ScuzzBlog: Diaries August 2025 Entry 3rd August 2025: Post 1: Amiga A500 Plus - They can't all be happy endings. Amiga A500 Plus - They can't all be happy endings. Just when you think you have sorted out a problem you get 'nobbled' by a sideways issue that you really didn't see coming. I have spent probably close on two decades toiling over this Plus. She was written off at one stage with such bad battery damage. In truth she probably has no reason to have survived so long. Anyhoo .. I was not surprised to discover when I switched her on that the screen was pure white. I took the machine straight to the bench and with some threatening she did begin to boot. I only had my 1.3 disk to hand. The screen showed all the tell tale signs of the GARY socket playing up again so time to give a clean. The computer has fitted a ROM switcher. When not booting from a problem GARY you can get every problem imaginable. Along with the vertical patterning on the screen, you can get failed boot screens, and often the floppy plays all kinds of tricks slowly trying to boot then giving up. I cleaned the socket and the chip and like magic she booted first time. I only had the 1.3 disk but she was fine and the floppy was working along with the mouse. So I wrote out a sticker and stuck it on the base and left her on the bench ready to return into store. Like an idiot much much later that day I decided to pull a 2.04 disk and give it a whirl.... Bad idea. 'Nothing'. She was dead. I decided to reclean the socket and reseat the ROM switcher. Now she was giving me the deadly eleven flashes on the power light and a solid bright green screen. I removed the ROM switcher and just used the ROM but with the same result. My fear is a broken trace. I doubt it's RAM or the AGNUS. Sadly this is beyond my level of expertise. And so I have chosen to mothball the computer and maybe gift the machine to someone with the ability to repair it. I sense the GARY socket needs replacing and all the traces on the board needs checking. If only I had left matters as they were when I stuck on the sticker. On a happier note my Lost Vikings disks arrived. No soddin' substitute though. ..... bloody stupid computer. Like I care. (wipes away tear). Amiga A500 Plus - They can't all be happy endings.

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Last updated 3rd August 2025

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