Strange crash behaviour; Advice needed

Thread View: comp.sys.acorn.tech

3 messages

[T] Back to Threads [V] Tree View [G] Group Articles

3 total messages Started by Dick Alstein Thu, 30 Jul 1992 14:14

#85

Author: Dick Alstein
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 14:14

29 lines
1886 bytes

Recently, my A3000 has developed a strange (and pretty annoying) habit
of crashing. There is a pattern in it. At first, the crashes are not
very serious. Sometimes only an application dies, or else a reset with
Ctrl-Break is enough to get the machine running again. After a while,
Ctrl-Break does nothing, and I have to use the hard reset button. The
crashes get more and more serious, until not a power-on boot (with
Delete pressed) fails to get the @#$@%&* thing working. No screen
output, no nothing. At this point, the only solution is to take off the
cover, remove the IDE interface, switch the machine on and off, and
reassemble the whole thing. After that, all seems well until the
pattern starts all over again.

Can anybody make an educated guess about the cause of this annoyance? I
don't think it's caused by the software. It doesn't matter what is
running, and the crash behaviour seems random (I've seen all kinds:
abort on instruction fetch, continuous sound, messed up screen, total
lack of response). Nor could it be caused by heat building up inside:
the thing may crash a few seconds after starting up. Bad contacts in
the expansion slot, messing up the bus is a possibility, but that would
hardly explain why the crashes get more and more serious.

My guess would be that the backup battery of the C-mos RAM is getting
old. Is there a way to check this (e.g. by measuring its voltage)?

Any help appreciated.


Dick Alstein

Re: Strange crash behaviour; Advice needed

#94

Author: Huw Rogers
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 07:12

39 lines
2559 bytes

In article <3763@svin02.info.win.tue.nl> wsinda@info.win.tue.nl writes:
>
>Recently, my A3000 has developed a strange (and pretty annoying) habit
>of crashing. There is a pattern in it. At first, the crashes are not
>very serious. Sometimes only an application dies, or else a reset with
>Ctrl-Break is enough to get the machine running again. After a while,
>Ctrl-Break does nothing, and I have to use the hard reset button. The
>crashes get more and more serious, until not a power-on boot (with
>Delete pressed) fails to get the @#$@%&* thing working. No screen
>output, no nothing. At this point, the only solution is to take off the
>cover, remove the IDE interface, switch the machine on and off, and
>reassemble the whole thing. After that, all seems well until the
>pattern starts all over again.

Check your power supply leads - these are one of the commonest hardware
problems in A3000s. Take the cover off, switch the machine on,
and tweak the leads from the PSU to the main PCB - as you push/pull
on them see if there is any noticeable variation in screen output
intensity or if a crash occurs. If doing this immediately reproduces
these symptoms or those you describe you will need to remove the PSU cover
and resolder the leads to the PSU's PCB - on many A3000s they are very
badly soldered/connected at the PSU end. The loose connection causes
power and voltage fluctuations when the cover of the machine is flexed
since the leads are pressed against the underside of the cover when
it's fitted... even the smallest physical movement of the machine
causes the plastic cover to flex slightly, moving the PSU leads,
causing power supply fluctuations, in turn causing crashes and other
anomalous behaviour. Having an interface card hanging off the back
of the machine may marginally increase the stress on the cover which
would add to this problem.

Hope this helps,

	-Huw

[ H.J.Rogers  INTERNET: rogersh%p4@cs.man.ac.uk                    ]
[    ,_,      JANET: rogersh%p4@uk.ac.man.cs                       ]
[  :-(_)-o   "I'll be back..."                                     ]
[   _} {_    "Computer Science is an engineering discipline."      ]

Re: Strange crash behaviour; Advice needed

#96

Author: Gardar Runolfsson
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 07:55

25 lines
1284 bytes

wsinda@wsinfo10.info.win.tue.nl (Dick Alstein) writes:

>Recently, my A3000 has developed a strange (and pretty annoying) habit
>of crashing. Th[.....]
>[......] At this point, the only solution is to take off the
>cover, remove the IDE interface, switch the machine on and off, and
>reassemble the whole thing. After that, all seems well until the
>pattern starts all over again.

it is possible that the connection for the ide disc gets bad over a
period of time (oxigizes? (sorry don't know how to spell it:-) that
has happened with a lot of a3000's memory upgrade connection. So at
regular intervals I've had to remove the memory upgrade and spray
it with a contact cleaner and plug it in again. The only other cure
I can think of is to solder the memory upgrade into the a3000. If
someone has a permanent cure for this problem please let me know,

>Dick Alstein
gardar runolfsson
-- 

Regards
Gardar Runolfsson
gardar@grun.is

Thread Navigation

This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.

Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.

Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.

Back to All Threads