Amiga A4000 Woes Continue

My problems with my Amiag 4000 continue to haunt me!


The symptoms: the system will not boot from the CF card I have tried different cards but no joy. It boots fine from floppy. Also I get no output what so ever from my Picasso IV not even the ROM screen.


This is what I have done to the board: it has been recapped, main board and the 040 card. the buster chip has been updated to buster 11


I am at a real loss now to know how to proceed with getting this working, does anyone have any ideas?


Thanks :)

Was the CF working previously? I had to set some special Mask and MaxTransfer values via advanced settings when I set up the bootable partition in HDTools (set up CF in WinUAE for use in the real Amiga) otherwise my Amiga wouldn't boot the CF. MaxTransfer looks like it should be 0x1FE00, but maybe Mask doesn't need to be changed?

Yes it was working fine, before I know all about max transfer and all that stuff, that was already set up.

If you want to bring it round over easter we can have a play?

Very kind offer Steve thank you, might just do that! I'll call you mate :)

Ok bud. I'm free all day tomorrow.

I used CF card to test it, had no problems :huh:

It's probably me doing something stupid hopefully Steve will be able to help me. I'm going to see him tomorrow.


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Meantime you can run Workbench from floppy with CF atatched and see if it is visible from workbench or at least from HDtoolbox

Yes the system boots fine from floppy


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I have noticed :) but can you see CF card in it? Icons should apear on the desktop. Run hdtoolbox and see if it is vissible in it.
Or first thing is to go to boot menu and check if CF card is visible there.

I didn't think of that I will try Asap and report back thanks


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We'll strip everything out and check everything one step at a time tomorrow.

Thanks Steve really appreciate your help mate :)


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Good news booting fine from CF here, seems Manic23's CF was dead!

@Bebek,

We can't get any Zorro Cards to work, did you test with a Busboard? Maybe his Busboard is faulty?

We've just cleaned all the slots and busboard edge connector, etc with IPA and will try again.

- - - Updated - - -

Good news, we got the PicassoIV working :D

Cleaning the slots has helped but can't get anything to work in the other 3 Zorro slots so guess a new busboard is needed.

Otherwise, PIV running stable (it seems) in ZIII mode.

- - - Updated - - -

Attachment 85895

:D

Just got back from Steves and just wanted to say a big fat thanks to Steve for helping me out this afternoon, thanks matie, you are a true legend, my A4000 now seems to be working fine apart from the BUS (riser) card. I think I may need a new one of those as the slots above the graphics card slot do no seem to be behaving, I'll post a wanted thread here shortly, maybe tomorrow after I have tested my BigRAM and X-Surf 100, they may work they may not, not sure yet.

Also many thanks to ThCorfiot for recapping my 040 card and bebek for carrying out various other repair work on the mainboard, including changing the Buster 11 chip and recapping the board.

Will report back tomorrow after I have tried he above.

You're welcome mate, was good to see it up and running. :)

Just tried my BigRamPlus and it's working!! Happy days so far...


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Nice one. Happy Eatster mate.

I have the x-surf installed now and the rapid road USB module the LED came on within 1 second, so far so good! Now I just need to figure out how to get that working :)


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That's really good news mate. The USB is easy, simply run the installer. Note that since you have an A3640 you probably need to run the x-surf in ZII mode for USB to work. The driver can be downloaded from the icompe wiki (see the small printed manual)

After some experimentation it would seem that the 1st and 2nd (from top) slots on my bus card do not work. The 3rd one's working fine, so I'm going to post a wanted thread for a bus card, hopefully someone will have one for sale :)

Good luck bud. Hopefully you can find one soon.

by the way you were right about having to run the rapid road in ZII mode, does not work in ZIII with my 040, why is that Steve?

It's a known issue, Jens is working on a fix I think as he now has an A3640 to test with.

Update:

I received the Busboard yesterday (thanks bebek) and all seems well (ish) all the slots are working as they should however I have severe display corruption when the Picasso IV switches to using the flicker fixer in the Amiga native screen modes. I know it's not the busboard as I also had this with the old one. see this video...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...Corruption.mp4

After a close inspection of the Picasso IV card I have noticed that there is rather a serious looking cut along one of the edge connectors, see this image...

Attachment 86163

What do you think, is this the most likely case of the corruption? and if so do you think it is repairable?

Thanks as always for your help.

- - - Updated - - -

Update:

After putting the card back in (for taking the photo) I now get no scan doubler output what so ever, however if I plug in my regulate Philips monitor (via regular SCART) at the same time the image is fine there, so there is no issue with the board as far as I can tell I just think I have a dodgy PIV card! Oh well If I have to live with having a two monitor setup I guess I can live with that, would be nice to know if the PIV is fixable though.

as for cut on the tracks you can test if its cut all the way through with a multimeter in diode test on either side on the track.
if its cut all the way through itll read open circuit,if its a heavy scratch itll read closed if its intact.

You're having a torrid time here aren't you.

Have you cleaned the Video slot with IPA? Just in case it's dirty. However if that slot is worn out it will cause these issues

It didn't look too dirty but I will try thanks Steve


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Just hope you didn't damage the PIV with all the fitting and removing :(

Maybe it's possible to fill the gaps on the connector with some solder? (Ask Roy if that's a good idea)

What do you think Roy is Steves suggestion a good idea?


