cantwell@VUSE.VANDERBILT.EDU (Jeff Cantwell) (03/08/90)
Help! My 3 year old 1040ST seems to be getting a bit flaky lately. I get frequent bombs when trying to run software that used to be fine. Mostly I get three bombs (address error), or two bombs (bus error), and an occasional TOS error #35. I am also getting messages that the disks are unreadable or may be damaged, but after several tries, or rebooting they work fine. I am using commercial and public domain software that has not been any problem in the past, such as Starglider, WordPerfect, ABCD, Daleks, etc. These reside on different floppy disks. I just have the one doublesided floppy drive (no hard drive), and I have never performed any maintenance on it. Could I simply have a dirty disk mechanism or do I have more serious troubles? If so, is there a drive cleaning kit available for the ST? I have also considered the problem of heat, but leaving the machine off all night and trying programs in the morning does not help at all. By the way, I did recently detect an unidentified virus with ST Virus Killer version 2.01 from George Woodside, and promptly killed it and disinfected all my disks. The effect of the virus was to erase a disk. I lost one disk, and then temporarily lost but recovered another. They all are clean (virus-free) now, according to the program. Jeff Cantwell Vanderbilt U. INTERNET: cantwell@vuse.vanderbilt.edu BITNET: CANTWEJR@VUCTRVAX
hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (03/09/90)
In article <9003072218.AA03079@vuse.vanderbilt.edu>, cantwell@VUSE.VANDERBILT.EDU (Jeff Cantwell) writes: > Help! My 3 year old 1040ST seems to be getting a bit flaky lately. I > get frequent bombs when trying to run software that used to be fine. Open it up and reseat the socketed chips. While this applies to the ROMS and Video shifter, it is particularly important to pull out and reinstall the little square ones in a 4 sided socket. (MMU to you). It makes only light contact with its fingers and can cause all kinds of sickness. BTW this is what the "drop it on the floor" remedies are trying to do, only its a lot safer to just reseat the chips. Howard C. Johnson ATT Bell Labs att!lzsc!hcj hcj@lzsc.att.com
dlh@raider.MFEE.TN.US (Dana L. Holt) (03/10/90)
In article <9003072218.AA03079@vuse.vanderbilt.edu>, cantwell@VUSE.VANDERBILT.EDU (Jeff Cantwell) writes: > Help! My 3 year old 1040ST seems to be getting a bit flaky lately. I > get frequent bombs when trying to run software that used to be fine. > Mostly I get three bombs (address error), or two bombs (bus error), > and an occasional TOS error #35. I am also getting messages that the > disks are unreadable or may be damaged, but after several tries, or > rebooting they work fine. I am using commercial and public domain > software that has not been any problem in the past, such as > Starglider, WordPerfect, ABCD, Daleks, etc. These reside on different > floppy disks. I just have the one doublesided floppy drive (no hard drive), > and I have never performed any maintenance on it. Could I simply have > a dirty disk mechanism or do I have more serious troubles? If so, is there > a drive cleaning kit available for the ST? I have also considered the > problem of heat, but leaving the machine off all night and trying > programs in the morning does not help at all. > It sounds like (to me) that it's a disk problem. I'd get a 3.5 in. drive head cleaner and give that a try TOS #35 error code is (*I THINK*) 'a corrupted (unexecutable) program'. Hope this helps.. dlh@raider.MFEE.TN.US
dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (03/12/90)
Jeff Cantwell writes: >> Help! My 3 year old 1040ST seems to be getting a bit flaky lately. I >> get frequent bombs when trying to run software that used to be fine. >> Mostly I get three bombs (address error), or two bombs (bus error), >> and an occasional TOS error #35. I am also getting messages that the >> disks are unreadable or may be damaged, but after several tries, or >> rebooting they work fine. I am using commercial and public domain Dana Holt replies: > It sounds like (to me) that it's a disk problem. I'd get a 3.5 in. >drive head cleaner and give that a try TOS #35 error code is (*I THINK*) >'a corrupted (unexecutable) program'. Hope this helps.. > dlh@raider.MFEE.TN.US Another possibility is one that's been driveing me to distraction, almost to the point of scrapping my 520-ST entirely: loose/flaky contacts to the VLSI and DRAM chips. Early on I noticed that a solid (I hate to admit to this) SLAM!! of the keyboard unit on the desk top would make it behave for a while, at least sometimes. :{) I talked with a friend who's a tech at a local Atari shop, and he told me that early units were shipped before Atari started using hold-down clips on the PLCC sockets (the large square leadles chip carriers...). Mine turned out to have the clips, but pulling and reseating the ICs helped a lot, for a while. Now its back to the same old tricks, and I'm getting *really* tired of it! Good luck!! Dave dbell@cup.portal.com