doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 i just picked up an amiga 2000 from another user here and am very happy to have it. i have it connected to a 1084 and i've tried both RGB and component and all i get when i turn it on is a light grey screen - nothing more. the hard disk may be fried in this system, but i assumed that i would see a workbench screen or some other pre-os screen. thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 i just picked up an amiga 2000 from another user here and am very happy to have it. i have it connected to a 1084 and i've tried both RGB and component and all i get when i turn it on is a light grey screen - nothing more. the hard disk may be fried in this system, but i assumed that i would see a workbench screen or some other pre-os screen. thoughts? Do any other colors flash before grey? This is part of the self test but I don't remember what any of the colors mean anymore, other than whatever color it stops on indicates the type of failure. If grey is no failure then proceed with the following: Warning, make sure the power is off before you do any plugging, unplugging, etc... Disconnect the hard drive cable and it should eventually time out and pop up a prompt asking for Workbench. This may vary by brand of hard drive controller and I don't even know if all of them support this. If that doesn't work, remove the hard drive controller and see if the machine prompts for a disk when you turn it on. If both those fail, try reseating the large chips on the motherboard. Agnes, Paula, whatever... If that doesn't work... go to an Amiga board and ask for further help. I used to service the machines but I haven't used or worked on an Amiga in years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 (edited) BTW, if I remember right... some hard drive controllers supported bypassing the hard drive boot in you held down on a button. I don't remember any more than that. You could try the mouse buttons. <edit> The Amiga buttons might be involved. Edited January 17, 2010 by JamesD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 JamesD is right about going in and reseating the chips. That's a necessity when it comes to these old computers (I don't care which brand, they all need it sooner than later). BUT... completely remove the drive harness and power supply to get at those chips and while you're at it... examine the barrel battery. I bet it has leaked. When that happens and you see all the green fuzzy crap around it, chances are the acid ate through circuit board traces. And guess what's near it? The CPU and Kickstart chip :-( First thing Amiga or any classic computer users need to do is remove those batteries straight away. If that's your problem (which is most likely), than it's going to be a bitch reviving her if you're not good at following and reflowing traces, soldering, etc. Let us know what you see and maybe post a pic or two! BTW: Here are the Amiga boot up color codes: http://www.skepticfiles.org/cowtext/comput~1/ami-init.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 yea - its just grey... since i know the hard drive is shot and i was going to do the CF conversion anyway, i'll pull the drive and controller first and see what happens. will post pics tonight.. thanks guys.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 2.0 ROMS 37.175 is what I get when I remove the hard disk... So that tells me - at least I think - that the hard drive being flakey was the no boot issue. Also tells me that I need to find a 3.x rom chip as well... if anyone has any weigh in as to a specific ROM chip I am looking for, please let me know. My basic plans for this box are to convert it to CF, get the ROM up to the latest date I can, and then purchase a catweasel board for it along with a 5.25 so I can use it for archiving various 8bit disks ... i will post pics of the insides tonight... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 here are some board photos of the amiga.. i see the 030 processor - but other than that is there anything different from a stock amiga 2000? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 (edited) Okay... you took a bunch of pics of not too much... lol The 68000 CPU is still resident, but no longer needed since you have a GVP 030 Combo card. This means that the FAST SLOT that the GVP takes up also acts as a SCSI Controller. Make sure the HD is hooked to that and not another controller like a Commodore 2091 card. I also see you have a 3.5 GVP SCSI ROM. That means you can only use a 4GB or less (usually 2GB) HD with that system. Do you have access to other SCSI hard drives? They usually do not fail all by themselves, but in this case... who knows. If you have access to the 2.1 Workbench disks, you can try to format that HD and reinstall the OS. IF the thing is not booting into Workbench all on its own.. then yeah, something is messed up about the HD, but I bet it's fixable. Do you have AmigaOS disks?!? Now... if you're serious about keeping this system, then yes - by all means, secure yourself a 16-bit Kickstart 3.1 ROM. Then track down the Workbench 3.1 disks. Do this first as then I'll be able to give directions on how to modify your tooltypes to work with that GVP card. Here's a little hint though in the meantime: the SCSI driver to get the HD working is NOT scsi.device (built into AmigaOS). It's called: gvpscsi.device... Edited January 17, 2010 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 Okay... you took a bunch of pics of not too much... lol The 68000 CPU is still resident, but no longer needed since you have a GVP 030 Combo card. This means that the FAST SLOT that the GVP takes up also acts as a SCSI Controller. Make sure the HD is hooked to that and not another controller like a Commodore 2091 card. I also see you have a 3.5 GVP SCSI ROM. That means you can only use a 4GB or less (usually 2GB) HD with that system. Do you have access to other SCSI hard drives? They usually do not fail all by themselves, but in this case... who knows. If you have access to the 2.1 Workbench disks, you can try to format that HD and reinstall the OS. IF the thing is not booting into Workbench all on its own.. then yeah, something is messed up about the HD, but I bet it's fixable. Do you have AmigaOS disks?!? Now... if you're serious about keeping this system, then yes - by all means, secure yourself a 16-bit Kickstart 3.1 ROM. Then track down the Workbench 3.1 disks. Do this first as then I'll be able to give directions on how to modify your tooltypes to work with that GVP card. Here's a little hint though in the meantime: the SCSI driver to get the HD working is NOT scsi.device (built into AmigaOS). It's called: gvpscsi.device... Only thing is - this is an IDE interface, not SCSI... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 never mind.. its SCSI.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 not sure why i cant edit my posts - so i apologize for yet another reply... but - im not terribly worried about disk size.. this is going to be a disk reader mainly via catweasel. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 280441558690 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 (edited) I use a similar SCSI<>IDE<>CF Card Adapter for one of my Miggy's and it works great. The one thing I'd recommend getting is more RAM for that 030 card while you can still get it. See, the Amiga 2000 has 1MB of 16-bit wide chip ram, which is great, but those GVP cards are where the 32-bit ram resides. I see you have one SIMM module in there. Are there any ram chip soldered directly about the slots? If so, you could have either 1mb (typical) or 4mb of 32-bit ram already + whatever is on that SIMM. I'm guessing you might have either 4 or 5mb total though, which again - is good, but if you're going to want to do surfing of the web or anything more serious than playing games, more ram is good. Now for the bad news: that GVP RAM is proprietary and expensive! You cannot simply add any old make of SIMM's to that and were not talking the simple difference between parity or not like Apple and IBM RAM. IF you decide you want more RAM, here's a place that sells it: http://www.softhut.c...4MBand16MB.html Edited January 18, 2010 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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