Hello,
I'm trying to get a recently obtained A3000 back into working order. It had the usual battery leak and a level of damage I'm still trying to ascertain, although to look at it, I don't think it's the most severe case. After a few days believing it had no video output, I found via mono composite that it was reaching the Supervisor, which gives me hope.
Here's how the area surrounding the battery was looking when I received the A3000:
![Image]()
I've cleaned the spillage and replaced the battery. I've also upgraded the ROMs from RISC OS 2 to RISC OS 3.11 so I could get POST codes from the drive light. I got 0x10009, so an unreadable CMOS - this isn't too surprising as the leakage had certainly reached that chip. I've ordered a mini-podule based replacement for CMOS/RTC as my efforts soldering the new battery have confirmed I have no skill in this area.
The other observable problem is the keyboard system malfunctioning. In Supervisor I can test nearly every key and have recorded which ones don't work as expected (or don't work at all). I've tried to explain my observations below - sorry I couldn't think of a more readable way to convey them.
Keys that produce no output (all on Main keyboard area):
P [ 0 ;
Keys that only register approximately half the time:
Main: 9 - £ L /
Numpad: / # Enter
Keys that produce an alternate character approximately half the time (alternate character in brackets):
Main: O(2) ](W) =(1) Backspace(Q) ,(S) .(X)
Numpad: 2(Space) 3(Esc/Brk) 5(C) 6(') 8(D) 9(Z) *(Space) -(Home?) +(Crsr Right)
I am less sure about other keys on the keyboard - at least some Function keys are intermittently producing characters, and the Copy key seems to behave as Escape/Break.
I found this on the forums explaining which keys belong to which column/row in the matrix:
viewtopic.php?p=64302#p64302
Based on that, I can see that all the keys that output nothing are on pin 15 in the Rows section. I imagine the diagram also explains the relationship between the pairs of alternate characters certain keys output but I don't understand that one yet.
I'm not sure what to do with this information - should I suspect IC2, 4 or 5? The keyboard connector, or even the keyboard itself? Battery leakage definitely reached IC4 and 5 (you can see the stain atop IC5 in my photo), although I didn't see any obvious sign of it getting to the keyboard connector or beyond to IC2.
One more thing - the keyboard tested similarly before and after the work I did (including upgrading to 3.11). The only difference I've noticed is the arrow keys are all working now, whereas only half of them were working as expected previously.
Any suggestions for what to try next would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!
I'm trying to get a recently obtained A3000 back into working order. It had the usual battery leak and a level of damage I'm still trying to ascertain, although to look at it, I don't think it's the most severe case. After a few days believing it had no video output, I found via mono composite that it was reaching the Supervisor, which gives me hope.
Here's how the area surrounding the battery was looking when I received the A3000:
I've cleaned the spillage and replaced the battery. I've also upgraded the ROMs from RISC OS 2 to RISC OS 3.11 so I could get POST codes from the drive light. I got 0x10009, so an unreadable CMOS - this isn't too surprising as the leakage had certainly reached that chip. I've ordered a mini-podule based replacement for CMOS/RTC as my efforts soldering the new battery have confirmed I have no skill in this area.
The other observable problem is the keyboard system malfunctioning. In Supervisor I can test nearly every key and have recorded which ones don't work as expected (or don't work at all). I've tried to explain my observations below - sorry I couldn't think of a more readable way to convey them.
Keys that produce no output (all on Main keyboard area):
P [ 0 ;
Keys that only register approximately half the time:
Main: 9 - £ L /
Numpad: / # Enter
Keys that produce an alternate character approximately half the time (alternate character in brackets):
Main: O(2) ](W) =(1) Backspace(Q) ,(S) .(X)
Numpad: 2(Space) 3(Esc/Brk) 5(C) 6(') 8(D) 9(Z) *(Space) -(Home?) +(Crsr Right)
I am less sure about other keys on the keyboard - at least some Function keys are intermittently producing characters, and the Copy key seems to behave as Escape/Break.
I found this on the forums explaining which keys belong to which column/row in the matrix:
viewtopic.php?p=64302#p64302
Based on that, I can see that all the keys that output nothing are on pin 15 in the Rows section. I imagine the diagram also explains the relationship between the pairs of alternate characters certain keys output but I don't understand that one yet.
I'm not sure what to do with this information - should I suspect IC2, 4 or 5? The keyboard connector, or even the keyboard itself? Battery leakage definitely reached IC4 and 5 (you can see the stain atop IC5 in my photo), although I didn't see any obvious sign of it getting to the keyboard connector or beyond to IC2.
One more thing - the keyboard tested similarly before and after the work I did (including upgrading to 3.11). The only difference I've noticed is the arrow keys are all working now, whereas only half of them were working as expected previously.
Any suggestions for what to try next would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!
Statistics: Posted by aqarius — Sun Jun 22, 2025 1:36 pm