A500 Flashing/Flickering Mouse Pointer

[ErinW]

Hi all,

I have a curious problem with my A500. After running perfectly for several hours, the mouse pointer will begin to flicker and its position will flash around the screen. Everything else continues to run fine, but the mouse pointer will continue with this issue until I power it down and allow a cool down time of at least half an hour.

When it's running, I don't notice anything else out of the ordinary, and none of the chips are unusually warm. The board is a rev 6a and I re-capped it a few months ago. It's running a 3.1 Kickstart ROM, a TF 536 and a boobip memory expansion. I don't suspect any of those, I just list them for completeness.

I thought perhaps it was the mouse itself causing the issue, but the issue continues when it's unplugged.

Any thoughts on what else to check for? Would a bad CIA chip exhibit behaviour like this?

Thanks.

[alenppc]

If you do a soft reset, does it keep flickering?

If so, this sounds like an Agnus issue. I wonder if you can try some freeze spray over it and see if it makes it go back to normal.

If not, it could be a software issue.

[ErinW]

Thanks for the suggestions @alenppc,

I don't have any freeze spray or canned air, but I did find an identical spare Agnus and installed it before trying the soft reset. It's running normally for now so I may leave it on overnight to see if the replaced Agnus has resolved anything.

[ErinW]

So, I left Roger Wilco standing next to his escape pod overnight, and now nearly 12 hrs later there's still not a hint of the mouse flashing/flickering.

I'm nearly as surprised that replacing the Agnus fixed the issue as I am that I had one to replace it with in the first place! My A500 is now quick and stable - a small dream finally realised.

Thanks again for the tip!

[Maximilian]

Keep in mind that it could just be and issue with the seating of the Agnus in the socket of perhaps a little corrosion.

Otherwise you could throw away a possible perfectly usable Agnus (after cleaning)

[adam]

the mouse pointer will begin to flicker and its position will flash around the screen

I had this issue when gary was not properly sitting in it's socket. The issue was not delayed thou, just right after A500 booted.

[ErinW]

Keep in mind that it could just be and issue with the seating of the Agnus in the socket of perhaps a little corrosion.

Otherwise you could throw away a possible perfectly usable Agnus (after cleaning)

Thanks, I'll take another look and double check to see if there's any corrosion. I rarely throw these things away, so the unused Agnus will go back into my parts box.

[ErinW]

the mouse pointer will begin to flicker and its position will flash around the screen

I had this issue when gary was not properly sitting in it's socket. The issue was not delayed thou, just right after A500 booted.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on Gary too. It was recently re-seated when I installed the Boobip Gary adapter, so I expect it's okay, but it doesn't hurt to double check.