A1200 slowly dying?

[Lurch]

So it has been the week from hell, not sure what is going on with my A1200. All started when I installed a new FastATA. (Brand spanking new from Amigakit)

FastATA would access the HDD, the HDD light would come on and try and boot but would give up after 10-15 seconds and take me to the kickstart screen. Tried to get into the early boot menu but it wont let me.

Tried several reboots no luck getting into the early boot menu. Remove the HDD (leaving the FastATA installed) and I can get in every time which is no good as I wanting to see if it actually detected the HDD.

Use to have a FastATA with this board which worked fine so puzzled.

So removed the FastATA and just had the mediator attached as I was using it to power on the Amiga. The Amiga would then work for a few seconds and turn off, so thought it must be shorting on something. Even though it's been installed in this case and working fine for awhile.

So stripped it down to just the mainboard, indi AGA and FastATA set up the Amiga on a bench outside of the case and I get a black screen. Took out the FastATA and put in the kickstart chips and now I get a quick glimpse of the kickstart screen but it's corrupted looking and then it goes to a purple screen with no picture.

Had a look around and I can't find my original 3.0 ROMs but might try that tomorrow if I can find them.

This is where I gave up, the more I touch the thing the worse it gets. So if I have no joy tomorrow not sure what my next step would be.

I have a bid in on another 1200 motherboard, fingers crossed it doesn't go too high. If it does sad to say but will part it out and sell it.

Oh the caps and timing fixes have been done by Amigakit so it can't be caps.

[Blizz1220]

Had a lot of problems when I installed 3.5"-2.5" adapter in mine
A1200 , so much so I made a small hole for cable to go through and
made some mounters to keep it in place.

If it got even slightly loose then black screens , reboots , all sort of
strange things.Adapter was just a little too big to fit right and it seemed
to me that once I removed it Amiga stayed in state of shock for a short
period of time :confused:

If it worked before FastATA let it rest then try without it and go from there.

[Lurch]

Yep she is having a sleep at the moment so maybe she will come too again, weird stuff.

[giZmo350]

@Lurch  Both of my A1200's basically did the same thing over the course of a few years. Long story short, the first thing I thought might be malfunctioning was an add-on. The AT-A1200 in my sig (with a FastATA) first started freezing up when cold. The longer it was on, the more stable it became. But, then after more time passed, the more erratic it became. I just put it aside for a year or so after that.    

Next, ahhh, I have another A1200 - good for me! It has a 1B motherboard. Equipped it with an ACA accelerator, Indi MKII, and USB. It started acting up by not allowing the Indi to initialize correctly. All else worked ok but it was just unusable with the Indi problem.

So, yup, I had to come to the realization that I gotta tear these both apart and determine which add-on is malfunctioning. After getting them both apart and stripping them bare and testing with no or swapping add-on's it became clear that both motherboards were the culprit.

The AT-A1200 has a bad CPU and/or RAM. Finally figured this out by getting (after about 8 hours of fiddling) it to FINALLY show me some screen error codes - yellow and sometimes black.

The A1200 - 1B culprit is malfunctioning on board video (I even recapped it! - Arggg). The RGB doesn't give a proper signal and therefor would not initialize the Indi MKII correctly. This is a big difference between the MKI and the MKII.

So, I swapped in the Indi MKI into the 1B mobo and that Indi unit doesn't care about initialization from the mobo and therefore works correctly. Of course RGB is still horked. So, that's the A1200 I'm currently using and at least one is working for now.

In conclusion, It seems to me that the more add-on's you connect to an A1200 - the more current is pulled thru the system and the more likely for a premature motherboard malfunction. A1200's just seem fragile to me. Now, most all my (pricey to me) add-on's are back in there original boxes tucked away for now. I would love to get my AT-A1200 mobo repaired but that's just not in the stars at this time and sending to AmigaKit would cost a small fortune (especially if I sent both for repair). The 1B is working for now so... I'm not desperate at this point LOL.

So anyways, I feel your PAIN!

