Just got a A3000D in

[quarkx]

Hi, all, It's like Christmas this morning!
I just got my first A3000D unit in, that I bought from Roguebeck. It got a little banged up from UPS (Darn I hate UPS).

I opened it up, and it was fully loaded with Zip ram and it looks like with the dram also, but no "fast" cpu just the stock 68030 soldered to the mobo. Revision 9 motherboard.
No cards, but an internal Zip drive. KS ROMS are ver 40.68 which I believe is 3.1.

Looks like I got an A2000 keyboard -will this be ok with the unit? the pins look correct.

So , I am on the look out for a nice minty case and original dual floppy drives and a nice A3000 keyboard to get this looking like new.
What are your suggestions for "pimping" this out?
I am looking into a Prometheus card from Amiga kit, but what else do you guys suggest (that's relatively cheap/ affordable)
I am using a "native" Amiga monitor on it for now.

[nishtek]

The A2000 keyboard will work just fine.
Recommend: graphics card, then network card (although 030 is kinda sluggish for surfing the net).

[quarkx]

nishtek wrote:
The A2000 keyboard will work just fine.
Recommend: graphics card, then network card (although 030 is kinda sluggish for surfing the net).

Yes! thats exactly the reason I was thinking about the Prometheus card. I have a Voodoo 3 2000 (PCI) and tons of pci nics.

[fragment]

quarkx wrote:
What are your suggestions for "pimping" this out?

Deneb, of course  :-D

[quarkx]

Ok, I just put it all back together, and set it up.
Pressed the power button, fan and hard drive spin up, a couple of flashes of white lines on the screen and nothing else. The power light isn't even on. I have to run to work now, and will look at it tomorrow. Any thoughts?

[Damion]

Just an FYI, the circuit board for the LEDs is often messed up... should be an easy fix though.

Check all socketed chips and jumpers would be my suggestion.

[chiark]

If the battery is still fitted, please...

TAKE THE BATTERY OFF THE MOTHERBOARD

[tone007]

Sounds like it's dead to me.

[fragment]

quarkx wrote:
Ok, I just put it all back together, and set it up.
Pressed the power button, fan and hard drive spin up, a couple of flashes of white lines on the screen and nothing else. The power light isn't even on. I have to run to work now, and will look at it tomorrow. Any thoughts?

Try checking the +5V line with a multimeter.

[quarkx]

chiark wrote:
If the battery is still fitted, please...

TAKE THE BATTERY OFF THE MOTHERBOARD

first thing i did when i opened it.

[quarkx]

Ok,
I have nailed the problem. In my haste to boot this baby up, my old age and forgetfulness was showing. I had also received with the unit a external CD-rom that was damaged in shipping. Luckily, I had found a thrift store around the block that had a new SCSI burner for sale with new cables and terminator (actually a TASCAM unit with a TEC drive) that I swooped up for a song (still sealed).
Set the number on the back to the same as the old drive, and now it boots to floppy. I am not sure if the internal hard drive is dead, but I get tomorrow off and I will be putzing around with it then.

The damage to the old external drive was at the back of the case, so I removed the drive and I am going to throw it in my A2000, so I can ditch the budda card and run strictly SCSI.

[Tenacious]

I'd be looking for a Picasso II (or IV).

I find two HDs more useful than two floppies.  I get them the same size, partition them identically, and back one up to the other.

Mp3s and streaming audio can be played thru MasPlayer (I think Amikit still has them) or some Audio cards.  MasPlayer works great for me, never could get Delfina Flipper to work in 3000.

Just got a Deneb but haven't installed it yet.

[quarkx]

Tenacious wrote:
I'd be looking for a Picasso II (or IV).

I will wait and see if the present state of the economy crashes the Amiga market to get one. At over $150, it just not worth it yet. I would rather spend the money on a good accelerator at this time.

But, got the hard drive to boot and it has OS 3.5 installed. I will have to get a better monitor though as the flicker on the 1804 is enough to cause headaches. This is the first time I have used 3.5 so looking forward to playing with it today. All in all, its a good little unit, even though UPS banged up the case. I am on the hunt for a new chassis and A3000 keyboard for it first, then the toys.