A very very sad day (at least for me)

[Gavilan]

Im sorry people for this message, but i think only here is the place where my deepest emotions can be fully understood.
Yesterday was the sadest day in my story with Amiga computers.
Everything started after i tried (without success) to install a Voodoo 5 5500 on my Mediator.
I followed every single step that was suggested in the former amiga-mediator-com page, i did everything, all details..nothing on my PC monitor.
I tought the Voodoo card was dead, so i tested on my Pc. Te card worked like a charm.
I put it again on the Amiga, and suddelny...tragedy..the mediator card broke.
But that wasnt all!
After that, i remove the mediator, and it seemd i left the Power Flyer loose...so...after i power on the Amiga again, paf!!!! smoke!! I fried the Power Flyer!!!
I took everythin, left the Amiga alone with nothing more than the floppy and the hard disk...nothing...the Power Supply died (as i tested today with a friend here at work).

After that..i was felling so so sad, my tears were falling from my eyes without me saying nothing. My girlfriend didnt understand what was going on...anyway..i continued with the tests...
I had a replacement Power Fyer...couldnt make it work either..
Then i tested my roms (i have 2 pairs of 3.1 & 2 pairs of 3.0 roms9.
Of those, only 1 pair is working right now....
And thats not all!!

My Amiga (the one that was Towerised) DIE!!!!
And the vanilla Amiga in which i re-tested the roms died also...

So at the end...i have 2 dead A1200, 2 dead Power Flyer, a broken Mediator, 3 pairsw of roms non working, and a lot of paiin in my heart
I know for sure they are dead, since some chips are hot (and i mena HOT) while others are cold cold...and the only pair of roms that are working (i have another A1200 which is going to be my main computer from now on) didnt work in neither of them...

Sorry guys for this message, but i needed to write here my feelings...


cheers

Sebastian
:angry: :madashell: :boohoo: :boohoo: :boohoo: :boohoo: :boohoo:

[lurkist]

Sorry for your loss. All Amiga deaths are a great shame as they are irreplaceable, and so the stock of second hand ones dwindles a little more...

[swift240]

Now thats a real total Pi**er, so for your loss, thats the sort of thing that realy is upsetting.

You will have to start over again, dont throw anything away, keep your temper dont lose it.
Give your self time to get a cool head, because of that was me I would have done something realy tragic.

Mike.

[drewz21]

Sorry to hear about that. :(

[doctorq]

Sorry for your loss, but are you 100% sure that everything is broken?

My advice; let it be for a couple of days, and then dismantle everything, and start to rebuild everything, testing one piece at a time. Often people fear the worst, after their stock A1200 doesn't boot up in 5 seconds, and waiting for the Kickstart screen takes ages when harddrive and accelerator isn't installed. Furthermore most people aren't thinking straight when something like this has happend.

I hope you get everything sorted, and nothing is broken afterall so you can get out of the dark.

[Framiga]

yes agree...don't give up!

Maybe its only some power traces on the mobo. Almost easy to replace with an used one.

Good luck :-)

[swift240]

Thinking about this, for a good few weeks i was so certain that my 1200 motherboard had died on me I left it then took the whole lot apart then startted from the very beggining to find that it was the HD that had gone
Do the same after a day or two, its possible that it may not be as bad as it first looks,

I cant give you any help on this apart from I have a couple of 3.0 roms that I have still got when I frsit got my 3.1 roms, I dont suppose they will be any good to you will they?

Mike.

[dillinger]

My sympathy Gavilan :-( My Amiga1200 is still going strong, but I can imagine how you're feeling. Losing my Amiga would be more like losing an old friend and not so easy to replace...

If all is lost with your old Amigas...do you think you'd by yourself another Amy setup??

[Gavilan]

Thanks for the warm words guys...if you didnt exist, for sure, my Amigas would be away from me...
About calm down and let fresh air into my head...yes i did that...but...same result..

