A500 failing?

[Harrison]

Indeed they do. Also the A500 Plus has one of those evil batteries on its motherboard. I really must open my one up at some point and check the battery.

I've already removed the one from my A4000. It was starting to fur up around the ends and its legs so it was removed before it had chance to start eating at the motherboard.

[Fern]

It's also a common problem with a lot of old 80s synthesizers.. what we tend to do there, is solder some flyleads to the motherboard and mount a lithium button cell on a holder elsewhere in the casing. NiCd Batteries cause all manner of problems when they get old and leak!

[hotdiggity]

Unfortunately the saga continues. I think Harrison might have been right about the motherboard because the symptoms came back this evening.

I was transferring some ADFs to floppy via transdisk/ADF Sender Terminal with a serial cable & null modem. Things looked good, the first disk transferred in ~8 minutes (about normal based on past experience), but then the next disk took a whopping hour and 45 minutes! That's when I started to suspect something was up.

I tried booting from the new disks and they didn't work; I tried looking at them in Workbench and I was told they were bad. I did another and it took 43 minutes and then I noticed some graphical artifacts on the screen. I moved some windows around and the artifacts took over. See attached #1.

For kicks I pulled the RAM expansion out and put it back in. I flipped the power off and then back on. The first time it just stayed at a blank white screen. The second time it presented me with the insert disk screen with artifacts (attached #2 - note that the weird bendy swirly lines are actually from my TV screen). It won't recognize any disks.

Any other ideas or things for me to check? Should I rip it apart and look for a leaking battery? Is she a goner?

[Harrison]

What does the system do without the extra ram fitted?

The next step would be to take the A500's case apart and look over the motherboard for any signs of damage. Blown capacitors (the tops would be bulging up slightly rather than flat), and also make sure all of the socketed chips in the system are well seated in their spckets by giving them all a gentle push into their sockets.

[Buleste]

At the moment I would try cleaning all contacts on the Mobo with Isopropyl alcohol (especially the RAM expansion) and give the Mobo a good inspection to see if there's any visible issues.

[woody.cool]

Indeed they do. Also the A500 Plus has one of those evil batteries on its motherboard. I really must open my one up at some point and check the battery.

I had one of those evil batteries completely wreck my beloved A500 Plus!
If I remember correctly, I posted pics of it when it happened.

[hotdiggity]

What does the system do without the extra ram fitted?

Last night it wouldn't get past a blank white screen without the RAM. I tried it again this morning and it actually booted from my Workbench disk. It did complain about not having a clock backup battery or something. I will inspect the motherboard after work today.

[woody.cool]

What does the system do without the extra ram fitted?

Last night it wouldn't get past a blank white screen without the RAM. I tried it again this morning and it actually booted from my Workbench disk. It did complain about not having a clock backup battery or something. I will inspect the motherboard after work today.

The reason for the error about the lack of battery is because you have the Setclock LOAD command in your Startup-Sequence.

[hotdiggity]

I ripped apart the A500 and inspected the motherboard. No leaking capacitors, no discolored parts on the board. I pushed down on all of the chips just to be sure they were seated snugly. Since I put everything back together I haven't had a problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just playing games with me. Yeesh.

[woody.cool]

I ripped apart the A500 and inspected the motherboard. No leaking capacitors, no discolored parts on the board. I pushed down on all of the chips just to be sure they were seated snugly. Since I put everything back together I haven't had a problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just playing games with me. Yeesh.

You may have inadvertantly reseated something!
If it still persists, I reckon you'll have to get ther soldering iron out (or you could take the lazy option and get an A500 mobo off ebay)