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My ST is also busted, but in a *much* worse way! Read on only if you're
strong of stomach...
Last Friday night (another one of the h&h ones), I left the machine deARCing
some files, and when I returned, it had hung. "Oh well", I thought, "another
glitch somewhere", and hit the reset button. Got three bombs. "Strange, maybe
it trashed the disk". Put in another, known-to-be-good, disk. Hit reset, still
three bombs. Cycle the power. Now nothing happens. "Annoying. Must be the
heat and humidity. Time to call it a night". Next morning, try to boot. Same
symptoms as before - no disk activity; screen comes up with garbage. Open it
up, reseat chips. Cycle power. No joy. "Time for some serious debugging."
I take it into work on Monday, poke around it with a scope, notice that address
strobe is always asserted, and that /HALT is cycling about once every 8 usec.
"Looks like a job for the logic analyser". Attach it, look at what happens after
a reset cycle. Address strobe is still stuck. "Processor must be bad", replace
it (in a socket, kindly donated by Jeff Lomicka), and address strobe is now
doing its thing. But still not booting - screen is garbage. "Sigh". Start
looking around, notice that RAMs are only getting 4.72v (see other notes). Fix
this, but still nothing. Reattach logic analyser, and notice that address
strobe is again not working. "*****". No more spare 68000s around. This is
the current state of affairs. Now what? Jeff tested the 68000s I removed,
and they are, in fact, dead as doornails. I'm ready to send it to get it fixed,
unless someone else can sugguest alternatives. Does anyone know how to
send a board in for repair/replacement, and what the cost would be? I imagine
that I'd have to remove the extra memory I've installed. (What a pain!)
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| Since not BERR is asserted by the GLUE chip every 8usec, I would check to see
what addresses the CPU is trying to access if any!
If it is outside the addresses which are normally populated by ROM/RAM then
maybe the glue chip is O.K. If not then maybe the glue chip has failed....a
simple but perhaps OTT (over the top) way to check this is cut the track
for BERR between the glue and CPU. If the system boots then I'd suggest a
glue chip problem......but not what caused it!
Could any other chip be asserting bad addresses such as the DMA chip???
I doubt this will help but to paraphrase the only stupid suggestion is the one
that it not suggested....especially when the alligators are approching one's
nether region.
Regards,
Nigel
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| Subject: Re: Atari ST motherboards
Posted: 9 Jan 88 01:15:37 GMT
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
in article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) says:
>
> Does anyone know if the deal where one sends in their Atari 520ST to Atari
> and gets a new one back is still good? I remember the price as being
> around $95 or so. What are the catches to this? Can it be done through a
> dealer or only through Atari? Thanks for any information!
>
In case you haven't already gotten an answer on this one, yes, there is a
real program like this. If your machine is defective, and your dealer
can't fix it or whatever, you can send it to Atari along with a flat fee and
it will be replaced. (Note: _replaced_. So, if you have any strange
upgrades that you installed yourself, you were warned.)
Anyway, the fees are as follows:
520ST $ 95
520STfm $115
1040ST $125
Box the dead unit up and send it (along with a letter explaining the unit
is defective, and that you'd like it replaced) to:
Atari Corporation
390 Caribbean Dr.
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attn: Door 17
Hope that helps!
Mark Jansen, Atari Corp. ...ames!atari!jansen BIX or GEnie: mjansen
Any opinions expressed above do not necessarily reflect those of
Atari Corporation. "Life is tough, but it's not fair."
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