DoctorQ: im pretty (99%) sure that the mainboard and the roms are broken, becase a) the roms dont work in my only ma1200 that still works ok, and b) because i wait more than a minute to the "insert disk" logo appear on screen. and i have put a Blizzard card, which, when everything is right, flashes with a couple of tiny blue lines, so you can tell for sure the machine is working

Well, i done that with my 2 mother boards, in a fres ambient, with chillout music, a cheescake made by my girl, who wasx worried becasue i didnt talk to her for about 7 hours 8you read correct, i spent 7 hours trying to figure out how this tragedy happened...)

all in all, and for sure, Mediator is unrecoverable, i should post some pics so you guys can judge for yourself how would you repair that (imagine that my knowledge in soldering is ZERO)

Besides, im the only Amiga user in this part of the earth...so that complicates things a lot...imagine if i send to this guy in France to fix the board...finally i would ende up paying more than buying a new motherboard..
By the way...if any of you guys have an extra A1200 and want to sell it to me (PAL i prefer)and an extra Power Flyer (yeah i know, im asking too much9, and want to sell it cheap for this poor Amiga who doesnt want to loose faith...
:-P

Ok...if any of you is volunteer to test the boards and the Roms, i will send to you, i will pay postage both ways if any of you guys take the callenge, and maybe think you can fix the boards/roms or, al least, make them work!! i will give away some of the cards i dont use at this moment as a gift, or something Amiga related for free, as a way of showing my emotion, my respect and my appreciation to the guy who fixes!!!...

Please...i need some MAGIC!!!!


challenge has begun!!

:-D

[Martin_Lee]

aaww dude I know how you feel!

I blew up my A1200 just after fitting 3.1 roms, cd drive and HD

the mobo was fried, the roms were fried, the HD was fried!
thankfully my 030 card seems ok after testing on another board.

man I was pissed off

[Gavilan]

@Dillinger: thanks for your words...
@Framiga: of course somebody inside me tells me to give up, my other half tells me to continue, and i can hear my girfriend screaming "No more Amigas allowed here!!"
Imagine guys, we live in a small flat, with our kitty, and 7 A500, 3 (now 2 of them dead) A1200, 2 CD32, 1 CDTV, 2 A4000, 2
A600, 1 A3000 (which has a special story at least for me...i swtiched on yesterday. It was the first time in 3 years i turn it on, and it worked perfectly...odd things...anyway...), 10 C=64, 7 C=128, 2 C=16, 1 C=+ , plus Coleco, Ataris, MSX, and around 7 thousands disks and about 40 joysticks of all kind and colours....and thats without counting all cards for the Amigas i have (Picasso IV, CV 3d, Retina, Tocatta, Vlab Motion, Ariadne, Silver Surfer, X-Surf, Pablo, Paloma, and the list goes on...

[Gavilan]

If all is lost with your old Amigas...do you think you'd by yourself another Amy setup??

Of COURSE!!

Once an Amigan...ALWAYS an Amigan!
Its just that when this kind of thing happens to you, one reconsider if this hobby, passion or whatever you want to call it, deserves so much suffering!!!
After all, i cried a lot, believe me...
And you put the exact words, about loosing an old friend...
Well thats the story about my amiga 3000.
I bought it together with a friend, to begun filming and editing weddings and birthdays...
My friend passed away almost 3 years ago, and i never ever swithced the machine on, until a couple of days ago...and it worked-...and i changed the roms, put 3.1 roms, installed 3.9 OS and put a Magnum card...all working like a dream..

You see..thats Amiga´s Magic....
This kind of feeling never happens in a PC...

[Animagic]

DAMN!

Sorry man :-o

If you were a Greek, I would say you are mr Mitsotakis relative. He is a greek politician and according to the urban legends he is the most (how to write this, in greek it is GANTEMIS) un-lucky man on earth...

Anyway... don't give up... My A1200 is broken too :cry:

[odin]

But...it's only hardware...which is replaceable...

[ral-clan]

Try not to feel too bad. Similar things have happened to me (although not quite so catastrophic), at which point I felt really down for a few days and thought about selling all my Amiga stuff. Being the only Amiga user for miles around I had to consider whether it was really worth it to replace all that expensive hardware.

After a few days though, things started looking brighter, some hardware still worked, and other things just fell into place. I also learned never to make whatever mistake I had made the first time again. In the end it all worked out. Things generally do.

But I must say....now that you've listed all your spare Amiga systems.....even with your blown A1200/Mediator etc., you have more Amigas than most of us on this board ! You almost have a small Amiga shop at your disposal! :-o

Also, give your girlfriend lots of hugs for being there and making you that cheesecake! She may not understand Amigas, but she sounds like one great AMIGA (in the real Spanish sense).

