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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Effy on October 08, 2002, 03:34:36 PM
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Have received an A2000 with scsi card and 2030 turboboard, but it didn't boot up. Only get black screen without any colours, so it means that da processor might be crashed. So I opened up an old A500, removed da processor and then opened up da A2000. But, and now comes the problem, this computer has got a MiniMegaChip that gives it 2 Mb chip memory. In real life this means that an A2000 chip is placed onto a little board that is inserted onto the motherboard, but also a black wire that is connected to two pins of the processor, somewhere in da middle of the processor. So now it becomes complicated. Is da processor malfunctionning or is it that MiniMegaChip with its black wire that is causing the problems ???? I don't wanna damage anything so I ask it here to get useful information.
I still wanna use that A2000 to insert an X-Surf and a CV64/3D so don't tell me that it's old stuff and that I need to get rid of it. It may be slower than my A4000 and towered A1200 with Z4, but it's still a great machine that only doesn't have AGA or da possibility to insert PowerPC cards, that's all !!
So please, if somebody has got experience with my problem then please help me out !!! This is da first A2000 I ever have and I wanna keep it !!
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Don't think that changing the 68000 will have any effect at
all as it is turned of by the turboboard.
Remove the turbo and try again. If this helps, check the turbo
for loose RAMs or so, and try to figure out the exact name/model
of your turbo.
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Seems's to me, a good place to start, might be to remove any, and I mean any add on's whatsoever. Put the A2000 in absolute bone stock configuration. Does it boot up. Yes! That's a good thing! Then go from there. Your A2000 is a great machine, I love mine, so keep on working with it. It's a labor of love to say the least! :-D
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I used to have A2000 that would not boot
unless I pushed down on the accelerator
for a second!!
I eventually just left the case off beacause
I had to do it alot, even after cleaning the
connections.
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First.. are you using a monitor with the correct scanrate?
The standard on an A2000 w/o a Display card is a PAL or NTSC 15MHz RGB.
An alternate is a composite (PAL or NTSC) attached to the Mono-RCA port beside the Audio RCA ports.
Second.. have you tried to boot off a floppy (such as a game)?
Third... have you tried to boot up in 68000 mode (possibly through holding the '0' key down at boot-time .... that's the one with the ')' on it)
What KickStart-OS is installed?
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@Effy
Have received an A2000 with scsi card and 2030 turboboard, but it didn't boot up. Only get black screen without any colours, so it means that da processor might be crashed. So I opened up an old A500, removed da processor and then opened up da A2000. But, and now comes the problem, this computer has got a MiniMegaChip that gives it 2 Mb chip memory. In real life this means that an A2000 chip is placed onto a little board that is inserted onto the motherboard, but also a black wire that is connected to two pins of the processor, somewhere in da middle of the processor. So now it becomes complicated. Is da processor malfunctionning or is it that MiniMegaChip with its black wire that is causing the problems ???? I don't wanna damage anything so I ask it here to get useful information.
I still wanna use that A2000 to insert an X-Surf and a CV64/3D so don't tell me that it's old stuff and that I need to get rid of it. It may be slower than my A4000 and towered A1200 with Z4, but it's still a great machine that only doesn't have AGA or da possibility to insert PowerPC cards, that's all !!
So please, if somebody has got experience with my problem then please help me out !!! This is da first A2000 I ever have and I wanna keep it !!
As per another suggestion here, I'd strip the machine of all the third-party addons, including the '030 board AND the Megachip. Take careful note of where that black wire clips on. The Agnus chip out of your A500 will easily replace the Megachip and drop the machine back to it's standard configuration.
From there, start adding things back in, checking that the machine boots properly at each step.
I have several A2000s, but the main machine sports a Blizzard2060 w/ 32MB, X-Surf, extra Oktagon SCSI card and 2032 (Amber) Flickerfixer. A great workhorse that's run 24/7 for the last 8 years. :-o
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Sorry dudes, I really have forgotten to tell that I already did strip everything I could !! At this moment I doesn't have any Zorro2 card inside so no turbo. I even tried disconnecting the discdrives one by one and even with no discdrive connected at all. The monitor connected is a cool Amiga M1538S which shows about everything that can be required, but even with the monitor disconnected I get no result.
Okay, now one step further. I (accidently) removed the black wire that was attached to one (or two ??) pins on the upper part of the processor, somewhere in the middle but don't ask which pin. I booted up again, or at least I did put the power on, but still a black screen and after about 20 seconds the green light of the floppy (only one connected) goes on but nothing else happens, no matter what disc is inserted or not. That MiniMegaChip board is still at its place, so that is the last thing I wanna remove. It's also possible that this board is causing all the trouble and that it also made the processor crash. In that case I need to get that Agnus chip from my A500 as you said and the 68000 too but it's not exactly something I'm looking forward too ...
