ScuzzBlog: Diaries February 2020 Entry 26th February 2020: Post 02: Eyetech EZ-Tower - Down but not out. Pt II Eyetech EZ-Tower - Down but not out. Pt II Having checked the motherboard I set out having a nose around the main EZ-Tower case and thrashing it with a big stick. It's what I do. There is line from Big Bang by Sheldon Cooper that goes .... "Oh Gravity, Thou Art a Heartless Bitch". I reflect on this every single time my Eyetech EZ-Tower starts playing up. This computer is a bit of a Frankenstein that I built from all my spare bits I had lying around the workshop. I really am not a great fan of the A1200 in a tower and wouldn't do it myself had I not had these spare bits at my disposal. Sadly though, after about three months of active use she starts to play up and then just refuses to boot. However, after I remove the board and then reconnect back up she will work fine. I have her running on an Iiyima VGA monitor generally though this is not featured here. She hasn't worked since the new year and so I removed the motherboard first and tested that for any faults. And so this is how the day went. By the way I have like over 30 Amiga 1200s working and I never like ever think it's a capacitor issue. And if you can't spot a failing PSU just by listening to it then you are nor going to get very far using Amiga kit. Suffice to say that capacitors and power supplies are not even on my fault finding list, though I do make an effort here to photograph each and every capacitor to show off their shiny feet. Read on. EZ-Tower - Down but not out. Pt II. I removed the HD floppy drive to prevent it dropping in on my head as I carried the case down the stairs. The top CD is not currently connected and so the tower has ZIP, CD-ROM and two hard drives. The case is designed to hold the Amiga 1200 motherboard and a PC mobo. Weird. That's an A500 floppy drive that actually will eat your hand. Plus the top hard drive. Rear of the Iomega ZIP drive. Floppy and two IDE hard drives. Quite a jungle of wires to check over. In truth I did absolutely nothing. The case power supply. The EZ Keyboard adaptor allowing me to use an A2000 keyboard. Just sits over the chip on the motherboard. Four way buffered interface that I use with IDE-Fix97 to communicate with the IDE side ZIP, CD and HDs. The actual power connector that plugs into the centre hole in the square Amiga 1200 power socket on the rear. Seriously !! I have to sit the motherboard on a pile of magazines and paper to lift it so none of the connectors are under strain. The floppy power connector has a secondary component to connect to the motherboard. Note that there are still power pins available to connect other devices. I have not dragged the Iiyama VisionMaster down and so the flicker fixer isn't plugged in. Instead I am using an Amiga CDTV monitor. This sadly prevents me booting into the WB without changing the display settings as the CDTV monitor doesn't support the screen mode. We are ready for lift off. Already picking up the IDE-Fix. I need though to change that screen mode. So two mouse button down... and Change display to original. And checks boot options which show all hard drive volumes being detected. To start with I boot from the floppy. Working just fine. All memory appears to be working. Though DEVs not picking up the ZIP. Time to boot again with original 4 colour display into the hard drive Workbench. Lara in 4 colour and all my drawers are available from the hard drives. I insert a ZIP disk and both Amiga and PC formats are available. So I can format as an Amiga ZIP. Or I can format as a PC ZIP. She is bloody working no problem. Such a pain this. She is crying out to be put back in her original case. Towering an Amiga 1200 is a real bad idea. So what benefits do you get ...? Four way buffer so IDE on tap for CD ROM, ZIP, hard drives etc. The flicker fixer for PC monitor. Keyboard adaptor for external keyboard. Mouse adaptor for PC mouse. And no external power brick. Still bloody annoying !! She was working all the time. What happens is that in the vertical position the Blizzard slides down. And so what is that mod ? If you have notches in your bottom casing like this then your computer has been fitted at some time to a tower... Be afraid !! Anyhoo... Panic over. She's fine. I knew she was, silly girl. And so good to go for a few months. Amiga towers ... heavy maintenance. DON'T DO IT

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Last updated 26th February 2020

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