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I have on many occasions experienced delayed booting of my X1000 and on a few occasions have had to give up and try again by holding down the power button until my X1000 which has gotten stuck on the "AmigaOS 4.1" screen that is displayed before Workbench opens would shut down, so I could Cold Boot again.

Now my X1000 will not boot any longer, no matter how long I wait for it to get past that screen. The firmware menu option shows briefly, then the progress bar marches across the bottom of the screen. Then it goes from the Firmware's X1000 splash screen directly to the AmigaOS 4.1 screen, but never gets any further. The AmigaOS 4.1 screen does it's short animation of getting brighter, then stops and no longer gives me the startup chime and opening of the Workbench window.

I have not altered my Startup-Sequence file, so I don't believe this is a user error, due to my lack of experience. In the past when this has happened, when I would try to "Cold Boot" a 2nd time, it would always start normally. Now I have tried several times with no Joy, and I am wondering if I might have a Firmware, or Hardware defect?

Has anyone else experienced this kind of behavior with their X1000?

Have you tried to boot up off the CDRom just to eliminate possible hardware considerations?

Slayer wrote:Have you tried to boot up off the CDRom just to eliminate possible hardware considerations?

After 5 or 6 Cold Boots, I was finally able to get the X1000 to boot into OS4.1.5 again, but I am concerned that this is happening more often than it did in the past.

The first time it happened was immediately after I installed a 2nd hard drive into my X1000 that I plan to use for one or more Linux distributions. That was a couple months ago and since that time, my X1000 has refused to complete the OS4.1.5 boot process probably almost two dozen times. 5 or 6 of those times where it did not complete the boot process were today.

I don't know if it is a hardware problem, or a software problem, or a firmware problem. Maybe the hard drive that OS4.1.5 is installed on is starting to fail. Can anyone tell me how far the OS4.1.5 boot process can go just by using the firmware that is held in flash memory somewhere on the Nemo2.1 motherboard, before it starts reading from my hard drive?

It is far fetched idea that the X1000 could get all the way to that "AmigaOS 4.1" boot screen without a working hard drive, but I guess it is possible?

@Amigadave

When you see the red progress bar that is the Kickstart files loading from your HDD. As Slayer wrote if you can boot from your AmigaOS4.1 update 5 CD that rules out any hardware issues. It could be a failing HDD but I've noticed that compared to IDE cable connectors SATA connectors are quite sensitive. I've managed to dislodge them when swapping out gfx cards. So I would make sure that your SATA cconnectors are firmly installed.

Trevor

Edit: Other than that, it is probably a software issue, perhaps something you have installed?

I doubt things are nearly as bad as you are worrying. Some possibilites which can cause exactly the same symptoms (i.e. stuck on the AmigaOS boot screen) :

1. If DHCP fails (perhaps a loose network cable?) or takes a long time (perhaps due to a problematic router) then you can be stuck on the AmigaOS boot screen for 1-2 minutes. OS4.1 Update 5 fixes this... but think it was not present on the X1000's "Update 5" (which is actually different).

2. If you have 'hacked' some USB stuff inside Sys:Kickstart/Kicklayout, then this can happen at random.

3. Something in your S:User-Startup can delay LoadWB.


I have also found a case where my X1000 will get stuck on the firmware screen, but as you don't describe that problem, I won't discuss it further.

ChrisH wrote:I doubt things are nearly as bad as you are worrying.

Not sure why you think I am exaggerating the situation. I am only describing what is happening and wondering if anyone else has experienced the same symptoms. I also wondered if the problem could be hardware related or software related, but since I have not installed that much software other than what AmigaKit originally installed on my X1000, I doubted that it was any software I had installed. I will start to worry if I can't find out what the problem is and no one else has experienced the same symptoms.

Some possibilites which can cause exactly the same symptoms (i.e. stuck on the AmigaOS boot screen) :

1. If DHCP fails (perhaps a loose network cable?) or takes a long time (perhaps due to a problematic router) then you can be stuck on the AmigaOS boot screen for 1-2 minutes. OS4.1 Update 5 fixes this... but think it was not present on the X1000's "Update 5" (which is actually different).

This is probably the most likely culprit, as the problem has gotten worse after inserting a 4 port switch between my wireless networking device and my X1000. The first thing I will do is remove this switch and connect the NetGear WNCE2001-100NAR directly to my Ethernet port to see if the problem stops, or happens less often. I would not have guessed that failure to resolve DHCP would cause my X1000 to stop booting on the Boot Screen. I learn something new about OS4.1.5 almost every day.

