Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    Well, if I were you Steve, I'd see to that this A500 gets replaced
    ASAP, as long as it's still in waranty.
    The Caps Lock flashing at power up is the normal keyboard self-test.
    What your inconsistencies seem to indicate is some marginal or flakey
    hardware, possibly related to the keyboard area...
    Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga initiates a complete reset, that is pulls the the
    RESET line of the 68000. You should use it only when stuck completly
    and with no pending disk access (write) plus 5 seconds after the
    last disk access.
    
    Hope that helps,
    
    <CB>

                         
    And while I'm at it, here's a nice tidbit from this months
    introductionary posting on comp.sys.amiga: 
     
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
 
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] () writes:
>sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized.
 
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
 
   One blink      Keyboard ROM test failed
   Two blinks     Keyboard RAM test failed
   Three blinks   Watchdog timer test failed
   Four blinks    A short exists between two row lines
                  or one of the seven special control keys.
 
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent.  There is more information in that appendix.
 
Betty
*************************************************************************
                                              
    Blatantly yours,  ;-)
    
    <CB>

My 2000 has broken down twice with a problem similar to the one 
described.  My machine boots fine, but the keyboard is dead.  The 
caps lock light flashes at a slow rate continuously.

I took the system to the dealer and they could find nothing 
wrong.  This has happened twice.  Once it happened after a power 
surge, although I don't think it is related.  Maybe the ride in 
the car shook thing back together.  Or maybe my Amiga likes 
seeing the outdoors every once in a while.

Randy

    Thanks for the info, Christian. I had my Amiga replaced, and all
    seems to be fine now.
    
    Randy, the guy in the shop implied it may be a power-supply-related
    problem, but of course they hadn't investigated yet, they just gave
    me a whole new set-up which works ok.                            
    
    The guy also said that resetting (ctrl-amiga-amiga) did not always
    completely clear memory, pointers etc. adequately if, say, restarting
    on on different (just copied?) disk to the one that was originally
    brought up. He said it was safer to power off, wait 30 secs. then
    load with the new copy. So (ctrl-amiga-amiga) doesn't seem to be
    a "complete reboot".
    
    Cheers,							Steve

    Re: .4
    
    Well, Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga will give you a reset as migthy as they come
    without power cycling the machine, which isn't the nicest thing
    you can do to that silicon... ;-)
    c-a-a will perform much better than the ctrl-alt-del thingie on
    Messy-DOS machines, but since every processor has certain vectors
    for reset time routines, modifying or munching these could give
    you trouble.
    The best thing is to constantly use a virus checker like Virus-X
    and keep the power cycles to a minimum.
    
    (The A500 I type this stuff in right now hasn't been powered down
    for weeks...)
    
    Glad to hear that they gave you a new "girl-friend". ;-)
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>
    

    I have had this same problem on my A2000. The fix was the connector
    on the A2000 for the keyboard was loose. Tightened it up and all
    was ok thereafter.