A4K not recognising Zorro cards

[CSixx]

Hi all,

I just received an A4000/40 that I bought off of craigslist. It has 3.0 roms, 2chip, 16fast, and boots into workbench fine.

I snipped the battery from the motherboard as soon as I got it (it had not leaked at all).
The motherboard and daughterboard both look to be in excellent condition, however, I cannot get any Zorro cards to autoconfig.

I've tried a PicassoII, an EB920 Network card, and some various ram boards and none ever show up in the Early Startup. The cards all work fine in my A3k.

Are there any standard things to check in order to diagnose this?
I found this website: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/excrdnot.html that has a fix for broken traces on the daughtercard, but honestly it seems a bit beyond my skillset.

As a last resort, anyone in the Tacoma/Seattle area good at diagnosing problems and handy with a soldering iron?  

Thanks,
C6

[amiga92570]

check 74HCT32N chip


http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/excrdnot.html

[Argus]

If you have a socketed SuperBuster, maybe it's a warped/bad contact socket.  I have an A4000 where the PLCC socket is old and kind of bowed out in the middle areas so it makes poor contact with Buster.  A little contact cleaner and reseating the chip makes my zorro cards appear.

[TjLaZer]

Hi all,

I just received an A4000/40 that I bought off of craigslist. It has 3.0 roms, 2chip, 16fast, and boots into workbench fine.

I snipped the battery from the motherboard as soon as I got it (it had not leaked at all).
The motherboard and daughterboard both look to be in excellent condition, however, I cannot get any Zorro cards to autoconfig.

I've tried a PicassoII, an EB920 Network card, and some various ram boards and none ever show up in the Early Startup. The cards all work fine in my A3k.

Are there any standard things to check in order to diagnose this?
I found this website: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/excrdnot.html that has a fix for broken traces on the daughtercard, but honestly it seems a bit beyond my skillset.

As a last resort, anyone in the Tacoma/Seattle area good at diagnosing problems and handy with a soldering iron?  

Thanks,
C6

It sounds like it may be the daughter card that is messed up.  I had a 4000 that did not read cards either and I bought a new one online and it works great now.  I live in Tacoma so if you get desperate we can try a daughter card from my 4000 in your machine to see if it works for you!

[amigadave]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but related to the topic I have an A4000D that the mouse is not working on and I can't figure out what the problem is that is causing it.

Any ideas?

[rkauer]

Dave: do you hear some high pitch when trying to move the mouse? If so, you have a (near) dead Paula.

 Other than that: can be the connector, one of the CIAs, a corroded track, you name it.

[amigadave]

Dave: do you hear some high pitch when trying to move the mouse? If so, you have a (near) dead Paula.

 Other than that: can be the connector, one of the CIAs, a corroded track, you name it.

I looked and then realized that the A4000 does not appear to have the pair of CIA's like the A500 & A2000 that I have replaced before to correct problems with the mouse.  I don't hear a whine, but forgot to mention that the mouse does move left to right, but not up and down the screen and I have tried several known good mice. Everything on this A4000D motherboard is surface mounted anyway, so I can't fix it myself.

Edit: My 15 year old Son reminds me that I am getting older and that old people cannot hear certain frequencies every time I turn off any Amiga I have connected to an old NEC 3D (think that is the model) Multisync monitor that is still turned on and it emits a high pitch noise that drives him to cover his ears and I cannot hear the noise it makes at all.

[Amiga4k]

If you want to replace that daughter card, I have one. PM me.

[CSixx]

Thanks for the ideas. I bought another daughtercard. Hopefully It will resolve the issue, it should be here in a couple days.

TJLazer: If it still doesn't work, maybe you'd be available to try one of the cards in your 4k and see if it works there. I work in Tacoma so I'm there daily.

C6

[amiga92570]

Its likely the 74HCT32N chip on the daughter board.

[CSixx]

OK, I got a second daughtercard and same issue. No Zorro cards are recognized at all.

I can see that I have some older components in my machine, but that shoulden't stop all cards from working should it?

Its an 040 machine, mobo rev B, processor card is a rev 3.1 (3640), Rev 9 Buster, 3.0 roms.
Dying to get this thing setup and going.

TJ: Wanna take a look at this thing this weekend?  

-C6

[Jose]

Even if the cards work in your A3K, you should try the standard procedure of removing all cards the add one after the other to see which one breaks. If the 1st one doesn't work try the others. Could be some incompatibility betwen revisions, by the way you didn't say which cards...

[Dragster]

OK, I got a second daughtercard and same issue. No Zorro cards are recognized at all.
 
I can see that I have some older components in my machine, but that shoulden't stop all cards from working should it?
 
Its an 040 machine, mobo rev B, processor card is a rev 3.1 (3640), Rev 9 Buster, 3.0 roms.
Dying to get this thing setup and going.
 
TJ: Wanna take a look at this thing this weekend?
 
-C6

Have you replaced the superbuster for test purposes? I had a problem in mine where it was failing to recognize a PicassoIV.. and doing weird things with my Xsurf.. it turned out to be the Superbuster chip... it was a rev 11.
 
Cheers,
 
Dragster

[CSixx]

I havent tried any other buster chips as I don't have another, maybe that should be my next purchase.

I did strip the machine down completely trying only one card at a time, and no matter what, nothing ever shows up in early startup.

The cards I have to test with:
* adsg network card
* supraram 8meg ram board
* picasso II

My main concern is getting the picasso working. All of these cards work in my a2k and a3k, together or individually.

I do have a commodore amber card, which does work in the 4k, but its not an autoconfig card and doesnt show up in the early startup anyway.

Should I look for a buster 11 now?

[Dragster]

Should I look for a buster 11 now?

Yep... if you haven't tried another daughterboard or you can remove the buster from your A3000 (very carefully, using the appropiate tool), install it in the A4000D and test.. just to confirm it's the buster, before you buy it that is.
 
Good luck,
 
Cheers