[Gav]

When you say you left the power flyer loose what do you mean by that??
I mean there has been lots of times that my powerflyer has worked itself slack and my hard drive hasnt booted and i had to push the power flyer back on again.But my powerflyer never blew up,and how did your mediator break anyways???

[Cyberus]

odin wrote:
But...it's only hardware...which is replaceable...

but I think its also a time issue - and as an aside a lot of emotion can be attached how you spend your time...

especially when you get older, you don't have time to spend whole weekends fiddling with hardware (or even finding and buying Amiga hardware), and if you've already spend a lot of time on something in the past, it seems such a drain to have to do it all again.

Gavilan,
I'm glad you've still got loads of other Amigas, doesn't make it quite so bad...

If I get the time tonight, I'll have a look through some of my stuff and see if I can help you.

[Nickman]

Ouch man that trueley suxx :cry:

I killed a 1200 too a couple of years ago when i was putting it in a Tower. I forgot about a small board i had made with a level 7 interupt switch and some leds for the DD etc. It got in contact with the case and *POFF* smoke and a dead amiga :(

Bought a new one the next day :)

[twizzle]

thats a real tragety
anyway on a brighter note either pick one up from ebay
or www.amigakit.com sell replacement motherboards
A1200 £36.99 plus postage

i have emailed france about repairing my 2 A1200 m/boards

about 6 weeks ago with no reply

[beller]

I've had my share of Amiga related hardware issues the last couple of months. First my A600 decides to pop capacitors, then my A4000 started losing its sound. I sent both motherboards for repair to Amiga Center in France. The 600 is back and running and the A4000 has been back but went back to France for further examination. It appears that the '040 processor board went. Both have been repaired and are on their way home again in much better condition and with a new coin-type battery backup on the A4000 clock.

I'd highly recommend Jean Jacques at Amiga Center. Very nice to work with.

Bob

[amigagr]

keep walking pal...

always look at
the good side
of life :-)

[Morax]

My condolances dude, that's quite a sad story!

By the way it seems you're still missing some computers in your collection (i.e. Spectrum, Amstrad) :-P

[Tomas]

Oh man, that is what you can call a bad day.. :cry:
I think i would cry like hell if i was in your place, as i feel my eyes nearly tearing just thinking of this.

I am really sorry for your loss.

[hppacito]

I'm so sorry Gavilan to hear of your loss, especially because some of those items are difficult to find in Argentina ;-(.

If I can help you to get something from here, just tell me.

(Che que cagada que se quemo todo eso !, bue mas se perdio en la guerra).

Can you explain me about the fried A1200 due to the ROM chips ?!?

[motorollin]

I kind of know how you feel. My last A1200 (a few years ago now) was a great setup at the time - Power Tower, Apollo 1240, AteoBus, Pixel64 GFX, etc etc. When things started to go wrong and I didn't know how to fix them, I did my best but couldn't sort it. I didn't know about a.org back then so I dumped the whole lot :boohoo: Driving away from the dump seeing my precious A1200 getting smaller in my rear view mirror actually brought a tear to my eye, and I still get a knot in my stomach when I think about it now.

Fortunately I have now been able to build an even better A1200 system which kind of makes up for it :-)

Isn't it funny how we get so emotionally attached to our Amigas? I wouldn't have been so upset if a PC had died - I would just rip out the hard drive and dump the rest feeling only a sense of mild irritation at the financial loss!

--
moto

[Gavilan]

'm so sorry Gavilan to hear of your loss, especially because some of those items are difficult to find in Argentina ;-(.

Yup...thata exactly my point...

The fried 1200 roms, from what i read, happens when you put them in an alreaDY FRIED pOWER fLYER (OF COURSE, I DIDNT KNOW I FRIED THE POWER FLYER UNTIL i saw (AND SMELL) SMOKE FORM THE CABLE THAT CONECTS THE MAIN BOARD OF THE FLYER WITH THE PART THAT GOES ABOVE THE GARY....

Maybe they are good, but some legs are twisted, and i know for sure that Amiga roms are "touchy" and the legs have to be all in order, and when you push them inside the socke you have to hear a "clac" sound or something like that...

(Si..una gran cagada..mucha, mucha plata invertida, durante todos estos años...en fin... am la tiempo..buena cara dicen...
)



:-D
Abrazo

[Gavilan]

'm so sorry Gavilan to hear of your loss, especially because some of those items are difficult to find in Argentina ;-(.

Yup...thata exactly my point...