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Clean the slot first.

Thing is Steve it was doing the same with the other bus card I just was hoping that the new bus card would fix it


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by manic23

Thing is Steve it was doing the same with the other bus card I just was hoping that the new bus card would fix it


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But it was working here?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by manic23

What do you think Roy is Steves suggestion a good idea?


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if the contact isnt broken bud,best to leave it alone.
it wouldnt get any worse as the pins are spring loaded and the front is angled to ride over the front of the pcb when inserted.

you can fill it with solder as a very last resort(if the track is broken and only then),but youll have to flat it down after so its flat and smooth to go into the slot.
after that,you wont want to insert it to often solder is alot softer than the track being inserted.

i would probably go for using conductive paint/ink before solder.
you can get them easily these days, they are the same stuff you use to fix a broken rear screen demister. its a lot less work and less likely to damage anything further compared to soldering.
but with either method i would be careful to make use i only used enough to complete the circuit as this would reduce the chances of leaving any conductive material in the slot.

Thanks for that suggestion shambles1980 I have not heard of that before


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ARGGGGGG I don't believe this, I am now totally back to square one! No output from PIV and the bus board slots not working. Everything was working OK (ish) and then just wallop, all of a sudden I had screen corruption in RTG mode so I restarted and nothing, not a sausage, ziltch!!

There must be an issue with the board that is frying my busboard or something like that, I have no idea I'm packing it all up and sticking to my A1200 I am thoroughly peed off with this damn A4000 now.

i understand your frustration bud.


are any of the motherboard ic's in sockets?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by roy_bates

i understand your frustration bud.


are any of the motherboard ic's in sockets?

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No there are all soldered on the motherboard Roy. Sorry about throwing my toys out the pram in my previous post, sometimes I can get a little bit frustrated when things don't go my way ;) it's just that I have spent so much time and money on this damn Amiga I just want it working :(

Since my last post I did take out the bus board one last time and went over the edge connectors with a contact cleaner rubber thing I have, I did not do it when I got the board from bebek as it looked so clean, like new that I didn't think it would need it. However for the last hour or so everything is working, RTG and scan doubler mode, no corruption and all slots working. I am not going to tough anything, I will test again later tonight and tomorrow morning and we'll see if it goes again.

I suspect that it might go again, as I have been here before with everything working then you turn it on again the next day and were back to square one. I wonder if it could be the bus board connector on the motherboard that it as fault?

Anyway I really appreciate all your help chaps, you guys are awesome :bowdown:

It probably just needed a good clean mate, 20 years of dirt and all that.

Fingers crossed it all stays good now :)

Will it work tomorrow ????

That's par for owning an A4000 unfortunately, try not to disturb anything anymore...including the ROM's

TC :)

LOL understood mate. Don't worry I won't be touching the roms or anything else now, I'll keep you posted on if it works tomorrow ;)

Right, it went wrong again this morning, was fine for about 20 minutes then BAM! usual issue, screen corruption, restart then no PIV output and no other Z3 slots operational, but video working OK from RGB SCART via normal mainboard video output.

However...

I did notice that when leaving the computer off for about 10 minutes, it then comes on OK, so I'm wondering if something is overheating? I did replace the fan in the PSU for a quiter one (Coolink SWiF2-800), this one...

http://www.ebuyer.com/621260-coolink...FZMZtAodwWMALQ

I do still have the original fan that I removed, do you think it might be a power supply issue? Shall I replace the original fan to see if that is the problem?

if you think its overheating,try this mate:)

leave the top off the machine while testing and put a desktop fan blowing air into and over it while its running,if it runs for longer then maybe it is overheating...

you could also try connecting a multimeter to the 5 volt rail on a spare connector during testing to see if it drops or raises in voltage while running.

personally i dont like the fan placement in the power supply on the 4000 at all,but i suppose thats just me.
and the fact it dont really have any active cooling inside the case for expanded machines.

Thanks Roy I'll try those suggestions


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When it is working flex mainboard here and there to see if it will stop, that would suggest dry joint somewhere. Also you can rock slightly daughterboard to see if you will loose a connection.

OK thanks bebek, I am in the process of doing the open case desktop fan testing as suggested by Roy now. I will report back...

I have now had my Amiga A4000 running well for over 3 hours with the case and PSU open and a desktop fan pointing at the innards as Roy suggested with very few issues!

I got quite a few Recoverable Alert (Error: 0100 000C) messages, where I had to restart, this happened about 4 or 5 times I suppose, but I think that is another software related problem and can be left for another day!

I think it's fair to say that the other issues are to do with the power supply. At first I had the fan pointing at the whole board but I thought that I would cover the CPU and Z3 side of the case so that the fan could not reach those parts just to see if the overheating issues were coming from there, but it's been fine, no problems, so I think I need to take out that quite PSU fan I got and either put the original back or get a newer one that has more umph!

Thanks for the suggestion Roy, you are a top top top bloke!

just get a standard 12 volt fan bud ,but with bearings...