consp13@bingsund.cc.binghamton.edu (Marcus Cannava) (10/24/89)
I own a 3-year-old Amiga 500, and until recently, it's given me no trouble. In the past few months, however, it's done some strange things, and maybe someone out there can help.. The problem is this: At any time, for no reason, during ANY piece of software, using ANY peripheral, or using none, the Amiga will reset itself, as if the power was turned off and on, quickly. I have taken the machine in to several dealers many times over, and after pouring $500 into it for a replacement: Keyboard, Paula chip, Mouse/peripheral controller chip, MOTHERBOARD, the Amiga is still doing it. Technicians have told me that it is probably not the amiga itself, but a peripheral causing the reset spontaneously. No tech has been able to find a direct problem with either the Amiga or any of the peripherals. I have: A500, A590 hard drive plus, A1080 monitor, A1040 external drive, modem, printer, A501 clockcard/expansion RAM. I've almost reached the end of my tolerance with this machine, and am VERY disappointed with it, since I can no longer do any serious work on it. Losing 2 hours of changes on a program for no reason gets me upset.. There seems to be one side-effect: JUST before a reset (sometimes), the monitor starts changing intensities. It will get dimmer, then brighter, then really dim, then really bright, then *CRASH*, reset. Note that this only happens SOMETIMES. Replacing the monitor did not help. The power supply was checked, and found to be providing steady, clean power. Replacing the motherboard did not help. Detaching all peripherals and running the Amiga overnite caused 2 resets. Anyone have any ideas? \marc
nn86302@tut.fi (Neuvo Niilo Anselmi) (10/25/89)
In article <2574@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> consp13@bingsund.cc.binghamton.edu (Marcus Cannava) writes: > > The problem is this: At any time, for no reason, during ANY piece of >software, using ANY peripheral, or using none, the Amiga will reset >itself, as if the power was turned off and on, quickly. > I seem to be having the same problem. The only thing that I've been able to figure out is the insufficient power supply of the a500. Yesterday my a500 had an interesting error. The capslock light on the keyboard kept on flashing on and off, even if I turned the machine off and on. The rate of the flashing was constant (on-off-on-off..). I assume it was an indication of an error in the keyboard. I didn't test the keyboard. Does anybody have an idea of what was going on in there.
robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) (10/26/89)
In response to the guy who had the "strange" problem with the caps lock key flashing on and off: I had the same problem on the A500 I bought last tuesday. I took it home and set it all up, played with it awhile, turned off the monitor and went to bed. The next AM I got up and the cap lock was flashing away. I did check the keyboard, and the only thing that still worked was the CTRL AMIGA AMIGA sequence. (The mouse still worked, and the machine booted fine, but the keyboard light just kept flashing.) Anyway, I took it back to Software Etc. (their policy is to replace rather than fix) and got a new one. But,.. while at S.E. they tried mine out and it worked again. Must have been a heat related problem on some keyboard control chip. BUT WAIT... The story continues... The new one they gave me also has now been replaced (all within one week). This one had some problem with the internal floppy that made is squeal like a banshee. At first I thought it would go away after a little use, but man; I'll tell you,.. just try to figure out the amigados file system, play with the editors, the extra's, etc. with a disk drive that makes a PAINFUL (read excruciatingly painful) noise everytime it spins. The third A500 seems to be OK, (but I've only had it 2 days so far). Thank God, Software Etc. didn't try to fix them for me or I wouldn't own one now. robin "No .sig for this guy." robin@sabre