Dead Amigas

[amigamad]

sad but true, all the classic Amiga hardware will be dead and lost forever.

True i dont use my cdtv to much i want it to last a bit longer.

[Animagic]

Yes, my first A1200 died in my arms because of power over-voltage (Lightning)

 :boohoo:  :boohoo:  :boohoo:  :boohoo:  :boohoo:

[DanDude]

Accelerators with PAL chips will most likely to croak and hard drives that run 24-7 are most likely to take a step closer to their grave.  Otherwise, like I did with my other amigas, watch their voltages, keep it clean from dust and dirt, check their fans and your Amiga will last longer than you think.

Unfortunately, I may have to throw out one accelerator card for my 2000 unless I find a way to keep those PAL chips from failing when they start to heat up.  I had the cover off and placed fans over them while I had it running, but if I need to keep the cover closed, it won't help at all.  I'll try to use retangular chip heatsink fins and see what happens.

The very first sign that your old hard drive starts to give you trouble, back all your valuable information and get a new one.  

Replace batteries that leak immediately and clean the board with 1. Isopropyl alcohol and 2. rinse with 50/50 alcohol/water.  Make a label with a date to replace the battery 5 years from today and place it on the case of your Amiga.  If necessary make a quick-disconnect plug for the battery and the board.

Replace any bad fan immediately with a brand new one.  Make sure you match the same volume air flow as it says on the label.

 :-)

[Madgun68]

I've never had an Amiga completely dead.. Anything that went wrong I can usually fix.

I was cleaning my A4000 mobo last week when one of the SMT caps just fell apart. (Was cleaning it because the right audio channel was really low compared to the left.) Replaced C180, C433 and C443. Everything is right with the world again. :-)

[JetFireDX]

I had my A4000 get executed by memory eploding on the CV64/3D.  (Seriously now, blue sparks and stinky smoke, and one of the chips had a hole in it.) Sent the CV64/3D back for repair and eventually got a replacement. A4000 suffered a moderately burned trace on the mobo that there was no way I was going to be able to fix. It kept working, very VERY badly for a while, but one morning when I powered it up, only a cold unfeeling black screen was shown. It had been giving me really random crashes and failures to boot up properly before hand. I tried everything to get something out of it, but nothing worked. I was able to part out the good bits though to  some guys around who still used Amigas and make back a couple bucks.

[DethKnight]

My first A500, bought in 1987 lasted 10 years

And my beloved A3000/25 (purchased seconhand) lasted 4 months. It's gone bigtime battery  acid,CPU scorched ....

[smerf]

Hi,

Yea, an Amiga 3000 died on me, I was adding some memory and when I got it all back together and turned it on it went for about 30 minutes as I was setting up Ibrowse to tour the internet when I got the black screen of death it just sort of flickered the screen and died never to live again. Other then that, no, I still have all my Amiga's, I have a non working A500 but it was not working when given to me.

Smerf

I had to replace a serial port buffer chip in my A2000 a few times, and an A500 burst into flames on me once. Fried my Prometheus card a couple weeks ago too, but I think that was my fault and not random death's fault. And another A500 blew a huge chunk of smoke at me once, but I didn't see any flame that time.

[Abou27]

None actually died on me.  The keyboard failed on my old A500, though.  Current A1200 going strong. Touch wood.


Isn't this thread tempting fate a wee bit?!

[Jiffy]

I never had an Amiga die on me. One of my A500's didn't work correctly though, when I bought them (the guy only wanted to sell his A1200 (which I _really_ wanted to have) if I took three A500s with it. It booted up fine, but the keyboard didn't work. After a short while, I found out one of the keyboardpins on the mobo was gone. Easy fix if you're handy with a soldering iron.

At the moment, I'm happy with both my 1200 & 2000 (one of each as a spare). If I can find the time & money I'm thinking of really juicing up the 2000 upto its max...

[Abou27]

Actually, just remembered that when I first added RAM to 4yr old A1200, a chip was fried! So, the A1200 that I currently rely on and claim good reliability from, actually has had a replacement motherboard.

Still pleased with overall Amiga reliability, though.

On a similar note, how have people found the Amiga's reliability when compared to other platforms?

[Cyberus]

I think the thing that has to be born in mind, is the fact that 5 year old PCs can be had out of skips - well, that's where I got some bits the other day  :-D

But 10 year old Amigas (and older) are still being used regularly....

[mikey2001]

I own an A4000 and an A1200 and neither of them have died....yet  :-)

[The_Beast]

i retired my old trusty a500 a few years ago when i got my 1200, the 500 still works great tho its in storage for the time being, the only puter problem ive ever had was i purchased a new c64 and it was bad from the start, had one other c64 stolen, another 64 broken by an idiot now ex-friend, and the 4th and last one i bought still works perfectly to this day, tho ive got such a large cache of old c64/amiga hardware and software, i cant remember which c64 was my old one but they all work so it doesnt really matter   :-o  :-o  :-o

[Im>bE]

I bought an A1200 in 92
that gave my life meaning.
It still works as it has ever.

I bought a third hand A1200T years ago.
Now I use it with a 060
and im in heaven,
and noone dies in heaven.

[Cyberus]

and im in heaven,
and noone dies in heaven.

 :-D