I'm having lots of fun building my A2000 Toaster system at this time anyhoo - so, that's feeding my Amiga addiction for now! :lol:

[Lurch]

@gizmo350 It's not right LOL Spend time and money on it and it then decides no, I'm not going to work now.
The more addons you get the more the A1200 wants to revolt, one day it can be working 100% next it decides to fall over.
It is like a downward spiral, starts with one thing then something else decides not to work until nothing works.
So now on the hunt for a replacement board, probably be my last Amiga purchase as the budget is dry LOL
The annoying part is my current board has had the caps and timing fixes applied so works great with just about any accelerator. Well did work great.
Finding replacement motherboards is hard work, was hoping Amiga reloaded might be an option but doesn't look promising.
Amigas their name fits them so well.

[QuikSanz]

Wasn't there some software that checked the system and all the custom chips? Did you have the power supply recapped?

[Lurch]

No old Amiga PSU here, ATX 600W. I've tried another PSU still samething, not sure about getting it to boot.

With the kickstart screen showing corrupted. Might plug in a gotek.

[QuikSanz]

Hmm, maybe reseat all socketed chips? Grasping at straws here.

[stefcep2]

You haven't said anything about your accelerator/RAM expansion.  I would pull that and everything else off the motherboard and boot off the internal floppy.

The install the acclerator card libraries

Then add the accelerator with no RAM.

Then add the RAM.

Then add a blank hard drive on the internal IDE and install workbench.

Then add the FASTATA.  Then add the hard drive above to it.

Then add the mediator

Then add the indivision.

[paul1981]

No old Amiga PSU here, ATX 600W. I've tried another PSU still samething, not sure about getting it to boot.

With the kickstart screen showing corrupted. Might plug in a gotek.

Did you manage to try a different pair of rom chips yet?

I have a FastATA MkIII with Apollo1260. I remember when I was first building this system, it wouldn't boot with KS3.0 roms, just a black screen. And I can't remember whether it was the FastATA or just the fact that the FastATA was combined with the Apollo, but anyway - 3.1 roms worked and 3.0 roms didn't (black screen). Just something to consider if you decide to test with 3.0 roms. It may have even been with the Apollo1240 not the 1260, I can't remember exactly...

[Lurch]

Did you manage to try a different pair of rom chips yet?

I have a FastATA MkIII with Apollo1260. I remember when I was first building this system, it wouldn't boot with KS3.0 roms, just a black screen. And I can't remember whether it was the FastATA or just the fact that the FastATA was combined with the Apollo, but anyway - 3.1 roms worked and 3.0 roms didn't (black screen). Just something to consider if you decide to test with 3.0 roms. It may have even been with the Apollo1240 not the 1260, I can't remember exactly...

Interesting, haven't found my 3.0 roms. Use to have the original FastATA with 3.1/custom 3.9 roms that use to work so thought it would be a simple case of installing the FastATA.

Only have my 3.9 roms, might have to buy some 3.1 roms and see if it's the 3.9 roms causing the issue.

But more worrying is the corrupt kickstart screen, I have an svideo adapter here so going to hook that up and see what happens.

Hopefully it's not my Indi as I can't afford another one at the moment.

I've stripped it back to just the indi and I get a corrupt kickstart, so svideo adapter next. But might be a case of the board failing.

[gertsy]

Huston I'd like to report that I have a bad feeling about this mission.  

[Lurch]

So it's not the indi, but it appears to be the kickstart roms. I now get a purple only screen no animated disk.

So going to see if I can find my 3.0 roms, if not try and find some cheap 3.1 roms :-)

[gertsy]

So it's not the indi, but it appears to be the kickstart roms. I now get a purple only screen no animated disk.

So going to see if I can find my 3.0 roms, if not try and find some cheap 3.1 roms :-)

You haven't been having a disco in your room again with that strobe and ultraviolet flouro ?  Here's hoping it's the ROMs. Less $ for sure.

[Lurch]

You haven't been having a disco in your room again with that strobe and ultraviolet flouro ?  Here's hoping it's the ROMs. Less $ for sure.

How did you know?? ;-) I'm hoping that is the case, I have a bid on a motherboard fingers crossed it doesn't go too high just in case. Touch wood!

If its the kickstarts I'll be a very happy man, just had a quick look nothing local so it might be Amibay or Amigakit :-/