[comp.sys.amiga.tech] hardware problem?

adjones@mcnc.org (Amy D. Jones) (03/28/89)

My Amiga 1000 has been crashing a LOT lately & I'm wondering if there is
some sort of hardware problem.  These crashes always seem to occur when one
of the drives are being accessed (I have one external standard Amiga drive)
or immediately after I insert a disk--sometimes even before the light goes 
on to check the disk.  One or both drive lights are usually frozen on during
a crash.  The crashes are random & varied (some GURUs, some freezes, some
GURU-looking alerts) & I often go down to KickStart (1.3, BTW).  The GURUs
are of the 00000003.######## & 00000004.######## types.  I've tried running
MemWatch & it indeed alerts me that something is stomping on my low memory
(I've noted 00000000 & 00000010 when I was taking notes).  It also has these
crashes when I try going back to 1.2 KS & WB.

It's been suggested that I open up my Amiga, poke around & press on all of my
chips to make sure they're seated properly.  I'm willing to try this, but
I'd like to know if there's anything in particular that I should look for
while I'm in there.  Is there a disk-controller chip?  Where is it?  Is it
socketed (please) or soldered in.  I have one of the very first 1000s--I got
it back in '85 (remember 1.0 ?  It's fun to load it in every now & then---
really makes you appreciate 1.3) so my warranty is long, long gone.

Incidentally, I don't think this is a virus problem, because it occurs even
when I'm working with "clean" commercial disks.  I've tried to check this
carefully, because these symptoms could be produced by a virus (even
a poorly written one...).  I'm also running Guardian1.2 & VirusX3.2 most
of the time & they've never alerted me to anything interesting.

I would really appreciate any input on this problem--I need to get some 
work done...aTdHvAaNnKcSe..........<<<<<< Amiga Amy >>>>>> 

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tada@athena.mit.edu (Michael Zehr) (04/08/89)

I've been having a number of strange problems with my A2000 lately, and
i'm beginning to wonder if I might have a hardware problem (like a bad
memory chip somewhere).  Symptoms include a lot of gurus using
commercial products (which in theory are bug-free), but seem to happen
mainly on programs which use graphics.  (Yeah, i know -- that doesn't
narrow it down much.)

Does anyone know of any diagnostics that can be run for the A2000?
something that would test memory chips, and so on?

thanks in advance for any help,
michael j zehr