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[AndrewB]

Greetings all, it's been far far too long. :-)

But, google led me to you again, on a hunt to try and make the ol' girl run again.

Here's the scoop, hope you can help.

A3000T-040 (one of the last out the Canadian C= door, before it closed up).

About 5 years ago, I flipped over, and noticed she was stalled/dead.
With a reboot not working, but removing cards, and disconnecting drives helping, I assumed failing PSU, and shut her off.

Sadly, she wasn't on again until today.

Finally, I went looking for answers... and found a page on ATX PSU conversion for the 3000T.

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/Amiga_Power_supplies/body_amiga_power_supplies.html

Having a spare good 400watt ATX PSU here, I started soldering. :-)
All pinouts checked against the list, with a meter, and so I hooked it up.
All SCSI drives are out, external term is on, internal cable is on, connected to the CDRom at the end, which is set to termination enabled (the way it always was).

PicassoII and Ariadne removed. (plus all the other serial port cards, it used to be a CNet BBS that kicked ass) ;-)

Yet, all I get is the dark grey screen, confirmed working by the menu on the monitor, showing 31.4kHz x 60Hz.
Power light never makes it off dim.
Soft reset, flashes the capslock once. (I think that means the keyboard isn't happy, but system gets no further with it unplugged.)

Have wiggled all of the chip and fast ram. (whoa, the terms are flooding back here)
Have pressed and wiggled the roms, and the other system chips, not yet completely reseating them.

Have cleaned and reseated the 040 daguhterboard.

I see a small amount of residue on the underside of that 040 board, right below each capacitor. Perhaps caps leak?
Shouldn't that throw other codes?

The battery shows some corrosion on one end, but, with the system off, still reads 2.5vDC, so it's not toast or shorted.

Open to more ideas... happy to spend a buck or two, on the ol' girl. :-)

Roms are v40.68

Thanks,
Andrew

[uncleted]

Not sure it's entirely applicable in this case, but newer ATX PSUs do not include a -5v line. The wire may be there but nothing will be on it.

I think the Amiga 4000 is the only Amiga that doesn't need a -5v connected.

[AndrewB]

Ummm yeah, found that the hard way. :-)

The first ATX I pulled off the shelf, had 6 wires already cut, when I hit the missing one.

However, another older 400w ATX I had here, still has it, and checked out with the meter. So that's what's on there now.

[AndrewB]

Oddity to add...

Came back to it, after it being off for an hour or two, and pressed the power.

Dim green power light, went on dim, then got bright!
Progress!

Still dark grey screen, and now I can't get a bright green light again.

That lead to any ideas?

Thanks!
Andrew

[AndrewB]

Ok, well, removed, cleaned contacts on, and reseated just about every removable chip on the board, no change.

I've removed the battery for now.... does it need that to run?

Also checked voltages on the MB supply connector with the DVM, and they are within spec.

[amiganut4k]

Do you have a spare CPU card? As you said there was some residue at the card which maybe came of a busted cap. If that's the case your CPU board might be fried. and can cause this problem.

[uncleted]

I think you'll have to replace all those bad caps before you'll get anywhere.

A screen staying dark gray would indicate a very early failure - I think around the ROM tests. My best guess is that the CPU is OK but it's not getting any further than that.

The caps lock light is meant to flash once at power up, although there's a difference between the normal power on flash and an error flash.

[uncleted]

Caps that have leaked may work intermittently - thus why you maybe got the bright green light at one point.

[AndrewB]

Right, good call.
Will take the processor board to the electronics shop, and see about some new caps.
These are of course surface mount, but they're all the same, and of a fairly normal rating, I think...

Need to see those guys for a new NiCad battery anyhow.

[Bandis]

Hey.

I have no solution for you but I am basicly in the same situation.

A bare A3000T mobo sitting on a desk with a converted atx PSU and no boot. Although this board have been like this from the moment I got it.

Now, Im curious about your agnus chip, does it almost get too hot to touch with your fingers? (try various positions on the surface of the chip). It can ofcourse be very personal to what is considered "hot" but there should be a really big difference compared to the onboard 030 or other custom chips.

This is where I am suspecting my problems are. Would be nice with some more input on this.

regards

[AndrewB]

Fat Agnus is on, and cool to the touch, so far.

I got somewhere! :-)

Good call on the caps. The residue was my first clue (I've seen that happen in older car ECUs).... replaced all 5 surface mount caps on the 68040 daughterboard, and the sucker is ON!

3.1 roms scren, please insert WB disk...

Gotta reconnect all the scsi now.

Will post again... after...

[AndrewB]

It's BACK! :-)

All the HDs spun up again, after 5 years... OS booted, whole thing was up and running, faster than my dual-core XP box. ;-)

My thanks... the kitty will get some litter, for sure.

Can I ask two questions?

1. Is Aminet still around? I used to get the CDs automatically, from Scatzrhue, but they stopped at one point, and I never looked into why.

2. Is Amiga.org sort of the cetral hub these days?
Or are there others too?

Thanks,
Andrew

[uncleted]

Aminet.net is still up and going strong. There's more OS4 and MorphOS stuff now, but all the classic stuff is still there.

Amiga.org is one of the best sites for classic hardware. Abime.net also has a decent forum "English Amiga Board".

There's also Amigaworld.net, but it's more focused on OS4.

[AndrewB]

There ya go.
And I don't even know what OS4 is. :-)

[T3000]

Good to hear about another A3000T '040 comming back to life. Mine has been setting with same/simular problems for over a year now. Stripped down to the MoBo. Had all the Toaster stuff in it. Maybe when I get some xtra time, I'll tinker around and try to resurect it. Sure do miss it...