The fried 1200 roms, from what i read, happens when you put them in an alreaDY FRIED pOWER fLYER (OF COURSE, I DIDNT KNOW I FRIED THE POWER FLYER UNTIL i saw (AND SMELL) SMOKE FORM THE CABLE THAT CONECTS THE MAIN BOARD OF THE FLYER WITH THE PART THAT GOES ABOVE THE GARY....

Maybe they are good, but some legs are twisted, and i know for sure that Amiga roms are "touchy" and the legs have to be all in order, and when you push them inside the socke you have to hear a "clac" sound or something like that...

(Si..una gran cagada..mucha, mucha plata invertida, durante todos estos años...en fin... am la tiempo..buena cara dicen...
)



:-D
Abrazo

[ral-clan]

Good to know there are still reliable places to get Amigas fixed.

[ral-clan]

.motorollin wrote:
I kind of know how you feel. I didn't know about a.org back then so I dumped the whole lot :boohoo: Driving away from the dump seeing my precious A1200 getting smaller in my rear view mirror actually brought a tear to my eye.

Oh my gosh! :-o In my experience, never Never NEVER throw out Amiga hardware, even if it is broken. If you cannot fix it, there is usually someone out there on Ebay who probably can fix it and will pay you some money for it.

Since they are not making this stuff anymore, even old broken systems, empty cases, custom chips, disk drives, etc. are useful to SOMEONE.

[motorollin]

ral-clan wrote:
Oh my gosh! :-o In my experience, never Never NEVER throw out Amiga hardware, even if it is broken. If you cannot fix it, there is usually someone out there on Ebay who probably can fix it and will pay you some money for it.

Since they are not making this stuff anymore, even old broken systems, empty cases, custom chips, disk drives, etc. are useful to SOMEONE.
I know that now, but at the time I was much younger (~16, I'm 22 now) and didn't appreciate the rareness of the equipment. Also I wasn't involved at all in an Amiga community like a.org, and had never used eBay, so it didn't occur to me that the stuff would be useful to anyone.

Anyway stop talking about it I'm starting to feel guilty :lol:

--
moto

[tonyvdb]

You think thats bad, I through out an A3000Tower a fue years back :-o If I had known at the time that they were so hard to find and wanted so much. I would have hung on to it.
I found out after the fact that it may have just been the 3640 board that was bad. How DUMB of me :getmad:

[Gavilan]

Well guys, i have to say a BIG THANK YOU for all your support...
Thing are slowly becoming better.
Yesterday a friend of a friend of a friend soldered miy broken Mediator...and now is full working again (relief!)

A friend at work soldered the broken pin of my 3.1 chip rom (i still have to test it tonoght when i get home)

Still, i cant get any image from the Voodoo 5 5500 on the PC monitor, even tough i followed the exac instructions on the unofficial mediator page...

Regarding the 2 "broken" mainboards, an ex-Commodore technician i found here in Argentina will take a look at it...

Still, i would like to receive any feedback from Mediator users here, to tell me how they managed to get the Mediator working with a Voodoo card (in which PCI slot they put the card, what settings etc etc)
My machine also has a PPC 040 a Sound Blaster and a Realtek ethernet card.
Strange tough, i get an #8000020 error every time my machine opens WB, so i ihave to delete from user-startup all Mediator related stuff, any ideas on that??

Cheers, and once again, tnak you all for your support!

Sebastian

[ral-clan]

Yay! See. Things work out if you give them time. Yet another Amiga saved from the landfill (hopefully).

[yetihw]

Jesus thats sucks, I wonder what your voltage at the mains are I could be thats changed, just what poped in my head when reading this.

[Hyperspeed]

A couple of winters ago most of my equipment was going up in smoke or braking down.

I'm convinced it was to do with a wobbly electricity supply - I think an UPS box is a good investment for such cherished hardware.

Not only does an 'Uninteruptable Power Supply' protect you from spikes, surges, noise on the power supply but it will also give you between 10mins and 2hrs of battery power should the power supply get cut off.

Having said that, the basic A1200 power brick has a 1-Amp fuse and is very sensitive, PC power supplies seem even more able to resist a noisy power supply.

Glad to hear things are getting rosier now though...

:-)

[AmiBoy]

Hi Sebastian,

I hope your getting on ok with the 040 I sent you?? You didnt fry it did you??

Sorry to here about all your troubles!!

