The Os 3.1.4 Thread

[cehofer]

First off, I apologize ahead of time if this has been discussed or if there is a thread discussing the A4000T and scsi.device.

I need some help on my Amiga 4000T.  I installed the 3.1.4 ROMs yesterday.  The machine boots, displays the 3.1.4 ROM graphic asking for the floppies.  It did not recognize my HD.  I booted off the 3.1.4 "Install" floppy, ran HDtools and it would not recognize any of my SCSI devices using the scsi.device.  It scanned LUN0 -7, device 0-7 and nothing.  My devices are LUN0, CD address 1 and HD address 5.

I re-installed my 3.1 ROMs and the machine booted as normal.  The old scsi.device is version 43.45.

The instructions provided only pertain to installing the ROMS correctly.  It appears I did this correctly because I get a magenta screen with the insert floppy animation and it will boot off the Install floppy.

[cehofer]

It appears I ordered the incorrect set of ROMs for the A4000.  Normally, they are the same.  I have a desktop as well so no loss there.  This is SCSI not IDE so I wonder if I rename the device to NCR as you suggested if that would work.  I remember off my desktop that the IDE mimics a scsi.

These are 3.1 Roms but I have upgraded 3.9 all the way to BB4.  The ROMs have stamped on them 40.70 1995

[cehofer]

Thomas,

I want to thank you.  That was a d'oh! on my part.  I contacted Amiga on the Lake and they will swap the ROMS no problem.   I will let you know when I get it running.

Thanks again!

[cehofer]

I have upgraded my 3.9BB4 A4000D and A4000T to 3.14.  One thing I noticed right away is that Aweb-II will no longer execute on both machines.  I am able to change HD back to 3.9BB4 and no issues.   That seems to be the most stable browser I have.  Any idea why or is there a recommended browser

[cehofer]

Yes, the Aweb II I was using was 3.4.167SE (11/22/00) so looks like from 3.9.  This was the one not working.  I wonder why BB4 didn't install this the new one. 

I manually installed  3.5.09 (07/05/11) version from BB4 and it worked.

Thanks!!!

[cehofer]

I have a question about my Oktgon 2008 v6.8 on 3.14.  The card by design has up to 8MB on board.  Per the Oktagon instructions, you can add up to 6MB of memory and the Amiga will find and use it no problem.  However if you add 2MB more giving you 8MB on the card, the Amiga autoconfig will shut off that 2nd 4MB bank down and allocate it for an IBM Bridgeboard by design.  Is there a way to configure 3.14 to not do this?  When I boot with 8MB installed, I get the ROM board diagnostic screen saying the 2nd bank 4MB of the Oktagon has been disabled <CONTINUE>.  Scout will see the 2nd bank of 4MB but says it is bad memory.  I have moved the zip chips around and tested them.  They are all good.   

I will never use a Bridgeboard on this system so it would be nice to shut this "feature" off if I can.

[cehofer]

I don't have a bridgeboard.  Maybe be a limitation of the V6.8 ROM of the Oktagon.

Here is right out of the oktagon 2008 manual:

"If you own or plan to purchase a PC or AT board in the future, then you may upgrade your controller to a max of 6MB.  The PC or AT boards require free address space  of the remaining 2MB.

In case you upgrade your controller to the full 8MB and activate it anyhow, the Amiga's operating system  disables 4MB of the 8MB and then makes it available  to the PC/AT  Board.  "

After reading this, it sounds like the Amiga is doing it.  Even if I set the jumper to "test", it activates the RAM but doesn't allow the Amiga to use it.  I still get the Board Diagnostics screen with the 4MB ram disabled.

Here is out of the GVP 2008 SCSI/RAM8 card out of the Big Book of Amiga Hardware:

"Memory Configurations Notes:

0MB, 2MB, 4MB, 8MB - Autoconfig, populate in pairs from the bottom (edge connector) upward, set jumpers.
6MB* - leave the third pair of SIMMs out and populate the top pair of SIMM sockets, set jumpers, and insert an AddMem command in the startup-sequence for address range 800000-9FFFFF.

* - this setting was intended for compatibility with the Commodore A2086/2286/2386 Bridgecards.  The Bridgecards required that it be AutoConfig-located in Zorro II Fast RAM expansion space, aligned at address 200000 or 600000, and allocated a 2MB segment.  The AddMem command mapped the additional 2MB of RAM on the card, on the top pair of SIMM sockets.  It was not possible to Autoconfig the additional 2MB of memory as another 2MB board as board slot order prevented the Bridgecard to be placed at one of it's preferred locations"

So it is the Amiga doing it in the Z2 Memory address space.  It also sounds like the Oktagon2008 is smarter than the GVP2008/4008. 

That also sounds like something that should be taken out or as an option because I doubt anybody is running a PC Bridgeboard anymore.

[cehofer]

Is my Picasso taking up the 2MB space and not allowing Oktagon to take the full space or is that different memory?

