Apollo 68040 how to properly install it on a 1200 and close the trapdoor ?

[nikodr]

Hello...
Is it even possible to install it inside an amiga 1200 and make it functioning without the cpu  card to be sitting out the trapdoor?
I have my 1200 it always had a 68040 apollo with 16mbytes.
Now i tried to open it and didnt work.It showed red screen green screen,and power led flashed for 8 times.

Then i removed apollo 68040 re-seated the simm card i had all worked fine BUT amiga was open with the cover up.When i tried to put the cover of amiga and close it with screws i had the same errors.

It seems i can only work amiga with no problems if amiga is slightly lifted with 4 stuff i put on the corners of the amiga so that it is slightly elevated with no trapdoor installed so that apollo can be a little out of the trapdoor.I tested it with 2.5 hours of whdload playing games and no crashes.

Is there another solution if i dont have a towered amiga?it seems the way they designed the card was bad for the trapdoor .It barely fits at all!
Kind regards

[nikodr]

I foud online some stl files for new trapdoors and i will use my 3d printer.

However things are not good now and i have random crashes and guru meditation 8000 000E error randomly while i play games mostly whdload.
The psu i have is the one that gives 25 watts,i only have the 68040 and the ide to cf adapter with a 4giga card inside.Nothing else.
The multimeter shows that 12 line gives 12.5v 5v line gives 4.9 and -12 is -11.6

Could the powersupply make the system unstable?Would i be better using an atx power supply and hack it to power the amiga?

The crashes started today randomly,before that yesterday i used amiga for more than 2 hours with no problems.

[nikodr]

I lowered the max transfer rate in the hdtoolbox because i was getting weird crashes and read some forum posts that said that cf should not be higher .Now have fewer crashes.
but they happen too.I can play for 30 minutes and all ok and then i may try to open a folder and get a guru.
I have to clean the apollo card .
Is the 25 watt power supply enough?that is what i cant understand.
25 seems little.
I will post again tomorrow when i have more time to fix it.
I hope i can make it work with no crashes again.Wish it was like back when you just clicked the switch and everything worked with no problems.
It seems old computers psu etc need certain precautions nowdays and if something goes wrong you can get crazy trying to fix it.

[nikodr]

Pat the cat thank you for your post

It hasn't been recapped before.I checked the capacitors they look ok,no bloated ones but i know that caps may look all right but can have serious issues,i would have to remove them and check the esr but maybe this would be the last measure if all else fails.

Now that you mentioned the power supply : i always had the stock even when i got the apollo card.They never told me to stop using it from the shop i bought it (and it was an official reseller shop of commodore products along with official service for commodore products).
I also had an external tower with a harddrive and cdrom but those got power from another psu on board the tower.

I remember back i used to have a different 68040 library.Now i only have the stock one from the workbench installation a 68040.library.i thought only the 68060 needed to have a different specific library?

Also regarding games i only use whdload ones and the most recent version,i dont play games that are not in the whdload format.i know that many of them could crash or i would have to change the arguments.

So it seems that the problem must be the psu.It seems that it cannot supply the current the cpu needs and then it starts crashing.
But i am amazed that i used it for many years back in the 90ies with the stock one.

I will also try to remove the floppy drive .

Which library of 68040 should i install?

My  workbench is stock i did not install anything else only the latest version of installer from aminet and then i installed whdload,nothing else is installed (besides the games of course) it boots up very fast with all chip memory and fast memory free,and i can play any game i want from those installed.

The hd is a cf card on an ide adaptor, it has 2 partitions of 2gigas so in total 4gigabytes.

[nikodr]

Thank you for your replies.Today i removed apollo to clean it and to check the battery for corossion. it seems clean and ok but i know the battery has to go.Also after removing the apollo from the system i played games for 2 hours and no crashes or anything else.also the capacitors seems to be ok on the motherboard.Otherwise i would have audio distortion or crashes,i know i have to recap it sometime in the future though as these moterboards get older they need care and recap.
So system is fine with stock psu but only for the cf ide card,so if i want to use apollo i have to use another psu with more amperage.
Also regarding the coolling and fan what do ou advice me ?should i remove the small fan it has and put a larger one?and the heatsink?
I am a little bit confused about the heatsink as it is a small one.
the card i have has the 80mhz oscillator so it works on 40mhz.

[nikodr]

Hi,

    I have been using my Apollo 1240 card since the late 90s and it has a history of instability but I'll describe what's happened in the past and how it is set up now.

Originally in the wedge case, it was stable even with the original 29W power brick.
With the trapdoor cover on, it was unstable, so it ran with the cover off.
The first problem was the CPU fan, which started to get quite noisy. I cut that off and it was okay without cooling but I don't recommend it!
The case was "upgraded" to a tower so there was a lot more "airspace" - running without fan did not concern me that much.
In the tower, the card "flopped around" physically and unless it was in perfect alignment,  the Amiga would not boot.
So I ended up fabricating a bracket to hold the card in tight and perfectly parallel with the motherboard.
Next, replaced the RTC battery and the fan, which is a standard 5v 40MM fan I got from eBay.
Slightly OT - I did add the second SIMM socket to the reverse side of the card and upgraded to 64MB. Choosing SIMMS was tricky.

