Amstrad PCW 9512 Troubleshooting Guide
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Amstrad's user manual for the Amstrad PCW 9512 has a troubleshooting annex arranged by the machine, the disc drive, starting up and the printer,[1] and community repair advice adds the drive belt. The Amstrad PCW 9512+ Troubleshooting Guide covers the electronics of the later 9512+ from Amstrad's service manual for that model, and the Amstrad PCW 8256 Troubleshooting Guide the 3-inch drive of the 8000 series. Procedures are in the Amstrad PCW 9512 Maintenance Guide.
Warning: the main unit contains the mains power supply and a CRT. Read CRT Discharge Procedure before opening it.
The machine
[edit | edit source]| Symptom | Probable cause | Action |
|---|---|---|
| No bright screen at switch-on | No mains, plug not fully in, or a blown fuse | Check the socket with a lamp, push the plug fully home and check the fuses. Then look inside: the supply is in the main unit.[1] |
| Screen clears, or the machine stops responding | Software crash | Take the discs out of the drives and reset by holding Shift and Extra and pressing Exit. If that fails, switch off, wait a few seconds and switch on, then reload LocoScript 2 or CP/M.[1] |
| Blank screen with no disc in the drive | Normal: the PCW has no ROM to show anything | Insert a start-of-day disc.[2][3] |
Starting up
[edit | edit source]If the PCW beeps or the screen flashes when it is started, the disc in drive A is not a PCW9512 start-of-day disc, is damaged, or is not suitable for the machine. Check the disc and reset; if it still beeps, try the original master disc.[1] Start-of-day discs made for the PCW 8256, PCW 8512 or CPC 6128 cannot be used on the 9512.[1] The two kinds of PCW use different boot programs, one for dot matrix machines and one for daisywheel machines.[2]
If the drive motor can be heard but the disc does not turn, and the screen stays blank with a system disc inserted, the drive belt has probably perished.[3] See drive belt.
Disc drive
[edit | edit source]| Symptom | Probable cause | Action |
|---|---|---|
| A disc will not go in | A disc already in the drive, the transit card still fitted, something else in the slot, or the disc the wrong way round | Press eject. Check for the card fitted for transport and for other objects, and check the orientation. Never force a disc in.[1] |
| A disc will not come out | Mechanical fault | Do not push anything into the drive to free it; the manual sends the user to a dealer.[1] |
| "Disc not formatted" message | Blank disc, a disc from another computer, a damaged disc, or side 2 uppermost instead of side 1 | Check the disc and which side is up; format it if it really is blank. Copy what can be recovered from a damaged disc before reformatting it.[1] |
| "Disc read" error when opening a file | Disc inserted the wrong side up | Reinsert with side 1 uppermost.[1] |
Elliott's notes record that the 9512's floppy controller is of the same type as the 8256's and 8512's.[2]
Printer
[edit | edit source]| Symptom | Probable cause | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Printer does not start | No paper, or the printer is waiting for paper | Load a sheet and press Exit. Press PTR to show the printer status line and check whether it is waiting for paper.[1] |
| Printer runs but nothing appears | No ribbon | Fit a ribbon cassette.[1] |
| Unreadable characters | Software not set up for the wheel, or the daisywheel badly seated | Press PTR to stop the printer, check the status line, and reseat the wheel.[1] |
| Printer stops suddenly mid-document | End of ribbon; the PCW waits so no text is lost | Fit a new ribbon and press Exit; printing carries on.[1] |
| Paper creases or jams | – | Press PTR to stop the printer (it may take a while to stop if it has a lot of text queued) and reload with fresh paper.[1] |
| Paper does not load automatically | Paper release lever pulled forward | Push the paper release lever back.[1] |
The printer has no supply or controller of its own: power comes from the main unit through the printer cable, and most of the control electronics are in the main unit.[4] With a completely dead printer, check the cable and the main unit as well as the printer itself. Under CP/M, the defaults that other printers hold on DIP switches, such as paper length, margins and the paper-out detector, are set with the DAISY and MATRIX utilities, so check those settings before suspecting the hardware.[4] The 9512 has its own printer controller, different from the dot matrix machines', which also runs the parallel port.[2]
Related pages
[edit | edit source]- Amstrad PCW 9512 · Amstrad PCW 9512 Maintenance Guide
- Amstrad PCW 9512+ Troubleshooting Guide · Amstrad PCW 8256 Troubleshooting Guide
- Floppy Drive Repair · CRT Discharge Procedure
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Amstrad, PCW9512 Ordinateur Personnel Traitement de Texte – Manuel de l'utilisateur (1987, French). Hosted as File:Amstrad PCW9512 User Manual (1987, French).pdf, described at Amstrad PCW 9512 User Manual (French). Annex II, troubleshooting, pp. 37–41: the machine (p. 37), the disc drive (pp. 38–39), starting up (p. 39), the printer (pp. 40–41).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 John Elliott, PCW Hardware. Hosted as File:PCW Hardware Reference (John Elliott).pdf, described at Amstrad PCW Hardware Reference (John Elliott). Section 2 (boot process; the daisywheel boot program), section 6.2 (the PCW9512 printer controller), section 8.2 (drive decoding on the 8256, 8512 and 9512).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Richard Lloyd, PCW article ("Fifty two years and counting"), Amstrad CPC User Club Magazine (ACUC) issue 1, June 2022. Scan at archive.org. Retrieved 2026-10-02. Boot behaviour with and without a disc; the perished drive belt as the most common PCW fault, its symptoms and cleaning the old rubber off the pulley.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 John Donaldson, "Benchtest: Amstrad PCW9512", Personal Computer World, October 1987, pp. 98–102. Scan at archive.org. Retrieved 2026-10-02. The daisywheel printer powered and largely controlled from the main unit; the DAISY and MATRIX utilities that set the defaults other printers keep on DIP switches.