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  1. #1
    RetroSteve! My location

    Stephen Coates's Avatar
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    I got an AmigaOne XE G4

    I always fancied an AmigaOne of some kind. So, a few months ago, I bidded on one which came up on eBay, and won it for about £100 . It included the XE G4 motherboard, a graphics card, an IDE card, and a copy of AmigaOS 4.1.

    I haven't built it up into a working system yet (due to lack of components), but I did pinch the PSU from my main PC just to test it, and confirm that it does indeed work.

    After sitting around for a bit, I finally managed to get an ATX case for it. I was looking for something quite small, so I eventually settled on a Powercool 3060, which is quite small for a full ATX case. It got it for about £20. Its clearly not as well built as my main PC's Lian Li case, but it's still quite nice.

    Now I just need to get a PSU and an IDE hard drive (or maybe I should use compact flash/SSD?). I can probably recycle a CD/DVD drive and a floppy drive from my spare parts collection.

    I reckon I'll be having plenty of fun with this

    Here's the Powercool case (which can be used either as a desktop or tower):

    powercool3060.jpg

    Rear of the case with the motherboard fitted:

    powercool_rear.jpg

    Motherboard inside the case (but with no processor):

    amigaone_open.jpg

    The CPU card:

    cpu_card.jpg

    G4!

    g4.jpg

  2. #2
    Retro Addict Administrator
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    Burger Time Champion, Sonic Champion Harrison's Avatar
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    Yoy got that for a nice price. Definitely use a SSD if you can.

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  3. #3
    ELITE Kin Hell's Avatar
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    Well done fella. You got yourself a bit of a bargin there.
    Getting 0ld0r is mandatory - Growing up is just an option.

  4. #4
    RetroSteve! My location

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    I was surprised I managed to get it at a good price, as I have seen them go for much more in the past. Do they tend to sell for much these days? Now that there are newer/more modern AmigaOne models, I'd expect these to loose their value. Also, these G3/G4s do have a reputation for being a bit unreliable, although the seller did say that this one had been very stable.

    Funny to think that these are now 13 years old .

    Don't suppose anyone has a spare ATX PSU that they don't want?

    Is there much available in terms of IDE SSDs? Can't say I pay much attention to SSDs as I use hard disks pretty much everywhere.

  5. #5
    Retro Addict Administrator
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    Burger Time Champion, Sonic Champion Harrison's Avatar
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    An alternative is an ide to sata adapter.

    http://r.ebay.com/RTyyF9

    Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  6. #6
    ELITE Kin Hell's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stephen Coates View Post
    <snip>

    Funny to think that these are now 13 years old .

    <snip>
    Not so funny when I think back to buying my Amiga 3000D 26 years ago @ the tender age of 28....


    I do have an ATX kicking about if you're interested? - Antec True 550P <----click me!

    There is a 5.25" drive bay that comes with it. The PSU has a small plugged wire array that goes to this drive bay. On the front right corner, you can adjust the 12, 5 & 3.3V rails with a little pull out tool in the front panel. you can also fit a 3.5" device (Floppy, card reader) into the drive bay.

    It's heavy (Quality kit back in the day) but I don't have the original box for it, sry. - I'll find out the shipping costs for you if you PM me your delivery address details.

    **Edit**

    Bah! - I just tried my PSU tester on it & it's failed. It was okay when it went into store. I tried another 600W Corsair I have & that passes, so it isn't my tester at fault. Really sorry fella.
    Last edited by Kin Hell; 26th June 2016 at 15:10.
    Getting 0ld0r is mandatory - Growing up is just an option.

  7. #7
    RetroSteve! My location

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    Time for an update.

    I bought some parts for it a while back and got it all fitted in the case. I opted for a cheap refurbished IDE HDD in the end, and I got a Corsair PSU (can't remember the model off the top of my head).

    I had a play with the OS 4.1 which came with it, but I also recently bought a copy of OS 4.1 Final Edition from AmigaKit. It was nice and easy to install.

    Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty with it. When it boots up, it gets stuck on a blank Workbench Screen. Fortunately You can hold the mouse buttons down on boot up to get the option of booting without a startup-sequence, like you can on a classic Amiga.

    After commenting various things out in the startup-sequence, I narrowed it down to a problem with LoadMonDrvs, which is something to do with the graphics card drivers. I expect I'll be able to sort it out, but I haven't had chance to play with it any more yet.

    Meanwhile, here's a few pictures.

    This is the blank Workbench Screen which it gets stuck at on boot up.

    IMG_4343.jpg

    Here's the early startup control:

    IMG_4348.jpg

    IMG_4350.jpg

    IMG_4351.jpg

    This is the Kickstart screen which displays if no boot device is selected:

    IMG_4353.jpg

    AmigaOS 4.1 FE booted with no startup-sequence:

    IMG_4356.jpg

    Editing the startup-sequence in Ed:

    IMG_4357.jpg

  8. #8
    RetroSteve! My location

    Stephen Coates's Avatar
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    I still haven't found out why it boots to the blank screen. All I can say is that its some sort of issue with the Radeon 7000 driver.

    I tried a PCI VooDoo 3 3000 card and put the VooDoo driver into Devs:Monitors/ and it works perfectly. Had to have a little fiddle to get it to recognise my monitor's 1920x1200 resolution, but it seems to work fine.

    No idea what's wrong with the Radeon driver.

    I think the next thing to do will be to find a better heatsink for the processor. The tiny fan that is mounted on it is far too noisy.

    img_5232.jpg

  9. #9
    Retro Addict Administrator
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    Burger Time Champion, Sonic Champion Harrison's Avatar
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    Strange. Are you sure the graphics card is ok? At least you can get it working witg the other one.

    Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

    If you haven't played a classic game in years, it's never too late to start!


  10. #10
    RetroSteve! My location

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    Don't know if the graphics card is OK or not. It obviously works to an extent though. I'll try the card in a PC sometime and test it.

    I think I might see about getting a more powerful AGP graphics card.

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