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Amstrad PC 2286

Thank you acgs for your input.

Good idea to double check the beeper. I think I remember hearing muffled 'dud' from it though, when
I turn power off from the psu. But I will check that again.

I'm pretty convinced that both boards are securely connected, since I have tested this on the table, and not
while installed on the computer case. But yeah, maybe that is causing intermittant issues. I will also separate the boards
to make sure I have not bent any pins on the long connector.

I have checked with a working 386 motherboard that the floppy drive is also busted (Ha, who would have guesed :) ).
But I also found out that the hard drive was indeed working! It was interesting for me to find that the Amstrad original
40mb mfm drive had been replaced with 100mb ide drive. And it contained dos 5.0 with windows 3.0 (but no other software),
instead of original dos 4.01 that came with the Amstrad.

Heh, the one thing actually working is not Amstrad original. But it still made me happy. I remember playing windows game reversi
somewhere back in -91 and it was lovely to see that again after several decades.
 
Hello there!

Found this thread while looking info in order to bring back to life my 2286. Have you managed to progress with yours? I have the same issues like yours. PSU works fine correct voltages etc. Board gets power ok, light comes on but doesn't post.
 
Hello 32k,

welcome to the forum and good luck with your 2286 project! There are not too many of these around,
and some that are, are unfortunately not working.

To make a small correction, I was unfortunately unable to repair the PSU. I tried the 2286 motherboard with
modified AT psu. Sadly, with that, the 2286 motherboard is also dead. It's not posting, no beeps to the speaker
and nothing at the display with the motherboard video adapter nor external one (with jumpers set accordingly).
I've also tried several RAM configurations without success.

I was however able to revive the Amstrad PC14HRCD monitor. I posted separate thread on that project here:

With the 2286 I have had to resort into the plan b. Temporary one at least, I have mounted a small 386dx/40 (amd)
with 8Mb RAM together with that AT psu inside the Amstrad case. It works well, but I had to modify the case slightly,
one additional hole for keyboard and second on the back for the power cord. I did not want to make these, but in
the end practicality won - I have a working computer. Also noted during this modification trouble with ISA slots.
the gap between ISA slots are slightly greater in the Amstrad than what they are in standard IBM clone moterboard / case.
While not perfect fit, adequate enough to assemble the unit.

I was planning to post here the "end" result, after I tidy it up a bit and assemble the monitor fully. And take a few pics of
some games that I used to play with it back in the day. I have a whopping 3 day vacation now during christmas, so I think
I finally have chance to set it all up now.

I say "end" result, because I'm not fully giving up the Amstrad 2286 motherboard just yet. I happened to order a big bunch
of electrolytic caps for the monitor, one short of all actually, but I managed to fix it before implementing those. I haven't
compared yet if I happen to have all elcaps that are used in the motherboard. If I do, I might as well replace them and see
if that has any effect. But, I don't give deadline on that. I started this project on april. Now I'm going to get the unit
in playable condition for christmas - I'm just going to enjoy it for a while before anything else. What could be nicer
christmas present for self than to play a bit with "my very first DOS PC" :).

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone
=)
 
Hi 32K,

While your symptoms might be the same, your causes might be different. I suggest you start your own thread and post pictures of your motherboard, power supply, etc. @VintageVic's 2286 was badly rusted and corroded to the point where some traces of the circuit boards are gone.

Yours might be much easier to get back to operating condition if the problems are more common, everyday types. While the 2286 is rare these days, there still is help available to get these computers back into fully functional condition.
 
Having a bit of fun with the Amstrad 2286!

Started today by cleaning the unit. Windows 3.0 worked well like in the bench test before the unit was assembled.
Dune II looks great. I went on unpacking master of orion. Heh, you have a good time to visit refridgerator while 6 megabyte
packed file is being extracted.

But Orion would not launch just that easily. You needed to have Extended memory available, at least 1 Mb for MOO to run.
So a quick config.sys configuration was needed. But then you'd also need minimum of 575k of conventional memory as well.
Thus, stripping unnecessary stuff out from autoexec.bat next. And done - Master of Orion would now run!

The stuff you need to do with DOS PC's. Just like old times.

Next, I wanted to run Civilization. And I did! Unfortunately, had no time to take picture of it before the monitor
just suddenly went black again !!

Aaargh! End result in 6.jpg. Computer is still running, but monitor is black. Also the monitor LED went black
and there is no static in front of the screen if you touch it by hand.

Doh. Maybe it was too good to be true. Something must have happened to the monitor PSU. There were
on bang sound, only just similar sound as if one would turn CRT monitor off from the power switch.

Well. It was fun for a while, and back to the drawing board.
 

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HI VintageVic,
I've spent a fair amount of time working on 2 separate 2386 machines, so have some info that might help. Both my machines fail in the same way if there is any issue with the system RAM.
Once you get your monitor working again, see if you get stripey blue lines on the screen when you power on. That is the VGA adapter not being initialized by the CPU. If there is a problem with the main memory then POST simply doesn't start, you just get these blue stripes. On the 1512 and 1640 apparently POST ran without needing system RAM, but that's not the case for the 2000 series.

