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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: HammerD on May 10, 2005, 08:04:18 PM
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I have a 3 week old Amiga 4000T (Escom model) purchased from Software hut that is having trouble booting. It is a stock A4000T/040. I have just added an IDE hard disk and IDE CDROM, and bumped the ram up to 18MB (2+16).
When I power on the A4000T the power LED flickers about 4 times bright then light, then I get a black screen with a red box "SOFTWARE ERROR", - the red box flashes. I then click the left mouse button and then the machine proceeds to boot normally into OS 3.9. There is a C= 2065 ethernet card also in the machine (which works with Genesi), and otherwise there are no problems with the machine when I am using the Workbench. All the ram is identified, I can see the CDROM and hard drive...everything works.
Only when I power it on from cold start do I get the problem. Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!
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Does this business with the software failure happen even if you don't have the hard disk connected? If you take all the IDE stuff out, does this happen?
Has it been playing up from day one that you had it? If not, what was the last thing you did to change the config before the error started happening?
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So someone finally purchased a NOS A4000T from software hut. :-)
Could it be that the machine needs to warm up in order to work fine? Or perhaps only a single component, such as the A3640 card.
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It could be an empty battery.
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@ Markus
When the battery on my A4KT went flat, I got no software failure. IIRC I ran the machine without the battery for a few days while looking for a replacement, and I got no software failure. I doubt this is a battery problem.
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@X-Ray
I will take out the ide disk and let you know if I still get the crash....what if I don't ? ?
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@All:
Ok, I did some more testing, and the A4000T only gets that problem when my 20 gig IDE hard disk is plugged into the machine via the IDE cable...is my hard drive incompatible??
I tried both 80-pin and 40-pin IDE cables (no difference)... or is there some jumper I can adjust somewhere? The hard disk is a Maxtor 541DX 5400 rpm 20 gig drive.
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@Me
Ok I take that back. I have tried 3 hard drives now and all get the "Software Failure" red rectangle...
Hooking up just a CDROM drive as a master device (only device) on the cable was ok, no problem, and of course taking off the IDE cable it boots up to a purple "insert disk" screen...
:(
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Having SIMILAR problem here on my A3000
but witha replacement SCSI disk
When I cold-reboot, I get the purple insert-disk screen
from there a warm reboot works fine
(no guru meditations or software errors here)
still researching, have only come up with something about using an RDB software tool to set HiID Flag to ON
sometimes called LastDrive or HighDrive
havent tried that yet
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Hmm, maybe its related to slow_spinup problem?
What KS do you have?
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@ Orange
If it is an A4000T he'll have the latest ROMs.
@ HammerD
I was going to suggest that it is a long spinup time on your drive, but if you've tried 3 drives, then I don't know. (unless they are all old drives)
Do you have any SCSI drives that you can test?
Edit: did this crash start happening from day one that you had the machine?
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My Amiga Technologies A4000T has always done exactly the same thing.
Like you found, it only does it when there are IDE devices present.
Doesn't worry me much as the computer runs 24/7.
Never really looked into the problem in detail, but it appears to be some kind of timing issue as it accesses IDE devices during boot.
Changing SCSI spinup time or whatever doesn't fix it either. You'll be running OS version 40.70 which is OS 3.1 with the A4000T SCSI controller software and without workbench.library.
Possibly the way to fix it properly would be to edit the code in ROM to change how things are done during boot, but that's not so easy without a copy of the source code handy :-P
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I guess it has pretty much happened from day 1. If I put my cyberstorm 060 with a scsi disk in the machine the problem doesn't happen.
It ONLY happens when an IDE disk is attached to the onboard ide connector...an IDE CDROM is fine.
Weird...
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Hmm, interesting that yours does the same thing...I guess there is nothing really that can be done. I mean the machine works fine, I just get that error but it eventually boots without any intervention.
Or I could just use scsi...
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Hello
I also experience this problem, but not with all IDE devices.
Usually, my A4000T only works with SCSI disks, but from time to time I connect some IDE disk, mainly to do backups of IDE disks I use with my other Amigas.
With an old IDE disk (Matrox) I have the same guru meditation, $0000000B if I remember right. And then it boots and work nicely.
however recently I connected a Nec 3520 DVD writer and used it for more than a month, and the IDE-boot-guru never appeared.
I also have a Cyberstorm mk3 as CPU board. It would be interesting to see whether it depends on the CPU board (having onboard SCSI).
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@ Thread
Do all A4000Ts do this, or only some? I haven't had this problem, not even with a CF card.
