A4000 tower...help!

[Morley]

Sorry for the lame subject-topic...

Just received my A4000Tower (original) today, and whooooops, it doesn't work as it should...oh no.

Whenever I put a SCSI HDD on the SCSI chain, the machine refuses to boot. I can't access the Early Startup menu, it just stops on a grey screen.

Also my mouse(pointer) only wants to travel up&down, not sideways... the right mouse button is also defunct.
I have tried with 2 different hdd's and mice, but no help...think there is some bad contacts on the cables from the io-board to the mainboard.

And when I fire it up with no hdd's installed, it loads from floppy, but it stops loading workbench half-way...could this bee from the missing workbench.libray not being on the floppy's? I only have WB3.0

What I look for is an explanation of the DIP-switches on the scsi-card, and some tips from existing users...

Any help/tips highly appreciated, this is an absolutely sad moment for me...waiting for it to arrive, only to learn that it is'nt working :-o

[x56h34]

Check if all expansion cards are seated correctly. Accelerator (A3640?) may not be properly inserted, or any other zorro card. Just a guess. It could be something else.

[Morley]

well, I just checked the jumpers on the mainboard...what shoyuld they be set to? CLK90 clock-source and CPU clock source are set to external, guess this OK for a 3640 board.
There are no expansion boards here, just plain original with 3640 ver. 3.1 here. Shouldn't this be a ver 3.2 as the entire machine seems to be from '95?

[x56h34]

I am not sure what revision(s) of A3640 were included with A4000T. Probably 3.1, as they were the most commonly produced revision.

Try setting up an IDE hard drive and booting into OS3.1 or better yet to 3.9 from it, and then start adding more stuff to your system, like the SCSI hard drive, etc. That would enable you to diagnose the problem(s) more easily.

Have you tried a different amiga mouse, or the same mouse with a different Amiga?

Finally, Vesalia seem to stock some A4000T spare parts, so maybe you can find the right replacement stuff there?

EDIT: Also, your A3640 card may be defective. I've heard that some revisions are prone to failures. Again, just a guess.

[logicalheart]

For the up/down mouse problem, there is a problem with the connections with the ribbon cables in the back.  Take off the comm cables and make sure the pins are aligned properly in the cables when you put them back on.  You'll know the cables, they are two really short IDE ones.  - Lars

[Morley]

'at least Gloom works and boots! :-D

I think the mouse not wanting to move sideways is caused by bad contact in the cabling between the mainboard and the io-board. Probably just a minor fix.

But what irritates me is that it is unstable, it guru's on rebooting, on different occasions, just without a cause. I think maybe there's something with the clock-jumper settings on the mb...what should i use with the 3640?

[AmigaAbattoir]

According to my A4000T manual, A4000T Motherboard Jumper section:  (Excuse the bad ASCII picture)

CLK90 Clock Source
J100: 1-2 closed - Internal (68030) <[··]o
J100: 2-3 closed - External (68040)
CPU Clock Source
J104: 1-2 closed - Internal (68030) <[··]o
J104: 2-3 closed - External (68040)
These would be located near the CPU slot.  I think they should be set to 2-3 (away from the end with the triangle)

SCSI Dip Switches (all set to OFF by default)
SCSI Address
Tabs 1,2,3
SCSI Fast Bus
Tab 4: Turn on to disable SCSI fast bus
Short/Long Spinup
Tab 5: Turn on for long spin-up
Synchronous Mode
Tab 6: Turn on to disable synchronous mode
External SCSI Termination
Tab 7: Turn on if you have external devices
Logical Unit Enable
Tab 8: Turn on to enable all LUNs to be recognized

I have had many problems with my A4000T, so I think I can help a little. :-)  I've put the ribbon cables for the port module on wrong, and had similar problems where the mouse would not move sideways.  

As for problems with stabilty, try laying the A4000T on it's side (like a desktop).  Might be that the accelerator card is not sitting right in the cpu slot.  You might have to put spacers under the board to keep it sitting right.

