• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Amiga 2000 - new to me

clh333

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2015
Messages
1,443
Location
Cleveland, OH, USA
Just received an Amiga 2000. Have no experience with this model but upon brief inspection I believe this is a model C board, revision 6.2. The seller said it would boot; I haven't tried that yet, because it is clear some things are TBD.
Referring to the attached pictures:

Pic 1,3: There is a superstructure above the motherboard that houses the power supply, fan and drive bays. Some of the screws are missing. Assuming all of the screws are removed can this be then lifted up and off the board to reveal the board?
Pic 2: There is some evidence of corrosion, as if the unit was stored in a damp environment, but the traces appear good except for some dust on the board. The seller says he removed the battery. Where is the battery housed?
Pic 4: There are two cards in slots. One is marked Hard disk controller and the other appears to be a memory expansion. The Quantum ProDrive is not hooked up to the HDC, nor is the Chinon floppy. An extra Chinon FD came with the deal, as did keyboard and mouse. I already have a monitor.

Anyone with experience in these machines please feel free to chime in.

Thanks for your advice.

-CH-

A2000R6.2_1.jpg A2000R6.2_2.jpg A2000R6.2_3.jpg A2000R6.2_4.jpg
 
I'm going from memory here, so forgive me if I leave something out...

The battery is (was) on the motherboard at the front of the computer. It is usually a blue barrel-shaped battery. It's likely underneath the drive bays.

I'm only guessing that the corrosion you speak of is on the metal shielding around the 9-pin connectors in the front. That is pretty much normal for these computers.

The floppy drive should connect to the motherboard, and the hard drive should connect to the controller card

The screws for the power supply and drive bays are at the front and the back of the computer.
 
The hard drive controller looks like a A2090

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2090

The hard drive appears to SCSI so the ribbon cable from the hard drive should connect to the controller on the vertical 50 pin header near the slot cover. The hard drive is a Quantum, and I have seem many more dead ones of that series than working ones. The battery is (was) located at the back (what I call the back) of the motherboard very near the CPU. It is tucked just under the power supply. The power supply/drive sub chassis does lift out, but keep track of the screws because they are not bog standard screws, and it can be a challenge to source replacements.

I hope you enjoy that machine. I believe that of all the old computers I have collected, my A2000s have been the most fun.
 
That's a model B, I've never heard of a model C. It should say B2000 on the motherboard. You have a desirable revision. I can't see your pictures right now so please bear with me.

The power supply screws onto the subchassis.

The floppy drive (s) screw into sleds which screw onto the subchassis.

Take out the screws that attach the subchassis to the case, disconnect the power supply connector, pull the floppy cable from the motherboard, and if there's a hard drive in the subchassis, disconnect the SCSI cable. Lift the subchassis from the front. You'll probably need to pull the front of the case forward to get it up. Then the subchassis should lift right out, as you free it from the back of the case.

You'll see the battery. As mentioned, blue or green barrel. If it's there and older than 2014, use a sidecutter (aka "dykes") to cut the battery free and discard it. Look for green corrosion on the motherboard, 68000, ROM, and Fat Agnus. If you see any at all, you'll really want to disassemble the works and give it a thoughrough cleaning and repair. If you don't, you'll be in for a very difficult repair soon. I can't stress how important it is to fix corrosion on that board.

I use an A2000 daily. It's the only desktop machine I use at home.

I rescued a corroded one a couple years ago, I think I have videos of it on my YouTube channel.

Since twenty years ago I've been intimately familiar with the A2000 and most common peripherals. So I should be able to answer most questions.. Butve got a lousy memory.
 
Thank you all for your replies. Here is the damage report: There is evidence - to my eye, at least - of leakage and corrosion caused by the battery. See attached pictures.

At the back end of the board everything is nice and even-colored. At the front, around the battery, on some of the CPU pins and on the slot next to the CPU, there is the lighter greenish-cyan tell-tale of corroded copper.

Now: What to do? I have five days remaining to ship the unit back to the seller, at my expense, for a refund. I could open a case with PayPal, through which I made payment, claiming defective goods. I could try to re-negotiate the price with the seller, whom I asked, before purchase, if there was evidence of leaking (one of the pictures suggested it). I did not get a response from him until after the purchase - he apologized, saying he had been busy, but told me then that he had cut out the battery. He must have seen what I see. I also contacted a person in California who repairs these boards. I don't know what the cost would be but certainly over $100.

I paid $300 plus $33 shipping for an Amiga 2000 described thus:

The system
Mother Board~ version 4.3
Workbench ~1.3
Disk Controller GX B-VO 8849
Ram board ~ A2000 8MB Ram (Not sure how many meg)
The floppy ~ drive is not working, There is a second internal floppy not sure of working condition.
Hard Drive (Quantum) Not sure of size or working condition as need to be configure.
Keyboard/Mouse ~ No testing done since
**** Even thought the system powers, a working floppy drive is needed.
*****NO MONITOR. NO SOFTWARE.

SOLD AS IS

Fix this one or look for another? Opinions?

-CH-


A2000R6.2_5.jpg A2000R6.2_6.jpg A2000R6.2_7.jpg A2000R6.2_8.jpg A2000R6.2_9.jpg
 
For the sake of completeness:

HDC and RAM expansion board pics attached. RAM board has 2 meg of OKI 511000-10 (100 ns?) with empty slots for 6 meg more.

