Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: icbrkr on September 14, 2005, 12:46:48 PM
-
I've considered picking up a A3640 to slap in my A3000 as a "tide me over" accelerator until I get something better (they're so cheap used). Things I know about using the 3640 in my 3000:
* Heat could be an issue
* Some possible issues with DMA on Zorro II cards
* Need Kickstart 3.1 ROMS
Is there anything else I need to know?
-
I doubt that Kickstart 3.1 is needed in order to use the board in an Amiga 3000. Get latest revision of the board (v3.2) and everything should be alright, except for the heat problem of course.
-
And probably a very generic A3640. At that. If I may add so.
(No, I'm this other guy.)
:-)
-
I threw in a 3640 in my A3000 a while ago. I can tell you, it's hardly worth the effort. Increase in speed is minimal.
-
560SL wrote:
I threw in a 3640 in my A3000 a while ago. I can tell you, it's hardly worth the effort. Increase in speed is minimal.
I also had an A3640 card in my A3k-25mhz and it didn't
make any real noticable difference.
But I bought an A3k-16 mhz for my wife and installed
the A3640 card and it made quite a difference there.
So I guess if you have a 16 mhz machine ... YES its
worth it, but if yours is a 25 mhz then it probably
isn't worth the money or effort.
-
560SL wrote:
I threw in a 3640 in my A3000 a while ago. I can tell you, it's hardly worth the effort. Increase in speed is minimal.
I guess it depends on what you do with your machine. It certainly made a noticeable difference when compiling code in my A3000T.
-
Like others have said, if the A3640 is worth it or not depends on what you're going to be doing. I haven't been doing anything special with my A3000, but I definitely notice when I removed the A3640 for a bit. Things just felt slightly faster with the A3640. You can also try playing with tools such as Blizkick or MMULib to optimize your system even more.
Rev 3.1 of the A3640 solved most of the DMA problems, and rev 3.2 cured the remaining few quirks. It is recommended to use it with KS 3.1. You can't use the rev 3.0 A3640 unless it's been modified into a 3.1 or 3.2. Also, make sure it has a good-sized flat heatsink on the 68040. It tends to run hot in the confined space of the A3000D. You might even want to consider attaching a little CPU cooling fan to it.
-David
-
Just my 2 cents... My A4k w/A3640 came with the cooling fan installed by it's previous owner, and I've never had any heat problems.
-
The bottom line is this: A 25MHz 68040 is faster than a 25MHz 68030. Like 4 times faster depending on what you are doing!
-
there is also an 68040 accelerator from a company named sonnet for the mac that will work on the a3640. it is called the quaddoubler. you would need the 50mhz quaddoubler so you would have a 50mhz 68040 with extra cache ram i think.
-
Sure, if you have a spare 3640 lying around, yes why not throw it in. But I think it's kinda waste of money to buy one and think it's gonna to give you four times the speed of 25Mhz 030. I'd save my bucks for a CSMK-II or something instead. They do pop up for sale now and then.
-
Well, it turns out the wife bought me a A3640 for my bday and it's on the way, so I'm not complaining! (She also got me a PS/2 adapter, keyboard adapter, KS 3.1 chips so I don't have to softkick this thing, and a {bleep}load of ZIP chips). Hard to find a wife that will support my geek habit :D
On adding a CPU fan, what size is the CPU? Roughly a 486?
-
Hi,
I have an A3640 in my A3000T and it is compiling code 3 times faster now than with the original 68030/25MHz. So I would say it is worth the work.
> On adding a CPU fan, what size is the CPU? Roughly a 486?
Yes, a 486 CPU-fan would fit, but you will have problems to add the fan to the heatsink in an A3000 desktop: There is no space below the drive bay :-(
Noster
-
Since a fan will not fit under the drive bay I recommend increasing air flow with a zorro slot exhaust fan. They are ubiquitous and cheap and fit any card slot. This way any heat built up on the heatsink will flow out the rear of the case.
-
The way I solved the heat problem of the A3640 card is ..
I added a heatsinc on the CPU then I took a 486 CPU fan
and mounted it on an 'L' bracket that drops down thru the
slot behind the floppy drive and pointed it toward the
68040 & heatsinc. The floppy drive holds the bracket in
place. I ran it in my A3k this way for about a year until
I got my WarpEngine. Now its in my wife's A3k/16mhz and
still working fine. (No case hacking required)
-
This is close to what I was thinking of doing but I wasn't sure where the CPU would be when it was installed. Great! I'll try that.
-
you can also take the drive bay stuff out and drill a pattern of holes right over were the 040 sits that will help the air rise and disspate better
-
Which drive bay does it end up residing under? I currently have a HD in the rightmost drive but I'm wondering if I can "doublestack it" on top of the 3.5" SCSI drive in the back...
-
i think it is under the back of the right drive.
