Long running A3000

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maniades

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AmiBayer
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
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32
Country
Spain
Region
Madrid
Hi there.

Just wanted to post some pics of an Amiga 3000, that has come home for maintenace xD. This particular one, belongs to a local broadcasting station, and the guys claim it has been working 24/7 the last 21 years xD. I believe it, taking into account the amount of accumulated dust xD.


WP_000190 por Maniades, en Flickr

As they told me, the amiga stoped booting some days ago, and they don't have any workbench disk, or anything to try to recover it. They also were not very proficent in computers or amigas, so I offered to try to repair it.

I'm amazed this is one of perhaps the last amigas that is being used professionally (this people use it to set the channel logo in their emission, and overlay some texts, and information on the air). So i had to make it work again, for another perhaps 20 years xD.


WP_000192 por Maniades, en Flickr

As it can be seen, the battery had already leaked lately (they told me a electrician fixed it, but he also had no knowledge about computers), but the rest of the computer, has historic dust. I bet this dust protected the borad against the leak xD...

Before cleaning it up a little, I tried to seize the trouble. It was easy. This amiga 3000, had two hard drives. One quantum (probably came with the A3000) with the system partition, and another one, with some software, data and tools... The system hard disk, is dead, so the A3000 can't boot... Well, nothing too hard, I plugged the still working HDD, and installed in it a basic system (and made it bootable). A3000 working again! piece of cake! XD...


WP_000194 por Maniades, en Flickr

Anyway, I'm having some trouble with the scsi chain. I can't make it work with just one HDD connected. If I umplug the broken HDD, the miggy just doesn't recognize the other HDD. The disposition is:

Onboard SCSI ----(cable)----Broken HDD----(cable)----working HDD

I first though, the working HDD would be terminanting the chain, So I would just use a single drive cable, and plug it directly to the onboard scsi. But this didn't work. I found the working HDD, has both terminating jumpers closed, so it seems ok... but he refueses to work alone. A extrange thing, is I can permutate the location of the hdds, and the miggy still boots fine:

Onboard SCSI ----(cable)----working HDD----(cable)----broken HDD

but if refuses anyhow to boot with just one. This is the first time I use an A3000... perhaps any issue with its onboard SCSI? I can't find an explanation... I would like to give them back their computer with just one HDD (the working one), but if it seems I'll have to leave the broken one in there just to make it work...

Any idea?? Hope you like the natural board protective layer...
 
That's amazing, and I have no doubt that it's true. They were very well built machines.

It's amazing and wonderful to me also that there are places that are still using Amiga's for business because they are just that good.

Hopefully after cleaning and repairs, they will get another 21 years of service from it! :thumbsup:
 
What SCSI Logical Unit Numbers are set on the drives? Have you tried setting the working drive to the same LUN ID as the broken one, with termination set to on?
 
@chiark
I think it's safe to assume the working drive is a more recent (at least SCSI-II) one, as maniades mentioned two termination jumpers which is, well, impossible I think :D so I take it one of them is actually the TERMPWR jumper which implies active termination aka no ancient resistor packs.
 
That's what I thought. One drive has termination on but no termination power set, the other has termination power set but termination is off.

Or something like that....:blink:

:lol:
 
If it's a quantum lps105 or similar then that will have had termination packs on it though... It's reasons like this that I hate SCSI :D
 
The working HDD model is like this:

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/fujitsu/M2682SAM-353MB-3-5-SL-SCSI2-FAST.html

And It has jumpers CHN2 1-2 and 3-4 closed:

CNH2 SCSI Terminating Resistor
1-2 3-4
CLOSED CLOSED From termpwr pin and IDD
CLOSED OPEN From IDD only
OPEN CLOSED From termpwr pin only

I will try setting the scsi id of the working one the same as the broken...

The broken one is a quantum LPS, but the working one is a fujitsu M2682SAM... which is much newer.

I coult not try it today, but I will tomorrow! Lost of thanks to everyone for the help!

I will post more pics as soon as I have it assembled and cleaner xD.
 
Oh my...

And I was thinking that my A4000 was dirty...

Good luck with that, from a fellow countryman. :)
 
Hi Rego!! Greets for you too :). Hope on of this days we meet in some party or something.

I couln't spend time this weekend with the little 3000, but I hope this week I will be able to try what you told me, and report any success :).
 
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