6MB
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROCESSOR:      CPU 68060/68882fpu
CUSTOM CHIPS:   AA NTSC Alice (id=$0033), AA Lisa (id=$00F8)
VERS:   Kickstart version 46.143, Exec version 46.45, Disk version 45.194
RAM:    Node type $A, Attributes $505 (FAST), at $8000000-$FFFFFFF (128.0 meg)
        Node type $A, Attributes $505 (FAST), at $7400000-$7FFFFFF (12.0 meg)
        Node type $A, Attributes $605 (FAST), at $400000-$9FFFFF (6.0 meg)
        Node type $A, Attributes $703 (CHIP), at $4000-$1FFFFF (~2.0 meg)
BOARDS:
 Phase 5 Digital Products CyberStorm:   Prod=8512/25($2140/$19) (@$EA0000 128K)
 Village Tronic Picasso II(+) Memory:   Prod=2167/11($877/$B) (@$200000 2meg)
 Village Tronic Picasso II(+):   Prod=2167/12($877/$C) (@$E90000 64K)
 Village Tronic Ariadne Ethernet Card:   Prod=2167/201($877/$C9) (@$EC0000 64K)
 BSC Memorymaster:   Prod=2092/8($82C/$8) (@$600000 4meg Mem)
 BSC Memorymaster:   Prod=2092/8($82C/$8) (@$400000 2meg Mem)
 BSC Oktagon 2008:   Prod=2092/5($82C/$5) (@$ED0000 64K)

8MB
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROCESSOR:      CPU 68060/68882fpu
CUSTOM CHIPS:   AA NTSC Alice (id=$0033), AA Lisa (id=$00F8)
VERS:   Kickstart version 46.143, Exec version 46.45, Disk version 45.194
RAM:    Node type $A, Attributes $505 (FAST), at $8000000-$FFFFFFF (128.0 meg)
        Node type $A, Attributes $505 (FAST), at $7400000-$7FFFFFF (12.0 meg)
        Node type $A, Attributes $605 (FAST), at $600000-$9FFFFF (4.0 meg)
        Node type $A, Attributes $703 (CHIP), at $4000-$1FFFFF (~2.0 meg)
BOARDS:
 Phase 5 Digital Products CyberStorm:   Prod=8512/25($2140/$19) (@$EA0000 128K)
 Village Tronic Picasso II(+) Memory:   Prod=2167/11($877/$B) (@$200000 2meg)
 Village Tronic Picasso II(+):   Prod=2167/12($877/$C) (@$E90000 64K)
 Village Tronic Ariadne Ethernet Card:   Prod=2167/201($877/$C9) (@$EC0000 64K)
 BSC Memorymaster:   Prod=2092/8($82C/$8) (@$600000 4meg Mem)
 BSC Memorymaster:   Prod=2092/8($82C/$8) (@$0 4meg Mem)
 BSC Oktagon 2008:   Prod=2092/5($82C/$5) (@$ED0000 64K)

[cehofer]

Have you been seeing any "Block Checksum" errors with 46.13?  I have a physical drive that 2 partitions, system and work that they have crept up on and on my SCSI2SD partition.  I have used Dave Haynie's DiskSalv4.  It detects the errors and supposedly repairs them but on reboot my Work partition still spends time re-indexing and will say "Block ###" has a checksum error "retry" "cancel".  It did seem to fix my System partition.  I even went as far as to copy my Work data to another drive, reformat and copy the data back, and I still get the error on copying.  Usually formatting will get rid of bad blocks on the drive.

This drive has been wiped and formatted with 46.13 from the start.  I did not update the file system.

[cehofer]

I did not run Disksalve4 until I had the checksum issue.

The two physical partitions in question are System 970MB and Work 1.4GB.  This is a 4Gig drive total.  The third partition on that drive has not given me issue.  I have learned early on that the Boot or System partition I keep under a gig.  The SCSI2SD in question is only a 1.9G partition.

Here is what seemed to fix the issue on Work and the SD card.  I first reformatted Work with FFS and International (default) checked.  Even after that, I would still get those checksum errors when copying back to that partition.   I then reformatted it with only FFS and no International and no trashcan.  That seemed to fix it.  I filled the partition copying data to it and deleting it successfully.  I did the same to the SCSI2SD partition.  They are behaving now.

 Can you explain what "International mode" is?

I had a crash.  I backup to my Western Digital Worldbook NAS using the SMBFS2.1, Deneb v9, poseidon 4.5 and a linysys usb nic.  I have another 4000T and 4000D running 3.1.4 but using Ariadne and CBM2065 NIC running the same SAMBA and SMBFS2.1.  They backup fast and without issue.

BTW, I don' t know if you updated the BSDSocket lib or what, but network speed has greatly improved with 3.1.4.

