User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:12 am

I've been working on a project for a friend to create legit scans of manuals and new ADF files for all of my Earl Weaver Baseball collection.

To our surprise, the manuals are nowhere to be found on the internet. I'll get into all of that later. In any case, I reached over to my A3000 last night to start the ADF creation process and turned it on.

The machine went to a gray screen and simply sat there. Unsettled, I turned it off and waited a moment then turned it back on.

I could hear the quiet fan purring and the hard drive LED flickered once but this time I had a black screen.

That sickening feeling hit my stomach and my head started to feel a bit heavy. It was like I'd just gotten a phone call about a family member who was in an accident and my brain couldn't process the news. I unplugged all unnecessary cables: GoTek external drive, parallel cable, SCSI cable, mouse, keyboard...

I got the gray screen one more time. At this point, every boot-up has always a black screen now.

Oh - when it was one of the gray screens I did reach back and flick the flicker fixer and could see it erase the scanlines or bring them back. The video appeared functional to a degree. She just won't wake up.

I guess once the depression ebbs away I'll open her up this weekend and see if anything obvious stands out. It kinda has that not-so-great feeling of something really failing, like a chip or possibly one of the tiny ZIP RAM chips I put on the motherboard over a year ago, or something. I thought I'd removed all of the corrosion on the motherboard but I'll re-check that area to see if any new green fuzz is trying to make a comeback (that would suck).

Anyhoo... for one of my favorite machines, which got near daily use before the Parceiro stole my attention, a moment of silence. Maybe she's just jealous and playing hard to get, fickle thing.
IMG_2076.JPG

User avatar
LocalH
Kingsport, TN

Posted Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:52 pm

My condolences. I always liked the A3000's design and featureset. I felt that the A4000 should have really been an A3000 with AGA. In some ways, this machine was the peak of original Amiga design.

User avatar
fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Fri Feb 26, 2021 4:20 pm

She is just in a slumber. With some love and care from you and the community, she will rise once again.

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obitus1990
USA

Posted Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:28 pm

Hopefully she is repairable, and hopefully not the unobtanium Agnus. I'd be gutted if it were mine...

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primitivefunction

Posted Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:31 am

Really sorry to hear that. :( Hoping your weekend investigations lead to an easy fix.

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EzdineG
Springfield, MO

Posted Sat Feb 27, 2021 7:36 am

I’ve seen it a thousand times. A good disassembly / reassembly should do the trick.

The CPU slot connector, or any number of the other sockets’ pins no longer have the tension to provide a good enough connection to continue. If the temperature in the room were a little warmer today you’d probably get a little further along before it crashed.

Given the all or nothing shift between grey (...yeah, Im gonna boot) and black (no cpu). I’d definitely start by looking there.

Obviously it could be anything, but these things are resilient. I have an Atari 520STM on my bench right now that looks like it came out of the engine bay of a Mad Max vehicle, and with a few repaired traces she lives!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Mar 09, 2021 3:25 pm

After a few hours of work, my A3K's savior has brought her back to life!

>U350 CIA went bad

She's alive! Oh man I can't wait to get her back and up and running again.

He found a few other issues - some bent RAM legs, mild corrosion - he also took care of at the same time. <3
Attachments
A3K-isAlive.jpg

User avatar
wildcopper
Seattle, WA

Posted Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:23 pm

Congratulations on the A3000's recovery!

I noticed from the picture that it's running (kickstart select screen anyway) without the daughter card installed. I though I had read that the daughter card had to be installed to run. Apparently not! That's good because reassembling everything when working on it to test is a real pain.

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dalek
Australia

Posted Tue Mar 09, 2021 6:11 pm

Might be the rom tower or early boot menu only - mine definitely yellow screens without the daughterboard.

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obitus1990
USA

Posted Tue Mar 09, 2021 6:12 pm

wildcopper wrote:
Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:23 pm
Congratulations on the A3000's recovery!

I noticed from the picture that it's running (kickstart select screen anyway) without the daughter card installed. I though I had read that the daughter card had to be installed to run. Apparently not! That's good because reassembling everything when working on it to test is a real pain.
MIne won't boot without the daughter card. Yellow screen, if I remember right, last time I tried.

I noticed his has the ROM tower in it, so it's a different revision board than mine... I wonder if this has anything to do with it.





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