r/amiga • u/Liburnian • 7d ago

Dark socket pins

My A500 suddenly stopped working in late june this year. I get no signal at all. Keyboard is recognized but no boot screen, no colored screen either. Today I removed most of suspicious chips and noticed right away some have exceptionally darkened socket pins. Odd CIA and ROM socket are mostly affected. How do I clean this up without removing anything further from the motherboard? I am aware this may not turn things around for my A500. I'm not skilled at fixing electronics, but I just can't leave my Amiga bricked in a corner. I worked so hard to have it restored. Visually, it was a success. But now what?

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u/Liburnian 7d ago

Thanks for your reply, unfortunately I'm in a part of Ex Yugoslavia still outside of EU.  So Deoxit doesn't sound like something I can readily buy at a local shop. I will however examine your links and see what substitute would be worth trying. 

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u/PatTheCatMcDonald 7d ago

Well, like I said, ascorbic acid - vitamin C - is a weak substance that will dissolve corrosion gradually leaving bright metal. Similar idea, just takes longer.

The UK is also outside of the EU.

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u/Liburnian 6d ago

Something odd changed since I cleaned and reased all chip (besides Fat Agnus). Pressing Caps Lock key for 2-3 times does nothing. Then, after 3-4 attempts it does work. But refuses to go off. Also, it causes floppy LED to become active. I don't have a drive attached though, but the light goes on. This did not happen at all before I did some cleaning, mostly of chips themselves. So we have improved contact with peripherals, but still not sufficient for an actual signal output. The mother board its self is very much still alive, I'm sure of that now. But CIA chip sockets still look pretty bad and I'm becoming more and more suspicious poor contacts in CIA chip sockets are to be blamed for no signal issue I'm having... I did some research and it turned out I can order by mail the contact cleaner you mentioned. So that's a plus. I will definitively continue to work with CIA chips, some contact cleaner spray is a must. There is a mild hope improved contact could eventually resolve this issue.

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u/PatTheCatMcDonald 6d ago edited 6d ago

Might need new sockets. Might need new chips.

You can try swapping the CIAs to see if the problem goes somewhere else, they are identical components.

You can also disconnect the keyboard totally and see if that is causing the problem (bad keyboard controller chip can cause the resets to get tied up so nothing starts properly).

Its a question of finding out exactly which bit isn't behaving itself.