Edit: that was a stupid question, 'cos they can't all do it if mine doesn't, innit?
Rephrase: how many other A4000T users have this problem?
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IIRC, this was a pretty well publicized problem with standard Escom A4000T's. The general fix is to run SCSI (which has it's benefits). There was also mention of some sort of fix board, but I never saw it commercially available.
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@adolescent
I had never heard that before. I even owned an Escom A4000T back in 1997 - but I guess I always used SCSI with it then. I just don't happen to have any 50 pin scsi drives kicking around; otherwise I would use scsi :-)
So I am stuck with IDE for the moment (god it's slow :)
At least I know I'm not the "only one" with this issue, and that it really isn't that serious; just annoying.
Thanks for posting the info.
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@HammerD
You can always get an Acard SCSIDE and get that IDE on your SCSI chain. I use one with my CSMK3 and it works great. I now have a 120GB Western Digital and I get ~10MB/s transfers with low CPU load.
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@ adolescent
Interesting idea. I never knew this type of product existed. What exact model number do you have, and do you know if one is also avilable for the built in A4000T scsi connector? (is that 10MB/sec ? or only 5 ?)
Thanks!
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@HammerD
I have the AEC-7720UW (http://www.acard.com.tw/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=34&prod_no=AEC-7720UW&type1_title=SCSIDE%20Bridge&type1_idno=2) (Ultra-Wide SCSI to IDE Bridge) in my A4000 (on the CSMK3 UWSCSI).
For a standard A4000T SCSI you could use the AEC-7720U (http://www.acard.com.tw/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=23&prod_no=AEC-7720U%20(Support%20ATAPI%20Device)&type1_title=SCSIDE%20Bridge&type1_idno=2) (Ultra SCSI to IDE Bridge). Beware though that it's designed for CD-ROM (5.25") drives, so it sticks out a little from 3.5" drives. (see picture for more information)
You could probably also use one of the "Smart Bridge" models, but I haven't used them personally so I can't vouch for them.
As for speeds, I don't know what kind of speeds you would expect. Like I said, I get consistant 10MB/s from a Western Digital 120GB (WD1200JB) on the CSMK3. Standard SCSI will be much slower, but you'll get the advantages of DMA and cheaper HDs.
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Hi Folks:
I've got an update to this problem. The error only occurs when you have a bootable partition on the IDE HD. If you boot using a standard partition the IDE buss does not reset and the machine does not give you an error.
It seems like the 4000T is loading something that is causing the machine to reboot, almost like the set patch. What does an Amiga load of the boot block of a hard drive. I assumed it was the file system, standard on OS 3.9 is XX.5. I loaded the FFS from BB2 which is XX.13 but this did not help. Any ideas?
Mike
(This is driving me nuts! I've really got to figure this out so I can get some sleep...)
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My A4000T also does this. One interesting note; The person I purchased the machine from (complete less case) had A4000D 40.68 roms installed which seems to fix all of the IDE problems. The IDE works perfectly and there isn't any pause at all at boot up. This obviously disables the onboard SCSI.
I put back the 40.70 roms and chose to boot from SCSI leaving only an IDE cdr drive connected. Like you said the bootable partition and 40.70 roms on the A4000T is the troubled combination.
Further the machine gets REALLY strange if you use a rev 3.0 A3640, as this also causes problems with the onboard SCSI :-). I have also tried a CS MK III 060 with the same results.
Jeff
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Thank God all the A3640's I've got around here are revision 3.1. Next pick up is an 060' for the tower. I assume if you use the CyberStorm you can use it's onboard SCSI without any problems and not worry about the A4000T's SCSI?
It is strange that the 40.70 ROMS only give the IDE buss a problem. Why wouldn't the SCSI bus have the same problem? Both have to load boot code. Is the actual device driver "scsi.devvice" the problem? I'm going to dig into this more today and see if I can figure out anything.
Mike
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The CS MK III 060 SCSI works beautifully on mine and is very fast, so no worries there I think. If you want the onboard IDE and don't need the SCSI (IE CS Card) just use 40.68 roms. This seems to work a treat.
This was my first A4000T and I purchased it in pieces (No Case). This was driving me NUTS for a little while until I figured out some of the quirks:-D.
Keep Posted if you get any further. One more thing I discovered on mine, if you want to use a Toaster in the top video slot you can use (2)x 8 meg SIMMS in slots 1 and 3 for the onboard 16 meg instead of (4) x 4 meg simms without any problems.
Jeff