I got ripped off on a dead Amiga 4000

[TheMagicM]

have you gutted it and just hooked up the bare necessities as stated earlier in this thread?  man, i hope it works... looks like a very nice system.

[ceaser]

I'm at pretty much every time I turn it on I get a white screen now.  If you hadn't read back at that post the seller and I are talking now again.  Here's what he says:

"When it turns white that means it passed all the tests and it is ready for boot. You should see the following sequence, dark grey the hardware test passed next comes the light grey the software (kickstart) passed and then the white what I already mentioned it is ready to boot. So try the following motherboard with daughterboard the original chip RAM and only the chip RAM and no keyboard mouse floppy or hard drive attached, keep unplugged for minute or two and then try to boot see if you can get up to the boot screen where it is requesting the workbench. Let me know."

Unfortunately I don't get any workbench insert disk screen.  I had it stripped down to the motherboard without daughterboards, the one with 3x ISA + 1x video toaster (called something else) slot and the other with the 4 zorro III slots.  For those who haven't been following this they stack on top of each other and some extra chassis holds them up.  Last night I had nothing at all hooked up including no keyboard or mouse or floppy or ide (there's a 540 MB HDD in there) and it was giving me green.  I have right now all RAM clips back in and floppy and IDE HDD hooked up and daughterboards back in and I get white and it doesn't change.  left it on for some time now to check that.  another really weird thing about this computer (maybe not to an amiga tech) is it has 2 psus, and they inter-connect correctly if they're on the same dedicated circut.  If I turn on main Amiga 4000 PSU then quick plug in to the other spot on the electrical outlet (w/out surge protector or anything) it magically turns on both power supplies when I press power!  monitor using is a commodore 1960 if you didn't see that part.  it's got a real weird power hookup where it hooks to the back of the computer.  The computer only does the dark grey color if you don't hook up the second psu it seems.  The colors on the cables on the second PSU are more standard and they go with the colors of the fan on the case and the daughterboard.  Complicated description isn't it?  Sorry bout that.  Really all I have is a crappy phone camera look at very top of post and read auction number and look up for the good pictures.   I think about the 7th post down on page one guy made direct links to the pictures that the guy took of the inside and out of the computer.

So white screen right now.  Daughter cards both in and psu's both hooked up.  All ram in, chip + 4 fast RAM modules.  CPU card seated as well as possibly can be and IDE + floppy are hooked up, as well as keyboard and mouse.  no purple floppy insert screen achieved and no sound from floppy drive.

[ceaser]

have you gutted it and just hooked up the bare necessities as stated earlier in this thread?  man, i hope it works... looks like a very nice system.

i really appreciate the enthusiasm!  i'm really dying to fix this too and i don't think there's any soldering required.  i think it's close to working.  if it were a pc i'd put it under the stairs and give it up for now but it isn't.  i have an Amiga 1000 under there waiting there that works.  it'll get some service finally probably after this thing is working.  i just know if i can't figure it out i'll be sending it to Jean in France and spending tons more money before I know it!

I don't know why I didn't think of this before.  I have an extra A4000 power supply.  So I'm now using this to be a dedicated power supply to my Commodore 1960 that has the weird power cable.  DUH!  So maybe just maybe things will test different if I repeat the tests tomorrow, like stripping down to just the motherboard and chip, then just motherboard and daughterboards and chip and going on and on.  But that could've made a big impact on the results.  Not to mention this monitor originated from Germany and I'm in the USA.  The A4000 was able to send correct power to it but I don't know maybe it was because it was eating up 220V and thus sucking power from the A4000.  The 2 PSU thing is quite strange to me as well.  If anyone has any other suggestions still let me know but this might have been key.  I'm not sure if the monitor has an internal switch that makes it work on 120V, but maybe it does, so maybe this wasn't impacting anything.

[koaftder]

You will get this working and your hard work will be worth the effort.

[wawrzon]

have you tried to run the system only with the 4zorro slot daughterboard? this is the original one. the other is pretty much useless anyway (i dont think there is much need for isa slots in amiga except for par dps or pc bridgeboards)

also check the mb jumpers (especially these):


J100: CLK90 Clock Source
          1-2 Closed: Internal (68020/68030)
          2-3 Closed: External (68040)

J104: CPU Clock Source
          1-2 Closed: Internal
          2-3 Closed: External
both have to be external for 040 i believe.
for reference:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/main.html

in the end it could be faulty kickstart rom too, alltough quite unbelievable, i had once or twice such an issue. if everything else fails you could try to replace these.

[mike-]

The daughterboard needs to be inserted for the a4k to work btw.
Best of luck to you.

