Various Amiga Hardware Problems

Ok have got my 3 amigas out of the attic and am trying to get them up and running.

Anyway starting with my favourite and the one I owned from brand new.

A600 - The power led unit cables had snapped, seemed to remember trying to fit a harddisk to this thing at about the age of 12 and must have messed it up. Anyway soldered the wires back onto pcb and when turning on am getting power fine but the screen is flashing green. Some sites recommend problem with ram?

A500 Plus - Battery has came clean off motherboard but doesn't seem to have done any damage to motherboard and minimal leakage, have cleaned the motherboard with IPA. When I turn this on get 10 short flashes and 1 long, which people recommend to clean the Agnus chip so I removed and clean same problem.

A1200hd - Got given this for free and have never tested. Turn on and am presented with a grey screen via comp on my monitor but hooked up via rf just a black screen.

Not a good start to my night totally gutted but at least I have some work to do! :)

Anyone got any tips for any of the 3 systems?

I've approved your post and hopefully the techie guys and gals will be along soon to help you out :thumbsup:

The 1200HD may take a while to start up if it hasn't got a HD in it or the HD is bad.

Dave G :cool:

Good shout! Pulled the HD out, got a red screen but sat for a bit longer and it's working. Just wondering if the red screen is anything to worry about.

Edit: Ignore that worked that once, loaded speedball 2 and then went off and back to black screen.

Speedball 2 is OCS/ECS game. Is it AGA compatable?

Have you got enough RAM to run the game?

Have you got an AGA game to try?

Otherwise it might be worth taking the top off and gently pressing all socketed chips downa nd make sure they are seated fully.

Dave G :cool:

A1200 seems to work with harddisk out or the viper accelator card out. So have got both in and using a500+ psu and am playing scortched tanks right now. Did get the red screen or start up again after 10 resets while testing. If it crashes or that then I'm going to put it down to a bad simm. So that's one amiga working, shame the casing is really badly yellowed.

Retrobrite will be your answer to that matey :thumbsup:

My 1200 keyboard could do with being done but I haven't got the time - I spend too much time on my 4000 to worry about my diddy 1200 :D

Dave G :cool:

Started working on the A500 Plus again.

Like stated earlier I picked it up out of the box and the battery was rolling around loose in the case and fell out the expansion trap door when I opened, looked like the acid had ate threw the metal clip! But this could have saved the amiga as the damage to the board is minimal here are some hi-res snaps.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19426935/Amiga/DSC_0001.JPG

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19426935/Amiga/DSC_0003.JPG

Yes, minor leak on the trapdoor expansion connector direction. The audio filter section didn't had the same luck.

Dismantle the board from the bottom shield (you must unscrew all the ports on the back), carefully sack the socketed chips on the leakage surrounding area, then pour some lemon juice or spirit vinegar on the area.

Let the mild acid do its trick for ten minutes, then wash the board on tap water. If you want, pour some IPA/isopropanol alcohol on the area.

Then let the board dry for a couple of days on a well vented cupboard prior to remount the Amiga.

If the varnish came out on the leakage area, then even ordinary clear nail varnish can be used over the offended area.

Presto! Another A500+ saved from the bin!:)

Thanks for the tips, I already tried cleaning it with IPA but obviously never done the job. Will try the lemon juice/vinegar approach.

Will keep you updated.

I'm thinking the A600 with green screen might just be a simple reseating of chips until it works?

I definitely favour the lemon juice approach. Shrove Tuesday proved to be a shrewd opportunity to acquire a bunch more on special offer. Vinegar is all well and good, but you can't beat the zesty citrus fresness of a lemon-juice-cleansed Amiga! ;-)

Rkauer's advice above is sound and spot-on. Clean off the goo with lemon juice, clean off the lemon juice with Isopropyl Alcohol and water, then leave to dry out. You might have to remove and clean some of the chips, too. Gary and one of the CIAs are the most likely to have been gooped. I've been through similar with my A3000. If you're interested, have a look at this thread here to see how I got on with it: /showthread.php?t=7572

For the A600, that's almost entirely surface-mount, so there's not much in the way of socketed chips to re-seat. You can still check the Kickstart ROM is seated correctly and if you have a ChipRAM expansion in the trapdoor, it might be worth trying the A600 with that removed, just to rule it out.

The thing you'll want to check on the A600 are the SMD capacitors, they're prone to leaking their very own special brand of goo all over your board and stopping it from working correctly. Cleanup is similar to battery goo, lemon juice and IPA works well, but you'll likely need to replace the capacitors as well. You can tell if they've failed, since they go dull instead of being shiny.

Golden rule: If in doubt, post stupidly hi-res photos of the boards here on the 'bay. Someone on here will likely be able to spot exactly what's wrong for you. (And we all do love a bit of hardware pr0n too)

Best of luck bringing your miggies back to life!

:thumbsup: