Apower desktop PSU for A500/600/1200/cd32 are Back!

[Darrin]

Ooooh!  Nice!

I definately want one of those SCSI card slot devices, especially as it fits into the floppy drive bay.

My brother was thinking of shipping his A1200 over from the UK so he might like one of those PSUs.

I'll be home in a week and a half so expect an order soon.  

[Darrin]

Mechy is a class guy, buy stuff from him or get the wrath of red.

I am a mechy fanboy.

Ah, the Jim "seal of approval".  Excellent.  

Shipping from Texas to Louisiana shouldn't be too bad either.  

[Darrin]

Thanks for sharing that with us Mike.  I told my brother about your PSU and he's looked it up on the web.  He's just trying to decide whether or not to order.

[Darrin]

OK, ordered a card reader and cable.  That should look good mounted in my A4000 and I can connect it to the unused SCSI port on my CPU card.

[Darrin]

SCSI card reader arrived today - thanks!
I haven't had time to play with it yet, to figure out what it will do.

I've installed mine in my A4000.  It detects the inserted CF Card by when I try and use HD Tool box to set it up then it hangs after the detection.  It is probably the SCSI jumper settings on my Warp Engine 68040 card as another card which is already formatted and set up with OS3.9 causes the whole system to guru when inserted.

I shall continue to experiment.  

[Darrin]

I've installed mine in my A4000.  It detects the inserted CF Card by when I try and use HD Tool box to set it up then it hangs after the detection.  It is probably the SCSI jumper settings on my Warp Engine 68040 card as another card which is already formatted and set up with OS3.9 causes the whole system to guru when inserted.

I shall continue to experiment.  

Could someone offer some advice here?

The SCSI card reader when attached to the Warp Engine in my A4000 reported the device as Unit 2 and a CF card directly inserted into the CF socket as being at Lun 2.  However, HDToolbox after detecting it would then hang the software.  Find Device would also report the card as being in Unit 2 at Lun 2.  I tried every combination of jumpers for the SCSI adapter on the Warp Engine and nothing allowed me to access the card to format it (always hanging after detecting it on Unit 2 Lun 2).  Using a CF adapter on my FastATA4000 I formatted the card, but the SCSI card reader still wouldn't mount it.

I then attached it to the SCSI adapter on my A2000's GVP G-Force 040 card... and it detected it at Unit 2 Lun 1 and promptly partitioned it, formatted it and mounted it on reboot.

Anyone got any ideas what I'm doing wrong with the A4000?

Cheer.

It is worth pointing out that the CF card on the SCSI card reader out-performs the SCSI hard drive on the same adapter and the CF Card mounted in an adapter attached to the Buddha:

IDE (Buddha) CF Card:  1,414,446 bytes/sec
SCSI Hard Drive:  1,601,694 bytes/sec
SCSI CF Card:  1,876,926 byes/sec

All using FFS.

[Darrin]

@Darrin,

Dumb question, but are you sure your SCSI termination is setup correctly on the WarpEngine SCSI cable?

Believe me, that's isn't a dumb question where I'm concerned.  

The SCSI card reader is the only device attached on the cable and it is terminated via the jumper.  There are 3 resister packs next to the actual SCSI port on the Warp Engine card, but I'm assuming that they are meant to be in place.  There is also a jumper (JP1) to send power to the SCSI bus, but I've tried this both on and off.

[Darrin]

OK, I've checked all of the cables and reconnected the SCSI card reader to my A4000 using the CF card formatted on the A2000 (Priority -5).

Now the device is detected in the early startup, but attempting to boot off my hard drive (priority 3) now fails after the OS3.9 kickstart reboot with:

Software Failure
SDH0                                            ------- name of the CF Card
Program Failed (error #80000004)
Wait for disk activity to finish

disabling the CF Card in the Early Startup allows the A4000 to boot from the hard drive.  Why is the A4000 even trying to play with the -5 priority CF card?  I tried another CF card with an OS3.9 install that will boot from the CF card reader on the FastATA4000 and that also produces the same Software Failure on the SCSI card reader.

