Green screen of death.

[willbloke]

Right , dug an old A1200 out at work , it's got an unidentifiable RAM expansion , with a socket (unpopulated) for I guess an FPU , and a battery , again I'm guessing for a RTC .
With this in place you get a green screen on boot , which checking on the NET is a memory fault.

With the card dropped out it gets to the load WB screen and gets no further .

I'ts got a 4.8G HD , which you can hear spin up , but nothing else happens .

Now forgive me , it's been so long since I used an Amiga that I'm struggling to remember , but you have to get it into WB to check the HD I think ?

Is there any likelyhood the the RAM can be resurrected or is it toast ?

Time to try and locate those old WB discs I guess !

[Zac67]

Green screen is chip RAM failure (the onboard RAM, not the expansion board which is fast RAM). The change when removing the board may just be coincidence.

Has the battery leaked? Heavy corrosion damage on the expansion could also lead to weird problems.

[J-Golden]

If you have an Amiga mouse, hook it up and hold down both buttons while starting up the 1200.  This will bring you to the early startup screen and from here you can see if the Hard Drive is even detected.

If it is detected, then you will need your disks like you said to check further.  If it is not detected, then make sure the cable is firmly connected.   Power is through the cable, so the fact that it is spinning up is good, but if the connection isn't flush, then the pins on the other end of the connection may not be making the proper connection.

Either way, excellent find!  I hope you can bring it back to life…

If you still haven’t figured out what the memory board is, try comparing it to pics on the Big Book of Amiga Hardware.  Ok, never mind there a million and one memory cards on there!  If you can take a pic of it and post it in the forums someone might be able to recognize it…

GOOD LUCK!:)

[paul2004v]

Some older drives spin up too slowly to boot 1st time... Like mine... A simple CTRL-Amiga-Amiga at the boot screen gets mine going... If it doesn't boot after that then it's either not being detected for some reason, not formatted or just plain broken

[willbloke]

Ok , both mouse buttons pressed it shows no HD , so I guess that it's borked .

Just found another randon 2.5 HD , this doesn't show up either , could be 2 duff discs (they're bound to be old) or is it a duff HD controller on Mobo ?

The green screen thing is confusing , sometimes it does , sometimes it doesn't :confused:

[willbloke]

Right !

Good here init !:afro:

The trapdoor card is a Power Computing 4M/CLK/FPU PC528 which doesn't seem to be on the Amiga Hardware site ?

I'm using my rapier like mind to deduce it's 4 Meg with a real time clock and a socket for an FPU !

[Daedalus]

Ok , both mouse buttons pressed it shows no HD , so I guess that it's borked .

Just found another randon 2.5 HD , this doesn't show up either , could be 2 duff discs (they're bound to be old) or is it a duff HD controller on Mobo ?

The green screen thing is confusing , sometimes it does , sometimes it doesn't :confused:

You need to have a look at the motherboard itself to see if there are any signs of visible damage there. It's possible for a trapdoor expansion to trigger it, but unlikely. As for the hard drives - unless they contain Amiga partitions and RDB, they're not going to show up in the early startup menu, even if they're perfectly good. You need to boot from a floppy with a hard drive prep tool to really see if they're working, not working, or working with a DOS or Windows setup.

[willbloke]

You need to have a look at the motherboard itself to see if there are any signs of visible damage there. It's possible for a trapdoor expansion to trigger it, but unlikely. As for the hard drives - unless they contain Amiga partitions and RDB, they're not going to show up in the early startup menu, even if they're perfectly good. You need to boot from a floppy with a hard drive prep tool to really see if they're working, not working, or working with a DOS or Windows setup.

Ahh , right , so if it's not been partitioned with WB it won't show up then ?

Let's see if I can find any WB discs !

Woohoo , found some WB3 discs ....

Arrrghhh .
They don't work , drive spins and does the "feed a disc in screen."

Sooo , either the drive is dead or the 19 year old discs are unreadable ....:furious:

I'm not going to let this beat me ...
What about if I build a WinUAE machine , could I effectively build a working virtual machine and swap the HD into the real Amiga .
Is this possible ?

[willbloke]

Right !

One of the other Techs here saw me playing with the A1200 yesterday and said "I've got an old Amiga in the loft , you can have"

Bought it in today , it's an A500 , fired up ok played a bit of Turrican with a dodgy joystick , loaded WB ok .

Went to restart it and that's now got the green screen of death :pissed:

Now I know the A500 floppy is working , will it fit into the A1200 ?

I'd rather get the A1200 working if possible ??

[J-Golden]

Ok, totally out of the blue, but you now have TWO Amigas giving you the green screen? :eek:

I don't know how "lucky" you could be having that happen to you twice so close together.

I almost wonder if there is an external issue causing it.  With the Green screen being chip ram, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I keep getting a nagging feeling it might be a grounding issue.

I have nothing to back that up, mind you, other than that I was in the repair biz LONG ago and it might be a loose synapses trying to fire from eons ago.:lol:

So, try a power strip that tells you if your outlet is grounded and barring that, just try to hook it up in a different room.  That and maybe try a different monitor TV.

GOOD LUCK!  ‘Cuase if those don't work, YOUR PROBABLY CURSED!!!:nervous:

[willbloke]

Just call me magic fingers !

The A1200 is playing ball , must of just needed a bit of a run, it works with the RAM card , detects the RAM card as working , but won't boot from floppy.

Before I killed the A500 it was booting fine , so I know that floppy is ok .
Just tried the A1200 with a game that worked in the A500 and it wouldn't read the disc , so I know the drive is duff .

Will the A500 floppy fit/work in the A1200 ?

[TheGoose]

Just call me magic fingers !

The A1200 is playing ball , must of just needed a bit of a run, it works with the RAM card , detects the RAM card as working , but won't boot from floppy.

Before I killed the A500 it was booting fine , so I know that floppy is ok .
Just tried the A1200 with a game that worked in the A500 and it wouldn't read the disc , so I know the drive is duff .

Will the A500 floppy fit/work in the A1200 ?

Will, now poke your head outside - is there any crop circles near by your place? Glowy lights in the woods? Can you see Stone Hedge from your window?

Glad to hear it awakened :lol:

[Zac67]

On a 500 it can very well be the Agnus socket. Push down Agnus with a bit of force and chances are it'll creak a bit, settling into the socket. If present, check the trapdoor expansion as well for battery damage and/or bad contacts.

And yes, a 500 floppy should work in a 1200. It may not fit mechanically though.

[Daedalus]

Yep, only Amiga partitions show up in the early startup menu. Well, the floppy drive should work, but IIRC it doesn't physically fit. So if you connect it up and leave the top cover loose on the A1200, you should be able to get it going that way. Those original drives are dying of old age unfortunately - it's quite possible the A1200's one's time had come...

[LordSpunky]

Right , dug an old A1200 out at work , it's got an unidentifiable RAM expansion , with a socket (unpopulated) for I guess an FPU , and a battery , again I'm guessing for a RTC .
With this in place you get a green screen on boot , which checking on the NET is a memory fault.

With the card dropped out it gets to the load WB screen and gets no further .

I'ts got a 4.8G HD , which you can hear spin up , but nothing else happens .

Now forgive me , it's been so long since I used an Amiga that I'm struggling to remember , but you have to get it into WB to check the HD I think ?

Is there any likelyhood the the RAM can be resurrected or is it toast ?

Time to try and locate those old WB discs I guess !

Hi from Somerset! :laughing: