Amiga 4000 new find

[PhearedPhool]

Hello All!
I am new to the scene of Amiga. I just happened across (at an estate sale) an Amiga 4000 with video toaster add on, +some more stuff I don't know, monitor, keyboard, mouse... So I am in business! I am hoping to gain some insight from you all on first of all what I am working with, but also how to get this bad boy fully functioning. Currently when starting up it comes to a very colorful screen with an insert floppy animation. When putting in some of my games, it will load the games, but im not getting to a home screen (for lack of a better term) like I see on many videos. I am just a novice here trying to learn!
Also, are there any precautions I need to know right out of the gate? Batteries, capacitors, etc which will cause harm and need to be changed immediately?

I am not sure the best way to figure out all the hardware installed. it appears there is a board in each of the 4 slots so hard to see/determine exactly what is present.

Thank you all in advance!
-PhearedPhool

 

[powerlot]

Congratulations!

Absolutely check for a leaky battery and/or capacitors, corroded traces and other suspicious looking components.

If it doesn't have a harddisk you will get the prompt for a floppy. The "homescreen" is most likely the Workbench (you need a matching one for your Kickstart ROM version)... maybe there is a floppy with WB in your haul.

Can't say more as I'm also not very familiar with Amigas... maybe post some pictures of the cards?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Nice pull. Is this a tower or the desktop?

The "insert disk" animation probably means there is no internal hard disk, or it's not working, so I'd start with that. You might crack it open and see what disks are present (if it has a Video Toaster, then it must have some sort of mass storage). While Kickstart gets you part of the way, you need a bootable operating system to actually get to the Workbench, which is what I think you mean by homescreen. My 4000T runs 3.9 very well.

 

[PhearedPhool]

 

[PhearedPhool]

Nice pull. Is this a tower or the desktop?

The "insert disk" animation probably means there is no internal hard disk, or it's not working, so I'd start with that. You might crack it open and see what disks are present (if it has a Video Toaster, then it must have some sort of mass storage). While Kickstart gets you part of the way, you need a bootable operating system to actually get to the Workbench, which is what I think you mean by homescreen. My 4000T runs 3.9 very well.

Thank you! I have attached a bunch of images above. Looks like there was the video toaster flyer and video toaster 4000 cards, then an unknown card on top. There is also an expansion as seen on the last photos that is under the harddrives.
I did actually find the massive storages as well, there were 2 separate towers that were originally attached that have 10+ hard drives in them. I did not have this plugged in on my initial test.
In review of the board, it appears there is a start of a leak so I am hesitant to fire this up again without a repair(which I do not know how to do!)
Also, apparently there are 5 ram slots occupied? Thought that was pretty cool!

 

[PhearedPhool]

Congratulations!

Absolutely check for a leaky battery and/or capacitors, corroded traces and other suspicious looking components.

If it doesn't have a harddisk you will get the prompt for a floppy. The "homescreen" is most likely the Workbench (you need a matching one for your Kickstart ROM version)... maybe there is a floppy with WB in your haul.

Can't say more as I'm also not very familiar with Amigas... maybe post some pictures of the cards?

I am new to forum and dont know how to multiquote sorry!, figured I would update you with the pictures.

 

[dankcomputing]

get that battery out, wiggle it off or carefully clip it with pliers if you have to. get the whole thing apart and douse that area of that board with wet baking soda, then rinse completely, then vinegar, then rinse completely, then rubbing alcohol, then dry completely. i have seen way too many of those things do hundreds of dollars of damage resulting in dozens of man-hours of troubleshooting and repair.

not having a clock battery won't affect the system beyond the rtc not keeping time when the power is off, but assuming the acid didn't kill the rtc or cause any other damage it's easy to replace it. what i do is solder headers into the motherboard holes the battery used, then adapt a 3.6v cordless phone battery to plug into those headers and extend the wires so the phone battery can go somewhere where it couldn't hurt anything even if it did leak. (front of the case just behind the plastic front is the best spot.) you can also get little conversion boards that let you put a 2032 in the original battery's place. but bottom line, get the original out asap.

second priority is the capacitors. everyone says this about every system now but the amiga 4000 got the really nasty ones that got everyone talking in the first place. not as destructive as the battery but could affect system stability and will definitely affect sound output if they're far gone enough.

it's good that you're getting a kickstart screen, sounds like something happened to the hard drive. replacing that with a compactflash is the easy part. i imagine a lot of amiga games won't run directly from floppy on 4000, but using hard drive installs every game can be made to run.

incredible that you found one of these things out in the wild.

 

[PhearedPhool]

get that battery out, wiggle it off or carefully clip it with pliers if you have to. get the whole thing apart and douse that area of that board with wet baking soda, then rinse completely, then vinegar, then rinse completely, then rubbing alcohol, then dry completely. i have seen way too many of those things do hundreds of dollars of damage resulting in dozens of man-hours of troubleshooting and repair.

not having a clock battery won't affect the system beyond the rtc not keeping time when the power is off, but assuming the acid didn't kill the rtc or cause any other damage it's easy to replace it. what i do is solder headers into the motherboard holes the battery used, then adapt a 3.6v cordless phone battery to plug into those headers and extend the wires so the phone battery can go somewhere where it couldn't hurt anything even if it did leak. (front of the case just behind the plastic front is the best spot.) you can also get little conversion boards that let you put a 2032 in the original battery's place. but bottom line, get the original out asap.

second priority is the capacitors. everyone says this about every system now but the amiga 4000 got the really nasty ones that got everyone talking in the first place. not as destructive as the battery but could affect system stability and will definitely affect sound output if they're far gone enough.

it's good that you're getting a kickstart screen, sounds like something happened to the hard drive. replacing that with a compactflash is the easy part. i imagine a lot of amiga games won't run directly from floppy on 4000, but using hard drive installs every game can be made to run.

incredible that you found one of these things out in the wild.

Thank you for the info! I was unable to easily remove, so I did end up having to clip this. It looks like I may have gotten lucky as it doesn't really extend past the immediate area. I was hoping you could go into more detail about the process for cleaning the residual area. What exactly is your rinse process? I am trying to youtube this, but everyone has their own way. Yeah I couldn't believe my luck, but am so happy to have found it.

Do you think I need to take the board out of the case and the ram out? given I am a novice I was trying to be as careful and not overdo anything that isn't necessary to prevent further damage.

 

[A4000Bear]

I can see green corrosion on the first pin on the front memory SIMM. The soldered connection to the electrolytic capacitor to the left of the clock chip is very crusty. Its not just the battery that leaks corrosive liquids, those surface mount electrolytic capacitors also have the same problem. All of them will need removal, cleaning and replacement.

Some information about leaky batteries in Amigas: http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/overclock/batt.html

 

[RetroNinja]

get the whole thing apart and douse that area of that board with wet baking soda, then rinse completely, then vinegar, then rinse completely, then rubbing alcohol, then dry completely.

Just curious, what's the point of the baking soda? a soft abrasion or does it do something chemically?

 

[Unknown_K]

Baking soda and vinegar create co2 gas which can raise up trapped dirt (in theory).

Baking soda is a base, vinegar is an acid, put together they cancel each other out.

Personally, a small amount of dishwater soap and a toothbrush or just a paintbrush tends to clean up any acid or base that has leaked onto a board and hot water will get rid of the residue.