My gosh it's been years I've been messing with this (ordered it in Dec 2022). When first received, it would spin up to a black screen in 030 or 060 modes. After getting it back I don't think IF I could get the fan to spin it ever gave me a black screen, just random error screens. EDIT: looking back through videos of trying to get it to boot after getting it back, I did in fact have quite a bit of fan spinning and black screen AND quite a few screens filled with garbage, always get "BAD ROM CRC" and "KEYBOARD FAILURE" message.dml wrote: 14 Aug 2025 09:54
Does the fan always spin up but shows a black screen? Or does it just not power up most of the time?
Pavel said: first two issues are easy to solve, actually. "BAD ROM CRC..." and "Keyboard failure" are typically caused by mangled NVRAM contents, CT TOS can not decode some part of it and throws these errors on screen.
Here is how to fix it: I have attached Centech NVRAM utility which I use for the purpose. Run it and select "recycle" icon, followed by save. Cold reset the Falcon and you should not see these errors any more.
This could also solve crash on setup entry via <DEL> key, albeit I have never encountered such an issue before. In any case, I have used this feature on your CT63 quite a few times during testing so the issue is not in CT63/CPU/RAM combo for sure.
Same goes for crash on HDD access. It may or may not be fixed by NVRAM reset, if not, I would say the instability is caused by power supply.
He sent me this file: I do think that resolved some of the garbage on the screen and the BAD CRC message.
Anyway, regarding the PSU, the only thing I haven't done is just flat out hardwire the thing to voltage on a simple on/off switch.
If my memory serves me from my last go at this trying additional power supplies the fan spins for 1 second and stops. If I start finger blasting the power switch randomly it would eventually spin the fan and bring me to the CT63 splash screen. Sometimes it would take fifty random interval presses, sometimes more, sometimes less.