manic23
Only Amiga Makes it Happen
I hate to temp fate but...
I feel so happy tonight that I had to post here. After 8 months I have finally got my A4000 working perfectly the way I want it!! I have wanted an Amiga A4000 ever since about 1992 when it was released. I had an A1200 back in the early 90's but ended up selling it with a view to putting the cash towards a A4000, but before I could save up enough money Commodore went and filed for bankruptcy!! how selfish of them!
Well anyway last September I bit the bullet and got one, finally fulfilling my dreams. However plain sailing it was most certainly not! fiszsteve tried to warn me "having an A4000 is nothing but a pain in the bum" he warned me. did I listen? no, part of me wishes I had but the other part of me is not so very happy that I have a lovely working A4000. Here is the story if you are interested.
I got the A4000 in September 2014, just a stock off the shelf model A3640 card and nothing else. Everything seemed to be working fine with just a regular WB 3.1 install no problems. The fun started once I introduced a Picasso IV to the party! I had constant lock ups and freezes shortly after powering it up and ALWAYS when opening and then closing DOpus. I got an error asking to wait for disk activity to finish then it would just freeze. If I put the card in Zorro II mode however it seemed to work fine (although TheCorfiot subsequently told me that he also found it unstable in Zorro II mode). I was convinced that it was to do with the fact that the board had a Buster 9 fitted so I made enquiries here on AmiBay to see if there was someone here who could fit one for me. I was surprised to find out that they are still for sale on AmiKit so I got one.
With the combined efforts of TheCorfiot and bebek I got the buster 11 fitted, got the board recapped, also got a few minor other repair work done on the board. bebek did an absolute 1st class job on the board, in fact the soldering is so good on the Buster 11 that at first I didn't think it had been changed!!
However on getting the computer back it became apparent that 2 of the slots on the Z3 busboard were not working. I took the computer to fitzsteve who very kindly helped me on the road to getting the computer working (thanks Steve), he also discovered the faulty busboard. luckily for me bebek had a spare that he sold me and this seemed to do the job (well after a bit of IPA and contact cleaning that is).
I now have a really stable and working A4000 that I am very happy with, I have none of the issues with the Picasso IV that I was having before. I have a standard A3640 CPU board, Picasso IV, X-Surf 100 network card with the Rapid Road USB module and the BigRam Plus 256MB expansion all working with no issues what so ever.
And to put the icing on the cake this evening I even managed to get the CD drive working, I could not do this before no mater what I tried, in the end the only way I could get it working was to get the 4-way IDE adapter from AmigaKit, at first this did not work but I think I had the cables round the wrong way! Yes I know I'm a numpty :nuts:
I now just have one last issue to resolve... can you guess? yes I'm sure that every A4000 owner has come across the dreaded PSU overheating issue. At the moment I am using the computer with the case off the PSU and directing a desktop fan over the innards to cool it. This works but is not pretty. If I don't do this I get lock-ups and screen corruption.
I read that the A4000 is renowned for overheating caused mainly by the laughably bad design of the Power Supply. What the hell were Commodore thinking when designing a PSU that draws air from inside a case that is likely to be warn already and blowing that warm air onto the PSU and then having no exhaust fan at the rear of the PSU?? It's pure bonkers and I must admit I am not entirely sure at this stage how to resolve this, I have ordered a more powerful fan for the PSU and hope that this will fix the overheating but I fear it may not. If I have to use the computer with the case off full time then so be it, but I'd rather not.
Anyway here are a few pics. I will post more here when/if I ever get the case back on.
The computer at fitzsteve's helping me to get it all working.
Computer now back at home still with the case off and the desktop fan helping to cool the thing down.
Just look at the craftsmanship of this soldering job on the new Buster 11, nice work bebek
I feel so happy tonight that I had to post here. After 8 months I have finally got my A4000 working perfectly the way I want it!! I have wanted an Amiga A4000 ever since about 1992 when it was released. I had an A1200 back in the early 90's but ended up selling it with a view to putting the cash towards a A4000, but before I could save up enough money Commodore went and filed for bankruptcy!! how selfish of them!
Well anyway last September I bit the bullet and got one, finally fulfilling my dreams. However plain sailing it was most certainly not! fiszsteve tried to warn me "having an A4000 is nothing but a pain in the bum" he warned me. did I listen? no, part of me wishes I had but the other part of me is not so very happy that I have a lovely working A4000. Here is the story if you are interested.
I got the A4000 in September 2014, just a stock off the shelf model A3640 card and nothing else. Everything seemed to be working fine with just a regular WB 3.1 install no problems. The fun started once I introduced a Picasso IV to the party! I had constant lock ups and freezes shortly after powering it up and ALWAYS when opening and then closing DOpus. I got an error asking to wait for disk activity to finish then it would just freeze. If I put the card in Zorro II mode however it seemed to work fine (although TheCorfiot subsequently told me that he also found it unstable in Zorro II mode). I was convinced that it was to do with the fact that the board had a Buster 9 fitted so I made enquiries here on AmiBay to see if there was someone here who could fit one for me. I was surprised to find out that they are still for sale on AmiKit so I got one.
With the combined efforts of TheCorfiot and bebek I got the buster 11 fitted, got the board recapped, also got a few minor other repair work done on the board. bebek did an absolute 1st class job on the board, in fact the soldering is so good on the Buster 11 that at first I didn't think it had been changed!!
However on getting the computer back it became apparent that 2 of the slots on the Z3 busboard were not working. I took the computer to fitzsteve who very kindly helped me on the road to getting the computer working (thanks Steve), he also discovered the faulty busboard. luckily for me bebek had a spare that he sold me and this seemed to do the job (well after a bit of IPA and contact cleaning that is).
I now have a really stable and working A4000 that I am very happy with, I have none of the issues with the Picasso IV that I was having before. I have a standard A3640 CPU board, Picasso IV, X-Surf 100 network card with the Rapid Road USB module and the BigRam Plus 256MB expansion all working with no issues what so ever.
And to put the icing on the cake this evening I even managed to get the CD drive working, I could not do this before no mater what I tried, in the end the only way I could get it working was to get the 4-way IDE adapter from AmigaKit, at first this did not work but I think I had the cables round the wrong way! Yes I know I'm a numpty :nuts:
I now just have one last issue to resolve... can you guess? yes I'm sure that every A4000 owner has come across the dreaded PSU overheating issue. At the moment I am using the computer with the case off the PSU and directing a desktop fan over the innards to cool it. This works but is not pretty. If I don't do this I get lock-ups and screen corruption.
I read that the A4000 is renowned for overheating caused mainly by the laughably bad design of the Power Supply. What the hell were Commodore thinking when designing a PSU that draws air from inside a case that is likely to be warn already and blowing that warm air onto the PSU and then having no exhaust fan at the rear of the PSU?? It's pure bonkers and I must admit I am not entirely sure at this stage how to resolve this, I have ordered a more powerful fan for the PSU and hope that this will fix the overheating but I fear it may not. If I have to use the computer with the case off full time then so be it, but I'd rather not.
Anyway here are a few pics. I will post more here when/if I ever get the case back on.
The computer at fitzsteve's helping me to get it all working.
Computer now back at home still with the case off and the desktop fan helping to cool the thing down.
Just look at the craftsmanship of this soldering job on the new Buster 11, nice work bebek
Last edited: