I've asked this on Amigans while this site was down, but thought I'd ask here too...

Damn... I think my A1XE is dead. Recently it had been eating through batteries quickly, or so I thought, every time the mains power was disconnected it needed a battery change. The other day I powered it on and it shut itself down, powering on was black screen.

Upon investigation, a rogue wire had come loose from the PSU, one of the crimps on the IDE power to the CD-ROM had worked its way out of the socket and was lying on the motherboard, right near the CPU...

I've tried changing the battery again several times, stripped the machine right down to bare motherboard and GPU, no sign of life.

Green light is on the motherboard, but no video output.

There is no visible damage on the board, would there be if it had shorted it?

I guess serial de-bug is next step. What kind of cable do I need for the A1XE, not sure which port is the serial port.

Does Amigakit do A1 repairs (or anyone else)?

Last edited by danwood on 17-Aug-2012 at 08:55 PM.
Last edited by danwood on 26-Jul-2012 at 08:04 PM.

@danwood

Have you checked the battery socket. A pin had broken on mine and sometimes connected and sometimes didn't. The battery hadn't excessively been removed and replaced before this ocurred.

@danwood

Check that capacitors on CPU module has not come lose.
Some batteries are bad when you get then new, try an other one, also good idea to keep battery out for while to reset CMOS.

You can try a null modem cable, if there is life in the computer it should send some debug info at boot time.

Also the standard CPU fan is horrible, you might have broken CPU, but lets not jump to conclusion, in most ceases it is the battery.
The mega array connector on CPU module can also get easily damaged.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 26-Jul-2012 at 11:54 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 26-Jul-2012 at 11:53 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 26-Jul-2012 at 11:50 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 26-Jul-2012 at 11:49 PM.

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@danwood

The article on serial debug that Tomazkid mentioned to you on a.org:

http://amigaworld.net/modules/features/index.php?op=r&cat_id=4&rev_id=125

#6

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@Rob

Checked this out, looks fine and secure.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Yeah, I've tried 4 different brand new battieries, so pretty sure it's not the battery this time.

I've ordered a null modem cable off ebay, should be here early next week.

@number6

Thanks, that's really useful. I'll report back!

@danwood

Just to add an A1 cannot shut itself down. Well not that I know of. To me it looks like the PSU shut itself down. I've also turned on my machine and found it was dead because it didn't like a PCI card I had plugged in. So the A1 has a good safety measure built in to prevent damage. Or the PSU was detecting a bad connection and refused to power up.

Be good to test another PSU if you have a spare.

BTW good job removing all parts. Now all you need is a debug log. Did you remove RAM as well? Removing everything including RAM is okay when using serial to test bare minimum of board working.

Last edited by Hypex on 27-Jul-2012 at 11:09 AM.

@Hypex

Sounds like the PSU shut the power down then, but it will power up again now, the light comes on the motherboard, but no signs of life otherwise.

I tried swapping out the RAM with another stick, and same result. But i'll try without for the debug.

I have ordered a null modem cable.

@danwood

Keep and eye on your PS/2 keyboard leds when you power on for signs of life.

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Ok guys, so still not solved this. My Null Modem cable arrived today!

Things I've tried -

Battery swapped (about 6 times now, new pack today, no joy)
2 different graphics cards, tested them as working in a PC too
3 different RAM sticks

Motherboard is running bare with just RAM and GPU attached now.

I get serial output from the CPU:

U-Boot 1.1.1 (Mar 3 2005 - 16:42:53), Build: 03/03/05

CPU: MPC7455 v2.1 @ 933.333 MHz
Board: AmigaOne
DRAM:
Information for SIMM bank 0:
Number of banks: 1
Number of row addresses: 13
Number of coumns addresses: 11
SIMM is registered
Supported burst lenghts: 8 4 2 1 PAGE
Supported CAS latencies: CAS 3 CAS 2
RAS to CAS latency: 3
Precharge latency: 3
SDRAM highest CAS latency: 750
SDRAM 2nd highest CAS latency: 1000
SDRAM data width: 4
Auto Refresh supported
Refresh time: 1042 clocks
Bank 0 size: 512 MB

Slot 1: vacant
DIMM0_B0_SCR0 = 0x00ff9f00
DIMM0_B1_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
DIMM0_B2_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
DIMM0_B3_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
Using CAS 3 (slow)
DRAM_GCR0 = 0x00550400
Refresh set to 2083 clocks, auto refresh on
DRAM_REFRESH0 = 0x00019823
Mode bank 0: 0x00008032
512 MB


And it stops there.... any advice?