In summary, card alignment seems to be *really* important, maybe this is most relevant to tower users as there is no playroom in the A1200 trapdoor compartment. The stock PSU is probably not your problem, unless as previously said, it is damaged or worn out. Cooling could be an issue - I think the revision of 040 is important as some need fans at 25MHz and mine at 40MHZ seemed genuinely fine with no fan for years.

On the software side, I used Remapollo from Aminet. I had NO luck with MMULib and other stuff. I tried everything and RemApollo was the only patcher that worked. The 68040 lib used with RemApollo is one of the old Commodore ones which you patch using a command that comes with RemApollo. It's important to follow the instructions precisely! Remapollo is set up to remap the ROM to fast RAM, which speeds up Workbench in a very noticeable way.

I hope this helps - Apollo cards are very temperamental but it was in my budget at the time so I don't criticise the card as much as some Amigans as I could not afford a Cyberstorm. If it was not for the Apollo then I would be having a much less capable 030/25 card today.

I 3d printed a small stand to put near floppy to have the keyboard raised and never taouch the  fan or appolo.That seems to solve the case of the card being parallel with the trapdoor closed.That way i have to remove the plastic up part of the amiga.
The machine seems to work ok though without the apollo.
I noticed with stock psu that amiga with only 68020 the psu is really cold and barely gets warm,as soon as apollo comes to play it gets hot after a while,and then it starts getting really hot the 68040.

I hope that by plugging the supply incorecctly before -it didnt go all in and shorted the 12v line to --2v i read on muiltimeter- i hope i didnt kill the card or ram.
I am skeptical if a line that expects to get 12v gets minus voltage if it would die or have effects.
Now that i fixed the  connector the supplied voltage is correct 12.5 for 12v line and 4.9 for the 5v line.

My question is though if the psu stock is still good.It measures 11.7 without load but as soon as it is connected to motherboard it goes to 12.5.
Am i missing something here?i thought usually that psu give higher voltage readings when current is not being drawn and as soon as there is load it drops down the voltage a little.
here i have the opposite senario 11.7 when idle and 12.5 as soon as i connect it to amiga.

2) can someone tell me what kind of simm slot i could buy and use if i wanted to install the second simm slot on the back if i ever had a tower?are these for sale somehow?
i remember someone in an amiga forum posted a thread and sold a modification that allows for apollo cards to see more ram by connecting the missing lines.anyone know anything about this if i could order it from someone?is it still being made?

[nikodr]

I have been thinking ways to continue using my amiga.It seems the apollo is not so stable.All amiga forum posts i found clearly state in large percentage that it is a very problematic card to work correctly and setup with the problems of psu and cooling.
I thought about adding an 8mbyte expansion card from amigakit store.I know i will lose the 68040 but then i think for whdload should be ok.
I  searched also about those new aca 68030 cards that once came in the market but noone has them now for sale.Will there ever be a new batch?
I think the 68040 apollo is nice but too cumbersome to really setup and use with not problems.
Are there other cards like the aca around?

[nikodr]

It is soldered like it was when i bought it.it does not have a socket.Apollo seems like a mess to use.
I am glad though because once removed the amiga 1200 does not crash and works fine.I have no audio distortion and the caps on motherboard look good.
I wanted to byt an aca but it is unavailable.As for doing a 68060 conversion i think the biggest benefit would be if i had a mediator or something else.Under the os i think the only advantage of 68060 is to decode mp3,something which the 68040 struggles to do under ahi.
I though of getting a delfina clockport card but hese are also unavailable.
Would a mediator take advantage of 68060 ?

[nikodr]

I have not done any timing fixes ,it was an amiga 1200 from the magic pack of amiga technologies.I think revision e?
I can't use the apollo right now because i dont have a more powerful power supply.I could modify the one i have by cutting the cable and connecting it to an atx.
But i dont want to be aggresive .I removed the apollo right now and it is just with 2mbytes.And power supply is good now.
The think with heat sink what would you use as one?
Also what kind of glue should i use to glue the heatsink?The stock heatsing seems to have the glue it had dried and is not glued now.So if i have to glue it again what substance should i use?
I also check the cpu command and it says all caches are enabled.
Apollo seems a little bit more problematic to setup correctly.But it offers a good boost.
I am on hold right now as i want to purchase a good power supply for amiga.
Also can you help me which is the best device to use to make the amiga possible to use with a vga screen?
I can use it on my android tv with the vga to amiga scart cable that i bought some years ago from amikit but if i try to use a typical vga monitor it only works for workbench if i use high resolution vga but not the pal games (which is almost all whdload).

do you have a suggestion for the best and not too expensive device that can output and promote the pal screen for vga?