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@effy
Since you don't seem to get an output onto the monitor, you
may also try to fit the A500's Denise into the A2000.
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Desmon my man, if you were here I would give you a kiss, even if ya're a man !! It works !! I just took the Agnus out of the A500, took the MiniMegaChip out of the A2000 and placed the A500 chip in return and it worked !! I now get the kickstart 3.1 screen !! (that kickstart also comes from that A500)
And now another question, not so urgent or mega important, but in that A500 I have got ECS installed instead of the original OCS. I might be nice to put that in the A2000 too, but which chip is that ??
Kronos : is that the Denise chip you just talked about ?? I've seen that the chip in the A2000 is a CSG chip and the A500 has got a MOS chip ...
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Kronos : I decided not to wait too long and try it out myself, so I just replaced the Denise chips and my new baby still boots up !! Cool !! I may have only 1 Mb chip memory but at least now it's ECS and it does boot up while that 2 Mb chip didn't !! Okay, now I can finally start building it all up according to my own taste !! I shall use the scsi hardcard and 2030 to begin with and add a C64/3D, X-Surf, a scsi cdrom and then see if it'll all work !!! Thanx guys !! You really helped me a lot !!!
Now I still have got an old A500 (not a A500+) from which I can only use the floppy and the 68000 ... but it didn't work well anyway ...
Final question for now, a bit difficult. When I open up the A2000 I see on the left the bunch of Zorro2 slots but on the right there's one single slot too. What's the purpose of that one ?? It doesn't look familiar ...
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Nah thats easy :-P
It's the video-slot and you can use it for a flickerfixer or
an internal ganlock.
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Does your Megachip 2000 have two RAM chips or four? I have the later version (with 2 chips) and it has proven to very tempermental about corrosion on pins of the daughter board! Every few months my A2000 acts just like yours did, but all I have to do is remove the board and brighten the contacts with an erasor, or contact cleaner then it works fine for a while.
I also use a GVP Spectrum graphics card in the "old" A2000, that gives excellent displays on newer monitors.
Because of these additions, I use the A2000 as much as the A1200 I have! It's still a great machine.
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Does your Megachip 2000 have two RAM chips or four? I have the later version (with 2 chips) and it has proven to be very tempermental about corrosion on pins of the daughter board! Every few months my A2000 acts just like yours did, but all I have to do is remove the board and brighten the contacts with an erasor, or contact cleaner then it works fine for a while.
I also use a GVP Spectrum graphics card in the "old" A2000, that gives excellent displays on newer monitors.
Because of these additions, I use the A2000 as much as the A1200 I have! It's still a great machine.
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I too use a mini mega chip and the black wire should go to one pin only. hwen i get a chance I'll remove my power supply and refresh my memory to see wich pin it is
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That's correct, it should only be connected to one pin or it will malfunction. According to the description in http://ftp.sunet.se/~aminet/dirs/aminet/hard/hack/2MegAgnus50d5.lha "you must connect the clip lead to pin 36 of the GARY chip or pin 48 of the 68000 chip". I think it's best to connect it to the Gary chip, since any accelerator would disable the 68000. Or maybe it doesn't matter.
/Martin
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@Effy
Desmon my man, if you were here I would give you a kiss, even if ya're a man !! It works !! I just took the Agnus out of the A500, took the MiniMegaChip out of the A2000 and placed the A500 chip in return and it worked !! I now get the kickstart 3.1 screen !! (that kickstart also comes from that A500)
Yup. Sounds just like my Rev6 A2k. It'll run like a charm until I install the Megachip. I had to revert to a Rev4 motherboard.
And now another question, not so urgent or mega important, but in that A500 I have got ECS installed instead of the original OCS. I might be nice to put that in the A2000 too, but which chip is that ??
That'll be the Denise chip. (8362 = OCS, 8363 = ECS)
[/quote]
Kronos : is that the Denise chip you just talked about ?? I've seen that the chip in the A2000 is a CSG chip and the A500 has got a MOS chip ...[/quote]
Yeah, the chips were made by two different manufacturers. MOS was bought out by C= around 1990.
BTW, the Obese Agnus chip on that Megacip unit is still worth around $40 USD if you intend selling it.
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What's so special about that Obese Angus chip ??
Got another question. On da back of the turboboard (2630) is a strange kind of white slot, or is it two slots ?! Anybody knows what's that for ?? Just wondering ... like to expand stuff ...
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@effy
So it is an orginal C= turbo ?
The slot is for this (http://www.amiga-society.de/ahwbook/dkb2632.html)
There was also a 2nd RAM-expansion, but I forgot it's name.