[koaftder]

have you tried to run the system only with the 4zorro slot daughterboard? this is the original one. the other is pretty much useless anyway (i dont think there is much need for isa slots in amiga except for par dps or pc bridgeboards)

also check the mb jumpers (especially these):


J100: CLK90 Clock Source
          1-2 Closed: Internal (68020/68030)
          2-3 Closed: External (68040)

J104: CPU Clock Source
          1-2 Closed: Internal
          2-3 Closed: External
both have to be external for 040 i believe.
for reference:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/main.html

in the end it could be faulty kickstart rom too, alltough quite unbelievable, i had once or twice such an issue. if everything else fails you could try to replace these.

I'd suggest sliding all the jumpers up and down a bit as well, even if they are in the correct position.

[ceaser]

The daughterboard needs to be inserted for the a4k to work btw.
Best of luck to you.

right this has the highflyer daughterboard that is the one that's attached to the motherboard and it has 3x inactive ISA slots + 1 toaster slot (forgot what it's called but it's for video toaster 4000) then another daughter board with 4x Zorro slots that's the original one.  but this one came shipped with both daughterboards.  you mean they both have to be in it for it to work for sure?  or just the main zorro card one?  It effects the whole power scheme and everything the highflyer expansion card even has it's own connector for that second power supply.  does seem like nothing happens when using just the zorro daughter card

after putting back in the highflyer expansion card, chassis and daughtercard: you need both those cards for it to white screen.  don't know what help that is though.  all those jumpers were in the right place.  i just want a purple insert disk screen already seem to be getting no closer to figuring this out!

[ceaser]

I rule I fixed it!

[Darmaster70]

I rule I fixed it!

Don't keep us in the dark, tell us what you did to get it working.

[doctorq]

The daughterboard needs to be inserted for the a4k to work btw.
Best of luck to you.

That's false information. An A4000 without a daughterboard will work without problems.

Glad to see the machine running again though.

[ceaser]

dismantled every piece (see ebay listing # at very beginning of post for actual GOOD pictures) about 20-30 times.  in the end man i wish i knew.  i took out the buster chip, all ram, cpu card, HDD and ide cable, floppy and ribbon, highflyer expansion daughter card + zorro daughterboard.  eventually I guess it was highflyer expansion in and daughter card out then turned on while holding both mouse buttons.  then realized oops i forgot to put the zorro daughtercard back in, did that turned on again with no mouse buttons and boom it was floppy insert.  put in heimdall 2 aga version (for amiga 1200 it says on it LoL) and it booted.

i got a problem that i know is going to be easy still.  it's just kinda lame but i don't know anything about amiga so... why is my mouse click registering but not any movement??  i tried 2 mice :/

i m still dum

*chip only with floppy and only highflyer card, then turn on + 2 mouse buttons held, then turned off and inserted the other daughterboard (zorro one) and boom insert disk screen finally appeared.  turned off,  then proceeded to put the ide HDD back on there and boom, workbench 3.0.  time to grab some 3.1 roms now and a bunch of other stuff for it

[wawrzon]

now this is beyond me. while i believe to recall issue like that i know no solution anymore. hope it is not a motherboard failure in the end. but good to hear it is booting.

[ChaosLord]

An A3000 without daughterboard will 100% not work.  Donno about A4000.

[Firedawg]

dismantled every piece (see ebay listing # at very beginning of post for actual GOOD pictures) about 20-30 times.  in the end man i wish i knew.  i took out the buster chip, all ram, cpu card, HDD and ide cable, floppy and ribbon, highflyer expansion daughter card + zorro daughterboard.  eventually I guess it was highflyer expansion in and daughter card out then turned on while holding both mouse buttons.  then realized oops i forgot to put the zorro daughtercard back in, did that turned on again with no mouse buttons and boom it was floppy insert.  put in heimdall 2 aga version (for amiga 1200 it says on it LoL) and it booted.

i got a problem that i know is going to be easy still.  it's just kinda lame but i don't know anything about amiga so... why is my mouse click registering but not any movement??  i tried 2 mice :/

i m still dum

*chip only with floppy and only highflyer card, then turn on + 2 mouse buttons held, then turned off and inserted the other daughterboard (zorro one) and boom insert disk screen finally appeared.  turned off,  then proceeded to put the ide HDD back on there and boom, workbench 3.0.  time to grab some 3.1 roms now and a bunch of other stuff for it

Glad you got some life to show from your machine.  As Doctorq pointed out to you testing can be conducted without the daughterboard in place, to include the highflyer card.  You want to get that base configuration working, if not then you would know the problem would have been at the mainboard level.  

As for the mouse make sure you have in plugged in the correct port.

The Dawg

[ceaser]

As for the mouse make sure you have in plugged in the correct port.

The Dawg

It's in the right port for the mouse.  Not sure what I have to do to make it work I tried input and pointer in preferences in workbench and they didn't seem to do anything.