[Morley]

Hi!

Thanks for the answer, but unfortunately, my jumpers were set correct. I tried switching them btw, but that led to the machine not wanting to boot at all.

I spoke to the person ho sold it, and he said that he tested it several hours before shipping it off. But he switched the cpu-card, I think he tested it with an accelerator or something similar, and according to what he said, he just took a 3640 from a pile he had of them, but it has been tested.
Anyways, he thinks there could be some combability issues with the different 3640's and the 4000tower. My card is a v3.1, but my machine is stamped'95, so I really think a 3.2 should be what it was shipped with? If you still have your original 3640, have you got a chance to check out the rev. version on it?
I think this could solve the SCSI problem, but the mouse thing is a little more tricky...I have triple-checked the cables, and the joystick works fine, so I really don't think that the cpu-board has anything to do with this?

[AmigaAbattoir]

Sorry, I don't have a 3640.  Since I already had a Cyberstorm card, I bought my A4000T without a processor to save some money.

[Quixote]

:-? For the SCSI trouble, I assume that we've checked the obvious things like termination at both ends, a unique ID on each device, and so on?  Often it's the simpler things that will get you.

;-) As for the jumpers on your SCSI controller, you might want to check this site.  They legally host archives of drivers for obsolete Amiga hardware.  The install disks and documentation for your SCSI controller may be there.

[Morley]

Well...I have only got one SCSI-device hooked up, and it's id is set correctly. Termination is OK on the drive end, but do I need to add a terminator on the controller? seems strange...

As for the mouse, I got it working now...I just took everything out of the box, and reinserted it again, whohey! the mouse works :-)

[darksun9210]

yeah as standard the scsi controller on the A4000 isn't auto terminating, so setting the switch on the back to "no external scsi devices" will terminate the bus at the controller. if your drive doesn't offer termination (assuming for previous posts that you do only have one SCSI device) then on the IO board on the back of the A4000T case that carries the mouse/joystick/parrallel/serial ports, there should be an unused 50pin socket. this is actaully a passive scsi terminator, so if your ribbon reaches, switch off the termination of the drive and plug the end of the cable into this.

also, another idea, switch your scsi bus to "slow scsi" mode and try playing with the Async/sync switc too. see if this clears anything up.

i had a set of quantum fireball drives that loved fast/syncronous scsi, but as soon as i put a seagate barracuda drive on there, i had all sorts of problems till i switched the bus to asyncronous.

btw, got a couple of scsi cdroms and DDS2 tape drives here that i have no use for.. anyone interested?

[Cyberus]

I could sure use a CDROM :-)

[Morley]

@darksun9210

hmm...think that could be the source of some of my problems, I believe I never turned the termination on. I thought it was ment for the external devices only.. but anyway I think I flipped that switch also when I was testing it. I think I tried all combinations of those jumpers :lol:  But shouldn't it just refuse to see the drive if the bus-termination is bad? mine hangs completely, this is different from my blizzard1230IV who doesn't care about termination at all :-) I've got the computer working now btw., booting from ide. When I run hdtoolbox it checks all adresses without crashing, so the controller chip should be OK, wild guess.
I have also got some instability problems on my wb, but I think that is because of the sys: partition being dumped from my 1200 and some libraries tweaked for '030. It goes guru without warning every now and then. But when i boot from floppy everything is 100% (except for the ¤%#!! SCSI controller) :pissed:

[Morley]

Well... latest status update for those interested:

I now have it working from an IDE hdd, everything is 110% from the IDE hdd, I even got to mount a SCSI cd-rom. But the instant i add an SCSI-hdd, - nothing. Just a boring black screen and the drive led on the tower flashes something like 2x per second..huh.
Also when I fire it up from cold-boot with an ide-hdd installed, it hangs before booting anything, and I have to warm-reset it, and then everything works...
Strange, huh? :-?