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Okay, it all boots up into a Workbench 2.0, or as Showconfig says Disk Version 38.12 and kickstart 40.63. Da A2630 has got da 68030 with fpu and mmu but only 2 Mb Ram on it which is in my eyes extremely low !! I'm used to have at least 64 Mb on my A1200 !! But hey, I just got started !! Those 2060 boards are getting cheaper and cost less than a 1260 card and certainly less than a 68060 for A4000.
Next question. Sorry guys but this is all too new and exiting for me !! I feel like a little kid in a play store !! When I open up da A2000 I see on da very left two slots that are half da size of da other Zorro slots. Do they have a function too ?? Is this for cards like Hypercom and Buddha ?? I've got such cards that I used to have in my towered A1200 (bfor it crashed) ...
I plan on using the 5,25" inch bay to put a scsi cdrom (a Plextor rewriter that won't write anymore) in it. Any other suggestions what this bay can be used for ??
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Kronos : DKB 2632 seems to be something very interesting !! 112 Mb Ram can be added, Simms or EDO's !! Cool !! No, Megacool !! But da story is probably that you can't find it anymore ... but a big thanx for da info !!
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And even if you would find onr , it would probraly make more
sense to search for a used Blizzard2060, which offers up to
128mb,SCSI and a CPU ten times faster :-D
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I'm also spending a lot of my time on A2000. Maybe also money in the future. I'm also planing to put a scsi cd-rom in A2000.
This bay could also be used for hardware monitor (LCD display + all sorts of switches, controllers of airflow ...) or you could build I/O card and use it with sensors ...
Or you could try even more radical changes/modifications.
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There is A2000 + A2060 on ebay.de :
Verkaufe Amiga 2000 Komplettpaket incl. Original Commodore-Monitor 1084S. Der Rechner hat folgende Austattung: Blizzard 2060 SCSI Turbokarte, 1 GB SCSI Festplatte, CD-Rom, 16 MB Fast RAM, 2.internes HD Diskettenlaufwerk, Monitor 1084 S mit Monitorstander, Joystick. Alles ist installiert und funktionsfähig.
Aktuelles Gebot EUR 89,00
Startpreis EUR 40,00
Menge 1
Gebote 4
Verbleibende Zeit 5 Tage, 5 Stunden +
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@Effy
Okay, it all boots up into a Workbench 2.0, or as Showconfig says Disk Version 38.12 and kickstart 40.63.
That's odd. You have a 3.1 Kickstart and Workbench 2.0 Why?
Da A2630 has got da 68030 with fpu and mmu but only 2 Mb Ram on it which is in my eyes extremely low !! I'm used to have at least 64 Mb on my A1200 !! But hey, I just got started !! Those 2060 boards are getting cheaper and cost less than a 1260 card and certainly less than a 68060 for A4000.
Yeah. The best thing I ever did for my 2000 was the Blizzard. I only have 32MB on the accelerator, but still have three vacant SIMM slots.
Next question. Sorry guys but this is all too new and exiting for me !! I feel like a little kid in a play store !! When I open up da A2000 I see on da very left two slots that are half da size of da other Zorro slots. Do they have a function too ?? Is this for cards like Hypercom and Buddha ?? I've got such cards that I used to have in my towered A1200 (bfor it crashed) ...
No. Those two slots are ISA, same as older PCs use. You'll need a bridgeboard to use either. The GoldenGate was the unit to get, if you can find one these days.
I plan on using the 5,25" inch bay to put a scsi cdrom (a Plextor rewriter that won't write anymore) in it. Any other suggestions what this bay can be used for ??
Maybe a Syquest drive, if you can find one cheap. Even an internal SCSI Zip disk would do it.
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@Effy
What's so special about that Obese Angus chip ?
There were only several thousand made and even without the Megachip unit they can be used to expand a 1MB A2000 or A500 to 2MB of chip RAM.
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If that chip can be used to expand da chip Ram then why do they put it on a little board ?? Just wondering ...
I changed my mind about inserting a cdrom into da 5,25" bay. I'm thinking about getting a Catweasel Z2 so I can read my old C64 5,25" discs using an old pc discdrive. I forgot that under my table there's an old desktop pc standing that I modified to use as a scsi case with two cdroms and two harddrives, so I might better put that desktop under my A2000 ...
Getting a bridgeboard in order to use ISA slots doesn't make much sense when I'm already using a 1700+ AMD ...
But thanx for that idea about Ebay !! I shall go and have a look too !!
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@Effy
If that chip can be used to expand da chip Ram then why do they put it on a little board ?? Just wondering ...
Because the board carries the extra Meg of RAM that you'd need to otherwise add to the motherboard manually. Actually, IIRC I had to remove the 4 chips that made up the first meg and replace them with chips to make up 2MB. Then there's all the rest of the work in builing a line across to the Gary chip just to get the new address recognised.