This 4000T with USB/nic, Internet is fast but for whatever reason SMBFS is slow.  I'm talking floppy slow.  And for whatever reason, it will lock up my NAS and in turn crashing the Amiga.  I don't know why the SMBFS doesn't time out but it doesn't.  I have to power cycle my NAS to get it back.

I was doing a backup to the NAS when it crashed and after that I had these Checksum issue.  I found it odd that I had the checksum issue or corruption while reading from the disk instead of writing to it. 

I usually backup to USB and then copy that to NAS.  I was tweeking Genesis hoping to get better performance out of the usb/nic when all this happened.  I can't find anything anywhere to help my usb/nic. 

FYI, I am not using DMA for my Deneb as it says it conflicts with the SCSI card.

[cehofer]

Thomas,

One thing I noticed that is completely different is the Printer Preferences.  My 3.9bb4 is version 44.23 11/24/99 and has more options as to device unit #, unit name but more importantly the ability to configure a custom print device such as usb or netprint.device.  I have looked in the icon information but I don't see any TOOLTYPES that I can turn on to add these to my printer preferences. 
I tried:
DEVICE=netprinter.device
UNITNUM=0

Then when I went into Netprinter Prefs and configured my printer IP and hit either SAVE or USE, the system crashes with 80000004 every time.

Netpar still works with these Tooltypes configured and redirects to Parallel.  I would think NetPar would stop working as well until I removed those Tooltypes.

 Also version 44.23 has  three tabs to it page size/Margins and settings.  The 3.1.4 printer preferences version 45.3 9/11/18 is just a single page with them combined.   I was able to use NetPar which has a custom parallel.device that redirects parallel to network but I would like to use USB too. 

Can you give some guidance?

Thanks.

[cehofer]

Thomas,

I am sorry I started a fight here.  First off, I want to say I for one greatly appreciate your help and knowledge of the Amiga OS in general.  Thank you for that!  I was hoping you were going to say to just add some "tooltypes" to the printer prefs and I would be good to go.  I have been busy so I haven't had a chance to try restoring 3.9 printer prefs.  It doesn't sound too difficult.

Kolla is correct that netprinter is a network printer redirection program on aminet.  I will have to restore 3.9 printer prefs and see if I keep getting that crash when I try to use or save netprinter prefs. 

I am currently using netpar, also on Aminet, and it works nice with my new HP CLJ Pro MFPM281 printer.  I have printed from Pagestream4 and Finalwriter97 in color.  What seems to work best in Finalwriter is using the Postscript driver.  It is nice that HP still makes printers on PCL5, 5e and 5c along with Postscript even though that is emulated but it still works.  The only beef I have with NetPar is that it has a banner page and wastes a page of paper every print.  I cannot figure out how to shut it off in the docs.  It is annoying!  So if somebody knows hot to stop the Banner print page, I would highly appreciate it!

[cehofer]

I installed the 3.9 printer prefs, printer gfx and printer PS along with the env-archive/sys printer.prefs.  When I tried to set up netprinter.prefs, it still crashed on use or save.

Chris, I will have to try lpr.device.

thanks

[cehofer]

Thomas,

Would this SCSI.device bug cause my harddrive light to come fully on and computer to crash.  I have had this issue with my 2 A4000Ts but not my 4000D with oktagon scsi.  What will happen without rhyme or reason, I have tried different size drives and different size partitions but on boot sometimes or sometimes drive access the HD light will go on full bright and computer will crash.   Since I have re-formatted my partitions without "international mode" it has occurred much less.  This has happened on 3.9 and 3.1.4  I am using the current 46.13 FFS.  On 3.9 I was using 45.13 the "unofficial ffs".  I have installed the new 46.13ffs on my 3.9 now.

I have the SD2SCSI V6 and  I am able to capture scsi traffic.   I contacted Michael McMaster, developer of SD2SCSI.  He analyzed the logs and told me that it was occurring during sync transfers.

"Please use scsi2sd-util to set the "speed" limit option to Async 5MB/s. I can see that the logs all show synchronous data transfers, and the hang occurred during a sync transfer. It would be good to know if the problems go away in async mode."

I could get this to occur on a regular basis using Samba swat web page on the A4000T.  I just go to the browse to the swat page and browse around on help, config, etc and the drive light would go fully on and A4000T would crash.   I did as Michael suggest and it did stop it for awhile but would still occur from time to time.  What has made my A4000T the most stable is formatting the drives without "international mode".  I have since put the SD2SCSI to full speed again and  I really don't see any difference.

My SCSI is configuration is I have a physical SCSI II 4gig HD partitioned :

1gig System
1.4 gig Work
1.6 gig Data.

I have several drives on the SD2SCSI 32Gig SD card divided into 2 SCSI IDs 4 and ID5 16G each:
900MB
1.8G
3.9
3.8
5.6

3.5
3.8
3.8
1.8

The controller is configured for Sync transfers and SCSI II.  The Termination is the SD2SCSI active termination built in it.