I'm one of those unlucky owners of a dead CSPPC board, sitting here reading posts regarding common faults on these boards.As I read through many posts on the net regarding the board and faults i just wonder if there doesn't exist any single solution or experience on what component(s) which is prone to fail? (except the ppc chip or the 68K socket issue) ? I have sent the board to amiga france for a diagnostic, and the result was that the board was unrepairable (symptom : black screen, no boot. pwr led just flashing). I'm sure JJB at amiga france is doing a great job and have got many csppc boards back to life, but my experience is when requesting a test result and theory regarding what is failing at my board i got no detailed answer or should i say no answer at all. I'm quite sure there must be other user's out there with the same issues, and is there anybody who has got an real answer to what components who are likely to fail ?
...sitting here reading posts regarding common faults on these boards.As I read through many posts on the net regarding the board and faults i just wonder if there doesn't exist any single solution or experience on what component(s) which is prone to fail?
I'm not an expert, but in the first year of A1s, I heard about the death of many A1-XEs because of poor cooling systems. Overheating is the biggest killer. Why? Because the CPU and cooling fans not being monitored. I monitor the system internally and externally: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11367727@N07/1286679609/
My card also was "unrepairable". I had been a repair tech for about 22 years, so when my card died, I went to work. I tracked the problem to a bad connection within the multi-layer board.
I've seen this type of failure before in all kinds of equipment. I've even repaired a couple of A3000's with this problem in the past. Sadly, in complicated equipment, the only guide for repairing this type of issue is the original circuit diagrams. I had no docs and could find none. Perhaps chasing signals with an occilloscope might reveal the bad connection, but that's a lot of time/work for a looooog shot chance.
Hoping that I might be wrong about my findings, hoping that JJB's more extensive Amiga experience might payoff, hoping that he might have more documentation to guide him, I sent my card to france.
Unfortunaltely, after swapping serveral chips, he agreed with my diagnosis that some where in the multilayer board a connection (or connections) was bad.
We both admitted defeat (painfully) and moved on. That was 4 years ago. Since then two more of my 3640 cards have died. Now my occilliscope is out of retirement. I'm not letting these go so easily.
Sorry guy,but you are very unlucky If I could do something to help you I will do it,but I really never have a Blizzard PPC card so I don't know very much.
The only thing I remember is a new opened repair system that repairs and exchange the CPU with a new one of 200-300 Mhz in Italy.
Is on the ACube web.
Search on the internet.
Amiga 500 1MB Chip RAM with ACA 500+ACA1232,CD32,Amiga 1300 030/50 Mhz,32MB (now on my hands at least)and Amiga One G3 XE PPC 800 Mhz,ATI Radeon 9250 128 MB,256 MB RAM,Seagate 200 GB HD,2 working DVD drives,X-Arcade double for MAME,Sil0680,4 USB ports,LG
Some say they will be repairing cpps boards in the near future, but again this is only the ppc chip, so its somewhat of a longshot quickly followed by a few hundred euros.
I really hope they do find them, theres a few hundred euros and a quite broken cppc almost packed and ready for a sunny vacation in italy right under my table