2. If you have 'hacked' some USB stuff inside Sys:Kickstart/Kicklayout, then this can happen at random.

I am too much of an OS4.1.5 Newbie to go messing around with the Kicklayout. I don't even know what it is or what it does.

3. Something in your S:User-Startup can delay LoadWB.

This is possible as the 2nd most likely problem, but since I have not added much software yet, there are few entries in S:User-Startup.

I have also found a case where my X1000 will get stuck on the firmware screen, but as you don't describe that problem, I won't discuss it further.

Edit: I mis-read the sentence above, so my response was incorrect.

Amigadave

you didn't say whether you attempted to boot from the AmigaOS4 installation CD other not ?

Trevor

AmigaDave wrote:I would not have guessed that failure to resolve DHCP would cause my X1000 to stop booting on the Boot Screen.

A common issue, unfortunately.

You might try using a fixed IP address instead: Reserve an IP address in the DHCP setup of your router, and use the Internet Prefs on your X1000 to switch to static setup and specify the IP address together with the relevant subnet mask (normally 255.255.255.0).

Best regards,

Niels

trevordick wrote:Amigadave

you didn't say whether you attempted to boot from the AmigaOS4 installation CD other not ?

Trevor

No, once I saw the answer that DHCP can stop the X1000 from booting, I was pretty sure that it was the culprit to this problem. If you have some other reason you want me to try booting from the OS4.1.5 Install CD, let me know and I will try it. The Install CD is stored away in a box within another box in a closet, so that is why I did not bother trying to boot from it yet.

I am 99.9% sure that it is the DHCP which is the problem, because the delay in booting has gotten worse when I moved from the room where my ISP cable modem and wireless router are located to a different room and switched from using a direct connection via Ethernet cable from the X1000's Ethernet card to my wireless router with built-in 4 port switch, to using a wireless NetGear WNCE2001-100NAR with the X1000 moved across the house to a different room. Then it got even worse when I put a 5 port switch between the NetGear WNCE2001-100NAR and the X1000's Ethernet card.

So, I am sure that this is the problem, and it probably would not happen at all if I installed an Ethernet cable directly through a hole in my ceiling, across the attic through another hole in my ceiling and down to my Cable Modem instead of having so many different devices to be negotiated between the Cable Modem and the X1000. I have to keep the NetGear wireless router w/4 port switch built-in, because I have more than one computer in the house and I am not the only computer user in the house either, so the Cable Modem connection to the NetGear wireless router is unavoidable.

Even having just that one extra device in the chain from my ISP to some of my computers can cause problems for some systems.

Thanks for the tip Niels, I will consider trying to use a fixed IP address as you suggested.

AmigaDave wrote:Not sure why you think I am exaggerating the situation.

I didn't mean to say you were exaggerating the situation, but rather that jumping to (e.g.) the conclusion your harddrive might be failing is a bit of an extreme (and unlikely) possibility! The explanation is rather more likely to be mundane & 'boring'

1. If DHCP fails (perhaps a loose network cable?) or takes a long time (perhaps due to a problematic router) then you can be stuck on the AmigaOS boot screen for 1-2 minutes. OS4.1 Update 5 fixes this... but think it was not present on the X1000's "Update 5" (which is actually different).

This is probably the most likely culprit, as the problem has gotten worse after inserting a 4 port switch between my wireless networking device and my X1000. The first thing I will do is remove this switch and connect the NetGear WNCE2001-100NAR directly to my Ethernet port to see if the problem stops, or happens less often. I would not have guessed that failure to resolve DHCP would cause my X1000 to stop booting on the Boot Screen. I learn something new about OS4.1.5 almost every day.

There is NO need to use a fixed IP address, as I believe you can fix this by editing your S:StartUp-Sequence (since they appear to have had the solution ready but commented-out). If you open it using NotePad, then you should see the following lines near the bottom of the file:

If EXISTS S:Network-Startup
;Run >NIL: <NIL: *>NIL: Execute S:Network-Startup
Execute S:Network-Startup
EndIf

You need to remove the semi-colon ; comment from the second line, AND add it to the third line, like so:

If EXISTS S:Network-Startup
Run >NIL: <NIL: *>NIL: Execute S:Network-Startup
;Execute S:Network-Startup
EndIf