly planning to upgrade.  

I also have a slimline 4gig hdd though it doesnt seem to have the correct conncection (I think it was used in a 1200).  The hdd here is only around 250mb so will have to think about a bigger one, though perhaps not right now.

Anyway i am off to learn how to partition my hdd exciting stuff!!

[swoslover]

Ok the cd-rom drive arrived today and seems to work ok, it power up fine.]

Now I need some software for it to be compatible with my a4000.

Does anyone have a copy of this they would be willing to send me?  

I will of course refund p&p costs.

Any help as always appreciated.

[swoslover]

Ok the cd-rom drive arrived today and seems to work ok, it power up fine.]

Now I need some software for it to be compatible with my a4000.

Does anyone have a copy of this they would be willing to send me?  

I will of course refund p&p costs.

Any help as always appreciated.

[davideo]

@Swoslover

Have a look on Aminet - you'll find loads of CD Rom drivers on there.

Dave G  8-)

[swoslover]

How do I get them to my amiga?

I don't have a floppy on anything other than my a4000.

[Boot_WB]

PM me your address, I'll send you some floppies with IDEfix 97 and AmiCDFS on - you can take your pick which you find the most useful.

Regards



Rich

[Phantom]

You can try CacheCDFS. It comes together with AmigaOS 3.9 CD.