Found A3640 Repair, Service and Upgrade (x2)

Hello there! Long-time lurker, recent member and first-time poster here, so I'm hoping I've posted this in the right place!

I have two A3640 boards which, when I acquired them (they were thrown in with an Amiga 4000D), were both described as non-working. I'd now like to see if it's possible to get them working again!

I'm looking for someone who would be able to repair these boards and, should the repairs be successful, service them (replacing caps, etc.) and upgrade them as they are both rev 3.0 boards.

The boards both look like they have already had work attempted (not by me, I swear!) but I have no idea what was done to them.

The first 3 images attached are from the first board, which has an XC68040RC40M, whilst the last 3 images are from the second board which has an XC68040RC25A. The first board does also have a heatsink with it, though this isn't shown in the photographs.

I currently have an Amiga 4000D with an A3630 in so, should repairs be successful, I would use the better of the 2 boards in my own machine.

Cheers!

Hello, i usually repairing amigas and do the 3.2 REV mod on the a3640 (put them at 30/33Mhz too). Those boards are really strange, i've got 5 at home, some of them works on a 4000 but not on the A4000T, others works on 3000 but not on 4000, the others are simply dead, looks like new but dead...The last one refused to work on any machine... till i out it at 33Mhz !
So i can try to do the job, you can send me a PM if you want.

Hivernaal said:

So i can try to do the job, you can send me a PM if you want.

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Hivernaal, many thanks for your response. I'll send you a PM now to get a quote if that's ok?

I'd also like to see if there is anyone in the UK who could do this as well, purely because the cost of shipping the cards across to you is a little higher than I had hoped! I mean no offence by this - as I say, it's purely about the cost vs. the little money I have available to spend on this project!

(And sorry for this post, but I needed to get my post count up before I could send a PM! )

don't worry i understand

PM sent

Hello all, and sorry for not updating this thread in a while - had some stuff going on that kept me away!

Firstly, thanks to everyone who sent me a PM or gave me a quote for the work. After sending a few PM's back and forth I've gone with an offer from bebek and the cards were posted Tuesday - fingers crossed something is salvageable from them!

If anyone is interested I'll keep this thread updated with the progress/outcome so people know whether the cards could be saved!

Could be intersted in one board if one day you decide to sell one....

A working board!

A working board!

I've finally gotten round to posting an update!

So, after sending the boards to Bebek he confirmed that they were in pretty bad shape:

they are with me but in horrible state, whoever did rework on them should be banned from soldering iron and pcb's in general . Damaged pads, vias, broken tracks. One is very bad, second a bit less.

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At this point I had pretty much accepted that these were never coming back to life, hence why they had been thrown in with the A4000 when I bought it. icard

However, Bebek worked his magic and last week I received in the post a shiny A3640 (the one with the XC68040RC40M) that had been repaired, had the capacitors replaced, been upgraded to Rev 3.2 and delay line modded. Upon putting it in my A4000 (and eventually remembering to swap the jumpers on the motherboard!) I had my system booting and working with a 68040! Many childhood dreams were suddenly fulfilled in that moment. :roll:

He's also had it working at 33MHz so I'm eventually planning on swapping the 50MHz crystal for a 66MHz part and seeing if my A4000 can cope. The second board is still dead, but it's staying with Bebek for a bit longer to see if he's able to revive it.

I'm really pleased with the board and Bebek's work and would heartily recommend him to anyone looking to get this sort of work done.

(Ubiquitous pr0n-shot attached!)

Thanks m8, I am glad you are happy.

Just curious, maybe for the first board (the now working one) it was attempted an upgrade to rev. 3.2? The U209 PAL already was at -03 revision.

fiat1100d said:

Just curious, maybe for the first board (the now working one) it was attempted an upgrade to rev. 3.2? The U209 PAL already was at -03 revision.

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Yes, it was but unfortunately the IC had many legs not soldered (both of IC's) and to make it right it had to be taken off and put back (legs were too far from the pads) .When is off the only right thing is to reprogram it again just in case as it can not be verified and that was done. Looks like the previous owner or whoever reworked these cards forgot to turn on soldering iron and he also removed crystal with tracks and barrels ...

Unfortunately second board was in worse state with missing cap pads and tracks, again unsoldered IC's and damaged crystal barrels and it is still dead even after correcting these faults. I am running out of options here ...

fiat1100d said:

Just curious, maybe for the first board (the now working one) it was attempted an upgrade to rev. 3.2? The U209 PAL already was at -03 revision.

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Good eyes!

I'd spotted that U209 had the -03 denomination before I posted this thread (I'd tried to do some research beforehand, mainly on Amiga forums and this A3640 Reference site, but realised I was rapidly getting out of my depth!) but, given that the card was not working and in a dire state, I just went with the assumption that the upgrade hadn't been successful.

As a result I treated both boards as non-working Rev 3.0 boards that needed upgrading from scratch (as any potential upgrades couldn't be relied upon). As bebek said,

bebek said:

When [U209] is off the only right thing is to reprogram it again just in case as it can not be verified

Click to expand...

One dose of bebek's solder-fu later and I have a working A3640 Rev 3.2!

---------- Post added at 09:35 ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 ----------

bebek said:

Unfortunately second board was in worse state with missing cap pads and tracks, again unsoldered IC's and damaged crystal barrels and it is still dead even after correcting these faults. I am running out of options here ...

Click to expand...

I'm guessing the prognosis isn't good for the 2nd board then?

Thankfully at least the first board hadn't been damaged to the point of non-repair so you were able to work your magic on it. 1 out of 2 ain't bad (sounds almost like a Meat Loaf song :roll!

Disclaimer: Meat Loaf is not my taste in music. Just wanted to clarify that.
Further Disclaimer: Not that there is anything wrong with his music, and no offence is intended to those who do like it. It's just not my cup of tea.

Thank you both for the explanations!

Just a quick update - Bebek has managed to work his magic and bring the second card back to life so I now have 2 fully working A3640 cards!

Many thanks to Bebek for his hard work, and I can heartily recommended his services.

Please could this thread be closed/marked as found?