I had this happen on my original 2386 back in 1992. It arrived like that, but did fire up just one time before going bad again.
My vintage machines show the same behaviour when the memory is missing or not making good contact. It could be something else too, but I would check all the pins in the SIMM sockets, as 5 on mine were broken. I got one working 100% by getting the memory securely.

Do you have a service manual for it? If not, Harrison's seem to have one (I got my 2386 one there - they are excellent)

Harrison service manuals

If you do get it, please do share a scan of it (I need to scan and upload my 2386 one!)

Regarding the monitor, I'd add 2 things. No power LED suggests no power from the supply at all - check the fuses first. If you get a blank screen with no static but with a green LED, my experience is that the x-ray protection gets a little twitchy on these monitors, and shuts down the HV supply. I sometimes have to turn it off and on a few times when starting from cold. After that it's fine. I suspect it's one of the electrolytic caps I've not got round to changing.
There is an excellent set of YouTube videos about fixing CRT monitors that I found really helpful. I'll share the link if you're interested.

Jon
 
Hi jcd96,

and welcome to the forum! Big thanks for sharing your experiences with Amstrad 2xxx series and advice
about the service manual. I have emailed Harrison Electronics if they have it still available.

About the monitor, I will continue on the monitor thread. But for now, I have ordered the main IC at
its psu and waiting for it to arrive. Also, most of the electolytic caps are coming on the mail - so I have
a chance at replacing them if the main IC does not prove to be the issue with it.

It is good to know about the blue line on the screen as a diagnostic method when there are RAM issues.
Although 2286 might differ from 2386. Regardless, I will see if that appears if and hopefully when I get my monotor
working again.

Go ahead, you're welcome to share recommended youtube link on fixing CRT's here.
 
Harrison Electronics gave me an answer, but unfortunately...

"Thankyou for your enquiry but unfortunately we no longer have the service manaul for the 2286."
 
Oh, that's a shame. And unfortunately I've hit a snag with the CRT videos: since about May they seem to have become private on YouTube. I've tried to contact the owner to see if I can get access.
 
Thanks for posting that!
Maybe not fit for my 2286, but might come in handy for someone fixing the 2386 !
 
Thanks for your comment acgs.

I noticed from the Amstrad 2386 service manual, that its motherboard does have similarities with the 2286 motherboard.

I have recently worked with building an arduino EEPROM writer/reader. Have used it to write my first 32k EEPROM for the Commodore 1581 project (that is
on another topic under Commodore section).

Now, I made second, slightly edited version of the EEPROM programmer, that works (should work) to read the Amstrad ROM ICs.
Amstrad 2286 has four 32k ROMs on IC149-152. Here is my first hex dump of IC149.

So, if my arduino ROM reader works as it should, attached here is the correct ROM data.
It looks interesting. Large areas of 00 and FF data on it. I wonder why. I suppose it looks ok though, since
there is obviously some data on many areas of the ROM memory.

I will try to read the other three ROMs as well and post results here.
 

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Okay,

a small perfection to my EPROM reader. There was a line break after every 64 bytes on the hex dump and
the last byte was missing. This is not corrected and the dump file size is exactly 65536 bytes in size and because
character text file takes two characters to display one byte, the information value is 65536 / 2 = 32768 bytes as
it should be.

Attached is now hex dumps of each rom (IC149 - IC152). They look pretty similar in data, lots of 00 and FF areas
in them. I cannot evaluate if the data is correct as I don't have anything to compare it with. But at least each of the
ROM IC is giving out data, none looks completely dead so I guess I can assume they are good (which is great for the
hope of reviving this Amstrad 2286 motherboard).
 

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If it's like the 2386, then the first 16k of ROM (mapped at 0xC0000) is largely zeroes, and the fourth 16k (mapped at 0xCC000) is 0xFF bytes.
 
On won an auction for an Amstrad on our local auction site. Looked nice, build quality was ok but it had that a so common dead fdd issue. Couldn't found any documentation at the time to sort that out. It was in around 1998 when all the pre Pentiun 1 stuff was thought of as just rubbish and disposing of them left right and center. I had other 100% AT class systems so broke it down and keept the Amstrad Adlab branded 8-bit sound card and the 720k disks that were sold with it.IMG_20230502_120559.jpg
 
That Amstrad system disk might have been from 2086 or perhaps 1640 model?
I remember that my 2286 had MS-DOS 4.01 at the time (1991). I never had sound card with it.
 
The games pack looks similar to one of the two I had for the 5086, with the installer adding icons for the games to the empty 'Games' folder in the Counterpoint launcher. What I've never seen, but have a feeling there ought to have been, is a similar pack that populated the empty 'Business' folder.
 
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