-
@icbrkr:
The drives will probably get very hot and fail much sooner than they are supposed to if you doublestack them. Reasonably sized drives are cheap - consider replacing them both with just one.
/Patrik
-
@icebrkr
Dude you got an awesome wife! She also tracked down ZIP chips? Holy crap man that is one awesome wife!!!! Tell her she is a KEEPER!!!
-
TjLaZer wrote:
@icebrkr
Due you got an awesome wife! She also tracked down ZIP chips? Holy crap man that is one awesome wife!!!! Tell her she is a KEEPER!!!
Yeah, I think I'll keep her around awhile :)
@patrik
I've been doublestacking drives for years without issue :) I've yet to lose a drive to heat (and if you think that's scarey, I have a couple of PC's that run in a small, enclosed, ventless closet that run 24/7). I will probably replace it with just one drive when I grab a Budda controller or similar. Right now I need to have the SCSI+IDE setup since the Xsurf's IDE is non bootable. I also have a 20GB 2.5" IDE here I might put in instead (very little heat issues then :)
-
@icbrkr:
The closet thing doesnt scare me, I have one like that too and there is no real problem in keeping the temperatures. The doublestacking scares me as much as when people consider a normal idle harddrive temperature to be 55C - both generally ends up in a rather short life for the harddrives. Even if you havent had any issues, stuff generally lasts much longer if you keep it at sensible temperatures.
Btw, a tip for speed - get yourself a reasonable sized scsi harddrive instead. The A3000 scsi controller uses dma and as such loads the cpu very little plus it also gives higher transferrates than any Zorro2 controller. If you are hellbent on ide - then buy one of those Acard ide-to-scsi bridges and enjoy the benefits of the A3000 scsi controller whilst still using ide.
/Patrik
-
I'm only hellbent on using IDE due to the fact I have a ton of them lying around. Currently there's a 4.3GB SCSI and a 12GB IDE in the machine. I've got the 12GB in there as I wasn't sure how much space would be taken up once I transferred all my games over to it (seems to be about 2.5GB worth of games). I might see how it goes once I'm done loading it up with whatever I need.
-
@icbrkr:
Btw, I forgot to mention that the Acard ide-to-scsi bridge only costs 5 EUR more compared to the Buddha at vesalia.de. Sure, you can only use one harddrive with the Acard bridge, but you should honestly not need more than one harddrive given the price and size of ide harddrives nowadays.
/Patrik
-
@icebrkr
How do you have a IDE in a A3000?
My 20GB IDE in my A4000 screams compared to my 18GB SCSI 2 HD.
-
I've got it hooked up to an Xsurf3 card.
The A3640 came in today - dead :/ I threw it into the 3000 and was greeted with a nice black screen. Though I asked for a 3.1 card, I might have gotten a 3.0. 3.0 is silkscreened on the card, and there is a "3.0" sticker on the back. In one little type written sticker it states "3.1" on the front. I'm asking for an exchange...
-
Since we're on the topic of A3640's, does anyone have the little feet that go on this thing? Spare ones I mean. Mine lacks the feet and has a tendancy to wiggle loose from time to time.
-
The 3.0 3640 might have been reworked to a 3.1 or 3.2 revision. Here's some information on what to look for to see if it's been reworked. It also has info on the jumper settings for the motherboard: A3640 info page (http://wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/a3640ref.html)
[Edit]
Oops those jumpers were for the 4000. The Big Book of Amiga Hardware has good info here: A3640 info (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=223)
The A3640 came in today - dead :/ I threw it into the 3000 and was greeted with a nice black screen. Though I asked for a 3.1 card, I might have gotten a 3.0. 3.0 is silkscreened on the card, and there is a "3.0" sticker on the back. In one little type written sticker it states "3.1" on the front. I'm asking for an exchange...
-
Looks like it was reworked - I took a look at the solder points and a chip was replaced and the caps were put back in the correct way. However, one cap wasn't soldered down properly so it's not connected. I'm sending it back :/
-
@icbrkr:
It should work even if a cap is removed. Have you tripplechecked that the motherboard jumpers are correctly set for the A3640?
Also - does this snippet from www.amiga-hardware.com hold true for your A3000?
The other thing to consider is the version of Kickstart your A3000 uses. If it contains Kickstart 1.4, the pre-boot Kickstart which loads a Kickstart image from disk you cannot use this accelerator, regardless of what version of Kickstart it eventually boots. If your A3000 uses Kickstart 2.04 then you can use this accelerator providing that you have a Ramsey Chip newer than revision 4 and you aren't using Static Column Fast-RAM. There are no known problems if you use Kickstart 3.1.
/Patrik
-
I did... I as going by the jumper settings found here:
http://amigau.com/natamiga/t-a3640.shtml
No matter, if I buy something, I'd like all the parts to be connected and working :/
-
@icbrkr:
Aye, I understand that.
/Patrik