Hmmm....

[Darrin]

Darrin,
 Your problem is very strange,as i have tested the readers on my own warpengine 040/40 and it worked flawless with both the card in the cf slot and using the pcmcia adapter to CF in the pcmcia slot. I doubt it has anything to do with it,but make sure mask and max transfer are set right for a scsi device,as some hdtoolbox defaults are not right.

Try using the warpengine  scsi tools from the warpengine floppy.Its on amiga resource if you dont have it.

If you have a active terminator,try using it at the end of the cable and unterminating the scsi reader.again doubtfull this is it.

Try using a different version of hdtoolbox ,there are a few versions known to be problematic.

last resort, you can get a pcmcia to cf adapter and use it in the pcmcia slot,this allows you to address the cf as just device "2" and no luns.

maybe try changing cf cards,not sure what cf card you use but i did the testing with the 2gb transcends i have here all was fine.


Mech

Hi Mechy,

Thnaks for the tips.  I'll keep on playing.  Just out of interest, how are your jumpers on your Warp Engine configured (H, J & K) and do you have the termination power enabled or disabled?

I didn't get the floppy with my used Warp Engine so I'll download it and try it.

The main card I'm using is a 2GB Transcend which I ordered from you.  I also ordered the PCMCIA adapter too, and it doesn't work with that.  I also ordered a round SCSI cable from you too which I'm using on the A4000 and I've tried it attached to different connectors.

The only differences between it working on the A2000 and not working on the A4000 are the CPU cards with teh SCSI adapters and the SCSI cables (I'm using a flat one on the A2000 and the round one on the A4000).  Now that you've mentioned cables, I'll try another cable on the A4000.  The A2000 and A4000 are both using the same Classic Workbench OS3.9 based install so they have the same HDToolbox.  Also, I have a really old Commodore 2091 SCSI card which I can shove in the A4000 and see whether that will place nice with the card reader.

If all else fails, I'm just going to leave it installed in the A2000's second floppy bay.  

[Darrin]

Mine has:
jumper on K
NO jumper on J
jumper on H
this is for LUN scan 100ns synchronous operation with no boot delay.

you may need delays on these if the machines tries to boot before the card reader can initialize.so don't be afraid to experiment.You may try turning off synchronous operation also.

Termpower is on. the scsi card reader does not supply term power,so termination won't work without the termpower.

note on scsi, you always use the ends of the cable,never have a drive in the middle of the cable and the end hanging with free connectors. i.e. plug one end into the controller and the opposite end into the scsi device. termitate that end device.add any other devices in the middle of the cable.scsi device #'s don't matter much,as song as all devices have different #'s.

I suggest you install a clean os3.1 on the card . the 2091 would also be a good test if it has a reasonable newer rom rev. 6.6 or better i recommend,7 is best.Make sure 2091 jumpers are right..

I'm really thinking you have a mask/max transfer problem.Try the warpdrive scsi hdtools to partition and do a quick format and install a fresh wb3.1 (preferrably Commodores and not patched stuff like classicWb etc.). Check the warp engine ram also,a bad simm could cause these problems.a quick and dirty(but not gauranteed) way to check it is boot with your old setup,then copy stuff to ram just short of the 128MB(assuming u have 128MB on it). if it crashes before it gets to say 127MB you know some ram is flakey or not seated well.

Cheers.  I'll give it a whirl and see what happens.  

I checked my 2091 and it has an old 6.1 ROM which (I believe) doesn't support drives larger than 1GB and has other bugs too.  It came out of an old A2000 back in the days when 128MB was considered to be a large hard drive.  

[Darrin]

darrin,
   did you ever find a solution to this trouble you were having??

No, not yet.  I had to return to work (typing this from a hotel in New Mexico), so I'll play with it again when I get home (in about 3-5 weeks).  What's worse, my FPGA Arcade is also sitting in my house and I can't get to it.  I might ask my wife to mail it to me.