Archie A3000 inbound

[rubber_jonnie]

Nice, somebody did you a big favour when they pulled that out in a timely fashion.

For sure ! It saves a lot of precious time.

It surely does. My A5000 battery damage was considerable, and having seen others over at the stardot forum, I got away quite lightly. I fitted a rechargeable CR2032 to mine, has been fine so far.

[HigashiJun]

It surely does. My A5000 battery damage was considerable, and having seen others over at the stardot forum, I got away quite lightly. I fitted a rechargeable CR2032 to mine, has been fine so far.

Despite that damage, you brought your machine back to life.

[rubber_jonnie]

It surely does. My A5000 battery damage was considerable, and having seen others over at the stardot forum, I got away quite lightly. I fitted a rechargeable CR2032 to mine, has been fine so far.

Despite that damage, you brought your machine back to life.

I had to, I couldn't let it die

[HigashiJun]

Had time today to remove ROM sockets and keyboard connectors:

A3000.JPG (504.54 KiB) Viewed 1637 times

You can't imagine how sockets and connectors were gooey.

Seems like corrosion was starting to do its job, but the previous owner removed the battery before more damage was done to the PCB.

Anyway, I will have to test connectivity and repair a via under the ROM sockets. I now understand why bodge wires were fitted.

[HigashiJun]

And as expected, there are much more broken connections than the 3 bodge wires previously fitted.

No wonder the Archie doesn't want to boot.

[Badwolf]

And as expected, there are much more broken connections than the 3 bodge wires previously fitted.

No wonder the Archie doesn't want to boot.

That little Phillips chip at bottom centre of your picture with a green leg is the serial failing CMOS one I mentioned. I'd get one on order now as even if it's working ATM, it might not be next month.

BW

[HigashiJun]

That little Phillips chip at bottom centre of your picture with a green leg is the serial failing CMOS one I mentioned. I'd get one on order now as even if it's working ATM, it might not be next month.

BW

It's already on my list.

I had no time today to remove the Econet connector, the 2 SN74LS145, the mouse connector and other, as I'm sure it's a real mess under them.

[HigashiJun]

Took me half a day to remove the other bits on the motherboard.

Board.JPG (436.83 KiB) Viewed 1609 times

As I thought, it was a complete mess under the chips, which were all corroded. Wanted to de-solder them first without cutting their legs, but it was not worth doing so. But even with all the legs chopped off, it was a real nightmare to remove the remaining parts from the PCB.

I also took the opportunity to neutralize the corrosion, and sprayed lemon juice (yes, I prefer lemon juice to vinegar) on the problematic part of the PCB and then rinsed it with Isopropyl alcohol. The board looks really better now.

The mouse connector is still soaking in its lemon juice. You can see how corroded it was:

Connector.JPG (219.03 KiB) Viewed 1609 times

Next steps are repairing some vias and then checking connections before repairing traces and fitting sockets.

It's a beginning of a long journey...

[rubber_jonnie]

So there was battery damage after all. Damn batteries

Good luck with the repairs and I'd say that you may want to look at the little aluminium SMD caps if there are any. My A5000 had a bunch that were leaking, but not obviously.

The CMOS chip that you have is almost certainly dead, mine was too, but have you tried holding down 'DEL' when booting? This should do a CMOS reset, so even if it isn't quite working you may get it to boot, at least until the machine is turned off, which is kind of obvious since it doesn't have a battery to hold the settings.

[HigashiJun]

Yes, there was a certain damage on the board, but not so catastrophic.

There are no SMD caps on the board, just through hole ones.

I guess the CMOS was dead, because 'DEL' had no effect at all. The machine was booting on a black screen.

The keyboard ribbon has also to be repaired, as one ribbon starts to peel.