FastlaneZ3 Modification for 256mb RAM

[amigadave]

Well, my FastlaneZ3 did not sell on eBay for the second attempt, so I might keep it and use it in my A4000, or A3000T.  When I bought it, the seller told me that it had the latest ROM update.  Has anyone here done the modification that allows the FastlaneZ3 to hold 256mb of RAM?

If I am going to keep and use it, I want to upgrade the 40mb of RAM that is currently installed on it to the maximum 256mb of Fast RAM.  That could give me a total of 400mb of Fast RAM & 2mb Chip RAM on my A4000 w/CSPPC card and might make for some interesting tests of running Lightwave3D and running large animations, or short Flyer videos from RAM, instead of from a hard drive (if Flyer video could even be run from RAM instead of across the Flyer SCSI-2 bus?).

Anyway, I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has had a FastlaneZ3 card with 256mb of RAM installed on it.

[mechy]

If its a revision 2.4 board its ready to go. You need the 16-16MB 30 pin simms.. The latest rom is 8.5(just version the scsi.device to find out).
Set the jumpers as needed and your off.
I have tried this with 3 different boards and the most they seem to take reliably is somewhere around 192MB.
No one i know of has managed 256MB.

Fastlane z3 ram is likely no faster than the cyberstorm PPC UWSCSI when setup right, the z3 is at the mercy of the zorro3 bus.

The ppc scsi should do around 25-30MB/s with a good drive setup.Not sure how the fastlane compares. It would be a interesting test.

mech

[stachu100]

The trick is to replace EPROM AND some programmed IC's on Fastlane.
Otherwise if you just replace EPROM you will have newer z3scsi.device. That's all.

[johnklos]

The Fastlane needs a new ROM and new PALs which allow using 16 meg SIMMs. If your Fastlane is working with 40 megs, that implies that the PALs are not the ones which support 16 meg SIMMs because they ONLY support 16 meg and 4 meg. The non-16 meg SIMMs ONLY support 4 meg and 1 meg SIMMs (40 megs would be 8x4 meg and 8x1 meg).

Since I don't know how new 16 meg PALs would handle 1 meg SIMMs, I can't say I know this for sure, but my advice would be to get four 16 meg SIMMs and test them before getting the other twelve.

[mechy]

The Fastlane needs a new ROM and new PALs which allow using 16 meg SIMMs. If your Fastlane is working with 40 megs, that implies that the PALs are not the ones which support 16 meg SIMMs because they ONLY support 16 meg and 4 meg. The non-16 meg SIMMs ONLY support 4 meg and 1 meg SIMMs (40 megs would be 8x4 meg and 8x1 meg).

Since I don't know how new 16 meg PALs would handle 1 meg SIMMs, I can't say I know this for sure, but my advice would be to get four 16 meg SIMMs and test them before getting the other twelve.

from my experience the 2.2 revision boards need the pal upgrades+rom and possible some jumper wires, the 2.4 has these pal upgrades from the start,some still need the newer rom on the 2.4.Do you know otherwise? i have not seen a fastlane z3 ever work with more than 192MB and i do mean the upgraded ones..
upgraded boards only support the 4 and 16MB simms.


mech

[amigadave]

Thanks for the replies.  I could not find the revision number on the FastlaneZ3 board itself.  Can you tell the revision from the serial number?  It is 3100570.

My board came to me with a square chip in an envelope, which is an upgrade that I thought would allow the use of the 16mb simm's.  The identification on the top of this chip is:

AM27C1024
-120JC
9708MPM
12.75V PGM

Is this an upgraded ROM, EPROM, or something else?  It was sent to the previous owner from someone else as an upgrade, so I am guessing it might be the upgraded z3scsi.device.

Who still knows how to upgrade this card to use 16mb simm's and what would you charge me to send the required upgrades?

[omnicron10]

That board use to be mine. It has the upgraded ROM chip already.  The chip in the envelope is the old ROM chip.  It does not have the large memory upgrade.  That required some PAL chips to be changed on the board and at the time some very expensive memory.

Largest SIMMS you can use are 4 mb believe.  

To do the upgrade would require the PALS and the code to program them.  I would not put the old ROM chip on the board as it does not work with 060 and has a lot of bugs in it.  I had told this all to you at the time I sold it to you.

It states this information in the manual I had given to you with the Phase 5 black box for the card.

Here is a good link for most of the information on the card.

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/fastlane

[amigadave]

Thanks Tim,

You didn't really expect me to remember everything you told me when you sold it to me, did you? That was like 3 years ago. :-)