onders@obee.ipl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders) (10/22/90)
My ST is being flakey. When I turn it on, the screen is blank, the drive starts spinning, and after about a second, three bombs come up. Sometimes it makes it all the way to the desktop before bombing, but very rarely. Anyone have any ideas before I shell out sever hundred $$$ for a professional to take a look at it? -Tim Onders onders@ipl.rpi.edu
pete@minster.york.ac.uk (10/23/90)
In article <SM3%$%$@rpi.edu> onders@obee.ipl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders) writes: >My ST is being flakey. When I turn it on, the screen is blank, the drive >starts spinning, and after about a second, three bombs come up. Sometimes >it makes it all the way to the desktop before bombing, but very rarely. >Anyone have any ideas before I shell out sever hundred $$$ for a professional >to take a look at it? > -Tim Onders > onders@ipl.rpi.edu My ST occasionally does this at embarrassing/irritating times! It's quite old (almost 4 years) and it's travelled around the country a lot... I suspect a chip has worked itself slightly loose. Giving the machine a vigorous shake or dropping it a few inches always gets it working again... my machine only usually fails in the first couple of days after I've moved it; it works fine the rest of the time! I suspect that it's one of the ROMS -- there was a day when if I put a TOS disk the machine bombed; if I put Minix (which makes minimal use of ROM after the ST has loaded the boot sector) in it works perfectly! Must get it fixed properly though - I suspect this is just a matter of checking all the ROMs and RAMs are sitting there firmly..... Pete Fenelon (pete@minster.york.ac.uk)
rrd@hpfcso.HP.COM (Ray Depew) (10/24/90)
Try slamming it on the table a couple of times. (Seriously!) It has worked in the past; should work now. Oh, yeah. make sure it's turned off first. Regards Ray rrd@hpfitst1.hp.com
nazareth@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Dieter Nazareth) (10/26/90)
Tim Onders (onders@ipl.rpi.edu) writes: >My ST is being flakey. When I turn it on, the screen is blank, the drive >starts spinning, and after about a second, three bombs come up. Sometimes >it makes it all the way to the desktop before bombing, but very rarely. >Anyone have any ideas before I shell out sever hundred $$$ for a professional >to take a look at it? Pete Fenelon (pete@minster.york.ac.uk) writes: >... >I suspect that it's one of the ROMS -- there was a day when if I put a TOS >disk the machine bombed; if I put Minix (which makes minimal use of ROM >after the ST has loaded the boot sector) in it works perfectly! > >Must get it fixed properly though - I suspect this is just a matter of >checking all the ROMs and RAMs are sitting there firmly..... Yes, I also think that you have problems with your ROM sockets, because Atari has used the cheapest available sockets ("power without the price"). But you can test whether the ST bombs because of bad contact. If you boot with a RAM TOS from disk the ST must not bomb. Fixing the ROMs properly is only a quick solution to this problem. If you often move your ST, the bombs will return. It is better to exchange the cheap sockets for high quality sockets. I have done this on my ST, because I had the same problems, and the ST works fine up to now. Dieter Nazareth >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This is not a bug, this is a feature <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<