I still have my 060 75Mhz for sale if your interested??

Thanks,
AmiBoy aka Mark Roberts

[twizzle]

hi
regarding which card`s to put where?
amigakit told me to put the fast ethernet card in slot 1
as this takes the most power
next graphix card slot 2
and so on

[Gavilan]

Hi Sebastian,
Hi there!!!
I just received today a notification from post office...maybe its the Apollo?? (fingers crossed)
:-D

Of course im interested in the 060, but sincerly i cant afford that amount of $$$$ at this time, im sorry, i would really love to buy it from you...but...you know...sometimes...thinks get harder...

:-)

Cheers!! i will let you know tomorrow if the card arrived!

Sebastian

[Gavilan]

regarding which card`s to put where?Hi! Yes, i was referring to that, didnt know in which order to put them

This weekend we have holiday weekend (long weekend) so i guess my next few days will be very "Amiga intensive"...

:-D :-D :-D :-D

[amiga4001]

I also have a voodoo5 and a voodoo3.
Using the voodoo3 at the moment because of silence..no fan and space all zorro slots are needed.
Ethetnetcard first then graphic and then the rest.

Configured everything for voodoo3 but when I do a card swap from voodoo3 to voodoo5 there are no parameters to be set to get it working.

Only thing what you have to change is the graphic memory the mediator uses from the graphic card.

[doctorq]

As for Mediator there are apparently differences in the A1200 and A4000 models. I had a Voodoo 4 4500, which worked fine in my Mediator A4000, while it wouldn't want to work in my Mediator A1200 (the one called Mediator PCI 1200, so a rather old one).

Conclusion; maybe the Voodoo 5 5500 won't even work in your Mediator, but obviously, if it has worked before, it should work again (unless it has been damaged of course)

[Agafaster]

I hate that horrible hot edge-of-panic sweaty itchy feeling when you think you may have bost it <shudder>

it has happened to me all to often !

like doctorq says, try to chill out, and leave it a while (after tea, or the next day is good !) and be clinical - helps if you can clean everything (get some contact cleaner, possibly a compressed air canister), and start from bare-bones, adding one piece to see if that works, then if it works, add another. might even be worth trying all the add-ons on their own at first (obviously you need the mediator for the voodoo ! ;-) )

our thoughts are with you in this trying time !
go watch the telly, and try to relax a bit !

[Gavilan]

@doctorq: you have a good point there. I also have a PCI 1200 model (i think i was one of the first ones in buying a MEdiator card). The Voodoo 5 5500 NEVER EVER worked in my A1200T (i didint give that much a try tough, until the other tragedy day, that is).

Anyway, maybe i should try a different card (A S3 Virge or something) just to compare?

And a dumb question: in Mediator manual they talk about open or closed pins regarding memory and all of that. If im correct, open means NO jumper , and closed means PUT a JUMPER there? or is the other way? Im little confused, maybe Voodoo card didnt work at all because of that?

And BTW, what is that #800020 error i get at begginning of WB, saying "Mixer is unable to open..error...#800020"??
Same happens when i try to run MEDICATION program...any ideas on that????

Before i continue with my quest to re-build my Amiga, i need your advices and tips!!!!

Cheers!
Sebastian

[amigagr]

Gavilan wrote:
If im correct, open means NO jumper , and closed means PUT a JUMPER there?

that's right.

[Boot_WB]

motorollin wrote:
I kind of know how you feel. My last A1200 (a few years ago now) was a great setup at the time - Power Tower, Apollo 1240, AteoBus, Pixel64 GFX, etc etc. When things started to go wrong and I didn't know how to fix them, I did my best but couldn't sort it. I didn't know about a.org back then so I dumped the whole lot :boohoo: Driving away from the dump seeing my precious A1200 getting smaller in my rear view mirror actually brought a tear to my eye, and I still get a knot in my stomach when I think about it now.

moto

Dude!!

What dump? Where? Where's my spade???

[motrucker]

I, too, an sorry to hear this news. As you can tell, it's happened to many of us.
I just bought a used A3000, that when I received it, the case was so bent - I don't know how in the world the motherboard survived! It bent the PSU, and dislodged the PSU from the case, breaking the fan. The tabs on the floppy broke off!! I figure it must have been dropped from 20 feet (or more).
So, you see, you'r not alone.

anybody got a good deal on a 3000 case? :)