@danwood

Little edit, with one of the RAM sticks it went a bit futher

Slot 1: vacant
DIMM0_B0_SCR0 = 0x00ff9f00
DIMM0_B1_SCR0 = 0x00ff9f00
DIMM0_B2_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
DIMM0_B3_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
Using CAS 3 (slow)
DRAM_GCR0 = 0x00550800
Refresh set to 2083 clocks, auto refresh on
DRAM_REFRESH0 = 0x00019823
Mode bank 0: 0x00008032
Mode bank 1: 0x00008032
1024 MB
FLASH: 0 kB
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

VGA: 0 ..
In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial



With no RAM I get

U-Boot 1.1.1 (Mar 3 2005 - 16:42:53), Build: 03/03/05

CPU: MPC7455 v2.1 @ 933.333 MHz
Board: AmigaOne
DRAM: Slot 0: vacant
Slot 1: vacant
Slot 2: vacant
DIMM0_B0_SCR0 = 0x00000000
DIMM0_B1_SCR0 = 0x00000000
DIMM0_B2_SCR0 = 0x00000000
DIMM0_B3_SCR0 = 0x00000000
DRAM_GCR0 = 0x00000000
Refresh set to 2083 clocks, auto refresh on
DRAM_REFRESH0 = 0x00019823
*** failed ***
### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###

Last edited by danwood on 08-Aug-2012 at 09:53 PM.

@danwood

FLASH: 0 kB
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment


Looks like something has happened to your BIOS/U-BOOT?

@duga

Could be, I guess a live +5v wire dancing about across the motherboard could have fried/damaged anything. No visible damage though, but it only gets this far when no RAM sticks are present.

@danwood

You said that you went further with one of the sticks?


Little edit, _with one of the RAM sticks_ it went a bit futher

Slot 1: vacant
DIMM0_B0_SCR0 = 0x00ff9f00
DIMM0_B1_SCR0 = 0x00ff9f00
DIMM0_B2_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
DIMM0_B3_SCR0 = 0x007f9f00
Using CAS 3 (slow)
DRAM_GCR0 = 0x00550800
Refresh set to 2083 clocks, auto refresh on
DRAM_REFRESH0 = 0x00019823
Mode bank 0: 0x00008032
Mode bank 1: 0x00008032
1024 MB
FLASH: 0 kB
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment


I guess you have to re-flash your U-BOOT flash memory.

@duga

Ah yes, with the 1GB stick it seems, you're right.

How can I reflash uboot without getting into the machine though?

@danwood

First of all: are you sure you don't get a picture via VGA output with that particular 1 GB stick?


If still no picture: Is the flash memory soldered or placed in a socket?

@danwood

Quote:

How can I reflash uboot without getting into the machine though?

They can only be flashed with a programmer. Try contacting AmigaKit, Amiga Repair Centre or Acube, at least one of them should be able to sort something out for you if you don't know anyone with a programmer.

IntuitionBase has a guide to removing the flash ROM.

http://www.intuitionbase.com/static.php?section=rom_puller

Last edited by Rob on 08-Aug-2012 at 10:51 PM.
Last edited by Rob on 08-Aug-2012 at 10:51 PM.

@danwood

see this thread .

http://new.amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=34983&forum=33&7

And this one too

http://stat.amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=34858&forum=33&start=20&viewmode=flat&order=0#646238

Last edited by Spectre660 on 08-Aug-2012 at 11:42 PM.

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@danwood

Because you are getting serial debug output, that means that your CPU is working. Good news!

UBoot will have lost its settings when you removed the battery but apart from that it is probably fine. I don't think you'll need to reflash it.

A couple of months ago, my A1XE stopped working exactly like this. It'd been working fine for ages. Then I added a USB2 card and a couple of weeks later, it went dead. The debug output was stopping in the same place as yours. But I managed to fix it (not sure exactly how) and since then it's been working flawlessly.

First you need to try to get it working WITHOUT any expansion cards, hard disks etc. Without a graphics card, if all else is working you'll get a command prompt on the serial output. Once you've got that far, try adding the graphics card. And then slowly connect everything else one by one.

Here are my suggestions to get to the first stage of working:

1) Disconnect the power supply from the mains and leave it disconnected for several hours. Simply switching the power off is not necessarily enough. In fact, maybe even unplugging the power connector from the motherboard is worth trying.

2) Unplug everything from the motherboard (don't remove the CPU) and clean the board and expansion cards of all dust etc. Dust could be causing problems. A good way to clean it is by buying a can of compressed air to blow the dust away. Be careful of static when going near the motherboard. It might be worth buying an antistatic wrist strap from an electronics store.

3) In particular make sure all the contacts for the expansion cards are clean.

4) If it's still not working, try removing the motherboard completely from the case and then reseating it.

5) Buy a battery tester and check your batteries. A1s can do weird things to batteries - even new batteries.

Hope some of these ideas can help you...

Last edited by dangerman on 09-Aug-2012 at 11:11 AM.