-CH-

A2000R6.2_10.jpg A2000R6.2_11.jpg A2000R6.2_12.jpg
 
Does it show any signs of life when you turn it on? If it shows the screen asking for a Workbench disk, that's a good sign... but you'll still need to clean all that corrosion off the motherboard. And sometimes doing so causes circuit traces or components which are hanging on by a thread to come loose, turning your corroded but working board into a clean but non-working board.
 
I would remove the board and look at the traces on the back. If they are all good, I would clean the corrosion and try it out. If any of the traces are green from corrosion, they would likely need to be jumpered with wire to get the board functional. I would also carefully remove the socketed chips and reseat them to make sure all of the pins have good contact.

Because the seller sold it "as is", I doubt that contacting him or filing a complaint will get you anywhere.
 
I agree, but if he's an honest seller, he should give you a $100-150 refund in my opinion.

Corrosion on the CPU pins is evidence to me that it needs serious repair. As vwestlife wrote, a proper cleaning preventing an impending disaster is going to itself cause a huge repair bill unless you take on the job yourself which will be very time consuming, and require great care and skill. That it works now is not indicative of near future, let alone long term, reliability.
 
The main thing if he said it was working and no leakage you still might have a case..

Occording to the OP, all the seller said was that it powered on. He had no monitor or keyboard to test it with. So it sounds like the seller turned it on and the power LED lit up. That is all. He specifically said drives were not working, which could be drives or motherboard. I would check the things I suggeted before and then try to power it on with a compatible monitor hooked up. That is the only way you will know if it is worth more of your time.
 
I have fixed a acid damaged A3000 before by just replacing some sockets, and it looked slightly worse than that one. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, but I certainly wouldn't pay $300 for it in unworking condition.
 
I sent the pictures to the California repair guru who said, in short, "Wow! That's bad!" So I guess I either try to repair it myself or send it back. If I attempt repair it will be my first time through that type of work, i.e. cleanup and "passivation" of the traces. In any case I will need to lean heavily on the advice of others. I can solder of course and I have repaired other boards but I'd say the odds of a successful repair are less than 100%. I can put the thing back together and test it to see if it boots but as you have pointed out: for how long?

My communication to the seller was through the eBay message channel as was his response to me. A copy of his response, mentioning the 7-day return, is attached below. I'm going to send him a reply now in which I state that I have received the unit and am evaluating it but am concerned about the condition of the motherboard.

Thanks to all who responded.

-CH-

eBayMessage.jpg
 
Did he offer a 7-day return, did he choose this as an auction option, or is this one of those things eBay sometimes does where they'll take the item and pay you back?

If he's got a 7 day policy, I wouldn't hesitate and just go that route.

You can get an A2000 in this kind of shape for a lot less money, in my opinion.
 
Well, since he said he would take it back in 7-days then I'd take him up on it. There's nothing special about this machine to warrant keeping it.

I don't know about others, but I have had pretty rotten luck buying Amiga items in the past on eBay described in great shape only to find they are not.
 
Just a note- it doesn't matter what terms he says returns have in the auction. He has to follow eBay rules for returns.

Now, you'd have to show us the original auction to see if they were really trying to hide the issues, or you just overlooked them in excitement or didn't know what you were looking at. That is the only way to judge it fairly.

EDIT: I found the auction. They did disclose the condition very well, even showed the battery damage and corrosion.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-Amiga-2000HD-/142508344281

It is only my opinion that you overpaid, but you got the exact item you bid on. You shouldn't win in a return situation, but the way eBay works, you would and he would get screwed for shipping costs. It is both your fault, though. There is a risk on his end to sell broken items, and not much of a risk to buy them.
 
Last edited:
Just a note- it doesn't matter what terms he says returns have in the auction. He has to follow eBay rules for returns.

Now, you'd have to show us the original auction to see if they were really trying to hide the issues, or you just overlooked them in excitement or didn't know what you were looking at. That is the only way to judge it fairly.

EDIT: I found the auction. They did disclose the condition very well, even showed the battery damage and corrosion.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-Amiga-2000HD-/142508344281

It is only my opinion that you overpaid, but you got the exact item you bid on. You shouldn't win in a return situation, but the way eBay works, you would and he would get screwed for shipping costs. It is both your fault, though. There is a risk on his end to sell broken items, and not much of a risk to buy them.

Yep, it's my understanding that if the item is not materially as described even if he says no returns he would still have to take it back.

I have seen a couple of rather humorous auctions that state something to the effect of "THIS IS JUNK! IT IS 100% GUARANTEED NOT TO WORK!" for this reason.
 
The only way to properly sell items that are known to have problems, or you aren't sure, is to list with the condition as "Defective" but it seems eBay has recently removed this. I can't seem to choose it anymore. It didn't allow returns when you could choose that.
 
I just looked at the auction. I think the seller was very honest. There is a picture of the screen with the graphic asking for the workbench disk. To me this is an ethics question. I don't see how you can expect the seller to take it back after you have worked on it. If you had plugged it in before working on it and it didn't work, you would have had a valid complaint. As it is, I personally would just keep it and make the best of it. Call it a learning experience. I bought a few mistakes myself before I learned to carefully look at the auctions, buyer ratings, number of sales, etc.
 
Back
Top