Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!QUCDNAST.BITNET!RICK
From: RICK@QUCDNAST.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: problems with an amiga 500
Message-ID: <8908311544.AA28591@jade.berkeley.edu>
Date: 31 Aug 89 16:33:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 73


The following (slightly editted) was sent to me by a local friend of
mine. It seems to have stumped the service type at the local dealer. If
anyone has an inspired suggestion to make, his address is
nosworth@qucdn.bitnet
or
nosworth@queensu.ca
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1. about a year or so ago, i noticed that my screen would "jump"
periodically -- it would suddenly shift up or down for a brief moment. i
thought this was due to statitic building up on the monitor-screen,
because i had recently attached a plastic "flicker-reducer" to it (the
static seemed high). i bought some anti-static spray, but it didn't seem
to do much good.

2. about four months ago, a new problem occurred wwith my display.
fairly often, a rastor-line would "spark" accompanied by an audible
"pop". this was getting very annoying (made watching the screen for long
periods of time quite unpleasant). still, i assumed the problem was with
my monitor (and it was getting worse).

3. in the first week of august, the thing totally died on me. on a cold
boot, the kickstart screen (i have a 500, btw) would either not appear
(with the internal drive trying in vain to access the startup disk), or
it would be a complete mess (parts of the 'hand n'disk' shifted all over
the place, colours haywire, etc). i took it in for servicing, was told
my denise chip was bad, and replaced it for $100 (ouch!). when i brought
it home, it was working better than ever: the screen didn't jump and the
scan-lines didn't spark, so i assumed that these had been symptoms of a
dying denise.

4. well, that didn't last for long...the jumps and sparks were soon back
to haunt me. then, about a week and a half ago, something else happened.
i started up vt100 (after having used it an hour earlier without event),
and found that it wouldn't work. neither would my other term programs
(and i tried a cold-boot, starting with a different workbench disk,
backups of the term programs, everything!). the script file would cause
the terminal to dial out, but nothing would appear on the screen (even
the phone number which is usually displayed). the lights on the modem
indicated that it was receiving data from the mainframe (or bbs) and
that it was trying to send this to the amiga. the weird thing is that
typed-in characters wouldn't show up on the screen when the terms were
running so i couldn't try the at commands. my feeling is that the modem
is fine, but i haven't been able to check on someone else's system yet.
the service tech checked the two control chips, and they seem to be okay.
he seems to think that it has something to do with the serial port control
chip (paula?), but can't figure out why it's all going 'boom' at the same
time.

5. and during the past week, a few other weird things have happened. a
few times, when i tried to warm/cold boot off sonix, the screen display
would be unbearably slow (the pointer would be seconds behind the mouse,
etc) and the program wouldn't load. then yesterday, i was working with
microfiche and wordperfect when i ran low on ram. i saved my work to
disk after which the display started to degrade and got worse as i moved
the mouse. fine, i thought, my chip ram must have been stomped. however,
a cold-boot yielded the familiar messed-up kickstart requester again
(sometimes it didn't even get that far, so i'd tap the machine to get it
'moving'). i left the machine off for an hour, and when i returned, it
could boot again (though the display and serial/modem problems are still
there). it was been ok since then, but i doubt this will last for long.

so there it is. any idea what's going on? i have had an isobar
surge-protector installed for over a year now, so the machine should be
getting a pretty "clean" current. why are all these problems happening
in quick succession? what is the common denominator? or is it just
incredibly bad luck?
-------------------------------------------------------------------

that's the story. thanks in advance.

"Are you police officers?"
"No, ma'am.  We're musicians."