davidlo@madvax.UUCP (David Lo) (07/13/87)
This has been discussed before, but I do not remember the detail.
Lately, while warm booting my Amiga, I have noticed the screen
changes to a green color for a brief moment before the "insert workbench"
message. Does this means some parts is going to die ?
BTW, I have a 68010 in place. All softwares function correctly.
You help is greatly appreciated.
--
David Lo (415)939-2400 /\ o
Varian Instruments, 2700 Mitchell Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94598 \/
{ptsfa,lll-crg,zehntel,dual,amd,fortune,ista,rtech,csi,normac}varian!davidlokpmancus@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU (Keith P. Mancus) (07/14/87)
In article <603@madvax.UUCP> davidlo@madvax.UUCP (David Lo) writes: > Lately, while warm booting my Amiga, I have noticed the screen > changes to a green color for a brief moment before the "insert workbench" > message. Does this means some parts is going to die ? That sounds like a mild version of what happened to mine. I just bought a new A1000; unfortunately, it only worked for half an hour before dying. I am still waiting for my second one to arrive. The symptom was simple; after powerup, it would pause for a moment with the screen gray (I think this is normal), then, at the point when it should have requested the Kickstart disk, the screen turned green and the power light started flashing. It remained this way for a few seconds, then the screen turned gray again and the power light went back to steady. A few seconds later the cycle repeated. This continued until I powered down. At no time did the drive do anything at all. I tried restarting it at least 10-15 times, including a half hour pause to let the machine cool off if overheated, but it persisted in the above mentioned behavior. Finally I gave in and sent it back. Has anyone else had this problem? It seems to me that something this major must have been a failure of the 68000, its PIA, or one of the other fundamental chips. Does anyone know for certain? -Keith <kpmancus@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU>
bryce@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Bryce Nesbitt) (07/15/87)
In article <429@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU> you write: >In article <603@madvax.UUCP> davidlo@madvax.UUCP (David Lo) writes: > >> Lately, while warm booting my Amiga, I have noticed the screen >> changes to a green color for a brief moment before the "insert workbench" >> message. Does this means some parts is going to die ? No. Green is one of the random colors that can come up. > The symptom was simple; after powerup, it would pause for a moment with >the screen gray (I think this is normal), then, at the point when it should >have requested the Kickstart disk, the screen turned green and the power >light started flashing. > It seems to me that something this major must have been a failure of the >68000, its PIA, or one of the other fundamental chips. Does anyone >know for certain? This DOES mean something is dead. In a former life I designed and manufactured 256K ram cards. This behavior with a newly manufactured ram card meant that yet *another* of the PC boards had a short from ground an address or data line. Offhand I'd guess this means "chip memory test bad" and the number of blinks represents a memory address. I'd STILL like CATS to post a complete description of the powerup disgnostics (Color flash, light blink, sound test etc.). ----------------------------- |\ /| . Ack! (NAK, EOT, SOH) {o O} . ( " ) bryce@cogsci.berkeley.EDU -or- ucbvax!cogsci!bryce U "Success leads to stagnation; stagnation leads to failure."
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (07/16/87)
in article <8707150441.AA03209@cogsci.berkeley.edu>, bryce@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Bryce Nesbitt) says: > > In article <429@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU> you write: >>In article <603@madvax.UUCP> davidlo@madvax.UUCP (David Lo) writes: >> >>> Lately, while warm booting my Amiga, I have noticed the screen >>> changes to a green color for a brief moment before the "insert workbench" >>> message. Does this means some parts is going to die ? > > No. Green is one of the random colors that can come up. Actually, green is meaningful in the right context. On initial powerup, the first meaningful color displayed is dark grey, which indicates the system has passed the "hardware test". The 68000 is running, and some hardware registers are seen. Next is the light grey screen, the "software test", where the system software is starting to come up. Finally, the "white" screen comes up indicating that the machine is just about ready to ask for a disk; everything has checked out OK. Failures come up as colors. Green indicates a CHIP RAM failure of some kind. Red indicates a ROM/WCS failure. Blue indicates a custom chip failure. And yellow indicates that a 68000 exception trap has occurred before the normal OS trap handler (the GURU code) has been installed. When a failure is detected, the OS will often retry, so you can see cycling from failure to test, at least for the right kind of failures. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh "The A2000 Guy" PLINK : D-DAVE H BIX : hazy "Catch a wave and you're sittin' on top of the world" -Beach Boys
atc@bnl.UUCP (atc@bnl) (07/18/87)
)
According to the technical information I have read on the A500 and 1000
a green screen during boot-up has to deal with "local ram" - (i.e.
possibly a bad ram chip).
There are also some other interesting colors that signify other problems:
RED SCREEN - Possibly a bad ROM, Agnus or Gary (on 500)
YELLOW SCREEN - 68000 is stuck on NMI / Possibly a bad 68K or Paula.
GREEN SCREEN - (Mentioned above) Local Memory, possibly bad ram.
BLUE SCREEN - Bad Denise, Paula, or Agnus. Possibly all are bad.
---> NOTE: DO NOT attempt any repairs on your own. Bring your machine
to an authorized Commodore service center.
My apologies to Commodore if I'm posting something they'd prefer me not to
post.
----
The invisible Snaf:
atc@bnl