The Megachip was such a big seller because it didn't need all the soldering and cutting.
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More problems, at least one. I tried to connect an external scsi case to my scsi controller with its Evolution.device. Tried different scsi cable but no result. The computer won't detect anything else but the one internally connected harddrive. In the external case there are two cdroms and one harddrive, all with different adresses through jumper settings so that is not a reason for problems. Actually, just to make sure, I disconnected two devices and left only a cdrom connected with a jumper on it so it doesn't have adress zero like the internal harddrive ... sorry, the ScsiInquire of AsimCDFS does not detect anything else but that hd ... possible reason is a terminator on the card that I don't know of. But I do remember that on my (R.I.P.) A500 with a scsi harddrive with Evolution.device too that that one also didn't detect anything else but the connected hd, and that with kickstart 3.1 !!!! My other A500+ had a A590 with a 'normal' scsi.device and that one didn't have any problem at all to detect a cdrom !!!
It can't be that such a Zorro2 scsi card is not made to detect anything external because there is an external connector. So what is the reason ??? I wanna keep the internal 5,25" bay free for something else than a cdrom (ex-Plextor rewriter).
Any clever advice would be very appreciated !!!
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@Effy
More problems, at least one. I tried to connect an external scsi case to my scsi controller with its Evolution.device. Tried different scsi cable but no result. The computer won't detect anything else but the one internally connected harddrive. In the external case there are two cdroms and one harddrive, all with different adresses through jumper settings so that is not a reason for problems. Actually, just to make sure, I disconnected two devices and left only a cdrom connected with a jumper on it so it doesn't have adress zero like the internal harddrive ... sorry, the ScsiInquire of AsimCDFS does not detect anything else but that hd ... possible reason is a terminator on the card that I don't know of.
Sounds like you lave a "LastDevice" setting somewhere on the internal HDD. Either that or the SCSI interface may have it's external bus "turned off". Look around the 'net for docs on the card if possible and aslo see if you can find a copy of GVP's FaaastPrep to check the LastDevice setiing.
But I do remember that on my (R.I.P.) A500 with a scsi harddrive with Evolution.device too that that one also didn't detect anything else but the connected hd, and that with kickstart 3.1 !!!! My other A500+ had a A590 with a 'normal' scsi.device and that one didn't have any problem at all to detect a cdrom !!!
Yeah, see above. My old A2091 would happily play with any device on the external bus, unless the device happened to have removeable media (CDROM, Zip, et al) until I finally found a firmware upgrade for it. Could be part of your problem too.
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Further explanations. On the card I read 'SCSI- FILECARD Evolution 1990' ... there seems to be a switch on the end of the card on the outside, and when I switch it then the computer won't boot from it's internal harddrive and I get the kickstart 3.1 screen. But when I try to boot with my Install3.1 disc it says 'No Dos Disk in DF0'. Should my original disc be screwed up ?? Don't know. Am trying to find my other OS 3.1 discs but my room seems to be bigger than I thought if you know what I mean ...
There's also a jumper on the card itself and I just moved it so I need to find out what happens or not ...
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Okay, I tried to boot again with that jumper placed one pin further but no result. When that switch on the rear is activated and card is deactivated I though I could attach my scsi devices but no way !! I booted with my Workbench 3.1 disc (finally found it in my room !!) and then inserted the AsimCDFS disc to use ScsiInquire to see what devices are connected, but then there's not even an Evolution.device according to that program. It seems that this switch on the rear really deactivates the card, probably to get more compatibility with games that don't like add-on's ... damn, advice is really needed ...
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@Effy
Welcome to the "Evolution.device" club. I was ill so I could not answer sooner. I also have A2000 with MacroSystem Evolution filecard and there are lots of troubles with it. I got this card with 2nd hand A2000 with no manuals and no disks. There was no info about it anywhere except on "The Big Book of Amiga Hardware" and no HDInstall or HDToolBox disks anywhere.
Apart from that - no ordinary HDToolBox or anything works with this card. I got in touch with somebody that had install disk and it is uploaded on "The Big Book of Amiga Hardware". But you already have HD installed so I believe that you had less problems with this card than I did.
The back jumper turns the card on/off as you already know. The inner jumper will do no good. I believe that the key is in using the right drivers/software. I plan to try this card with external CD but I had no time yet. If I succeed, I'll write about it. If you happen to finish the problem before me please do the same.
When you turn on the amiga, before booting starts there is a list of installed devices (black screen with starting text - MacroSystem evolution.device ...). Check if the card found something on any device 0 - 7 that could represent your cd-rom.
Good luck...
you'll need it.