Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: nyteschayde on February 11, 2006, 07:37:07 AM
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I recently purchased an A1200T from the UK (I am in the USA). After replacing the power supply with a 110A version and reseating one of the ROMs (the ... well informed individual I purchased it from had inserted it with one pin sticking out on the side) the A1200 booted up with the familiar insert disk prompt.
I took the BPPC I purchased from Effy and hooked up the 68K cpu's fan which has obviously been added. Whenever the BPPC is hooked up I get no disk prompt (i.e. black screen).
This is the first day I have had the chance to get all the parts in the room at the same time. I tried holding down escape when I power on the machine but I get no menu. I really really really hope I haven't purchased a broken BPPC especially since the only reason I bought this A1200 was for the BPPC and both items have cost me an arm and a leg all in all.
Irked...
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@nyteschayde
You did connect the extra power to the floppy power connector, right?
Did you try giving the system extra ctrl-amiga-amiga salute? (sometimes this wakes it up)
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If there is no harddrive connected then the computer will wait at least 20 secs before it continues ...
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@Piru
Which connector goes to the floppy?
@Effy
It's been on for an hour now with nothing but a black screen
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@nyteschayde
If your system is towerized the floppy is likely to be powered by the PSU directly. So the botherboard floppy power connector is empty.
This allows you to feed the motherboard (and the BPPC) with extra power by connecting another power cable there.
Here's a post (http://eab.abime.net/printthread.php?t=14757) about it.
Normally the extra power is only needed with BVisionPPC, but it doesn't hurt to try it.
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Oh that connector. Yeah I have plugged the extra power in; also I am using a 300W power supply so it should be fine. I can upload some pictures if necessary. I just don't know what to do.
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An hour is indeed a few minutes too long.
What Piru says is true. I sold another BPPC to a dutch guy with a desktop and he also couldn´t get it working. Turned out that 256 Ram was too much drain on the power line and that he needed to connect his pc power supply to the floppy connector as Piru says ...
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I have the extra power supplied. I have also tried rebooting with the ctrl-amiga-amiga as well as a cold restart.
(http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7969/img024116000sd.th.jpg) (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img024116000sd.jpg)
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I'm out of ideas really.
Well you could try to strip the mobo to barebones and then try connect only keyboard, monitor, BPPC and power. If that fails, I'm afraid something is toast.
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Hmm doesn't look good for Effy's reputation since I bought the unit from him but in the end it looks the worst for me since I bought the 1200 solely for the BPPC and in the end I have now spent close to 500 USD for HD less A1200T and a pile of junk in the form of a BPPC.
Sigh... Why is it so hard to get Amiga hardware these days that works? I mean I have a new mediator setup in my A4000D and the damn voodoo cards (two; thats right two) don't work. Neither one of them. I have a whole separate thread for that as well.
Looks like I just have had a string of bad luck with this stuff. Makes me wanna give up half the time.
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Bummer. This is what I would do if I were you...
1. Strip down the computer so it only has the motherboard in, with power feed through the normal power in socket as well as the floppy power connector on the motherboard. Power up and see if it boots.
2. Add the keyboard adaptor (assuming it's a keyboard adaptor since it is a tower). Power up and see if it boots.
3. Install the BPPC without ram, power up to see if it boots. If it is with SCSI try holding S during boot. The extra reset shouldn't be requiered, but try it in case it doesn't boot.
4. Install ram on BPPC and power up. If it boots without ram, but not with ram, try removing the ram, and hold down ESC during boot. Enter the ram menu and set ram speed to 70 ns. If it still doesn't boot, there is a chance the board is defective.
A hint; if you haven't installed a diskdrive, you will have to wait a long time for it to boot. This can be fixed by setting a jumper on pin 1 + 2 on the floppy controller
Do you know the specs of the BPPC? The 040 versions are the most power hungry boards.
As for the Voodoo cards (even though it belongs in a different thread), have you tried them in a PC? I have two here, and both work perfectly in my Mediator. The chances that both are defective is rather unlikely, so maybe it's a config fault.
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Hi,
remember that :
BPPC menu is in 31 Khz VGA mode !
so you'll need the VGA connector.
just put 32 or 64 Mb of ram.
Try to check if the MB connector is clean (use Alcohol)
and if your BPPC is well deeply plugged in (take a look at the bppc connector).
You need at least a 140W PSU
if you use the floppy connector, don"t use the original psu connetor (except for the -12V), nor you'll burn your MB, like lot of people did with bus extensions.
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@all
I will try these things as soon as I can (probably Sunday night if not Monday night). The machine is being tested with a monitor that supports both 15KHz and 31KHz modes and is done through a commodore 23->15 converter. So that should be good.
I did remove the RAM and put the RAM back in on the board to no avail. Neither situation seems to make a difference. Without the board it boots to the floppy prompt very quickly with the board the screen always stays black. I tried holding down the ESC key when powering on to no avail but I haven't tried without the RAM so I will do that when I can.
At this rate it looks like I got burned from Effy despite his few posts here. It really sucks to pay 150UKP for an adapter I cannot use. People on this board would be wise to get some sort of guarantee in writing before paying or perhaps be willing to buy DOA items despite the cost.
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I have learned to wait with accusing somebody until all the options are tested. It´s not the first time that a BPPC refuses to work but afterwards turns out to be not defective. Fact is that the card worked when it was shipped to you last year in December. It is also not my fault that you bought the card assuming it was for an A4000 as this is the mail I got from you on January 3 :
"Man I am a complete retard. I will have to turn around and resell this soon. Turns out I forgot to check into the BPPC long enough to find out that its only for an A1200. I have an A4000D. Sigh... Well if you come across an A4000 PPC accelerator let me know. In the meantime if you know someone who wants to trade please let me know. Maybe I can find a cheap NTSC A1200."
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@Effy
Now was that really necessary?
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I don´t like the idea that I would be somebody who likes to ripp off other Amiga guys. I always do my very best to make everybody happy and now it seems to look like I am the bad guy who did everything wrong, don´t like that. I prefer to think before I write, that´s why I haven´t posted so often in this thread though I followed it all the time !!
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@nyteschayde
You really should do your homework before buying things like this. Check your A1200 motherboard and tell us which revision it is.
I'd bet that it is a 1D.4 or a 2B and as such requires some timing fixes to work with accelerators like the BPPC.
http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/A1200_Mobo_fix/a1200_mobo_fix.html
@Effy
I thought you would have known about these fixes? You might have been able to advise nyteschayde which A1200 to buy and saved this thread. He maybe a little stoopid, but that is no excuse ;-) BTW: Can you get me a nice cheap 1260?
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I had a 1d.4 mobo that refused to work with any accelerator (tried a blizzard 030 and apollo 030) until I did the timing fix on it. The timing fix on my mobo just required removing two caps, after that it was cool.
@nyteschayde Try not to accuse people until you're 99.9% positive it's not you.
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Interestingly my rev 1d.4 A1200 worked just fine with BPPC, no mods required. Eventually I did apply to fix just to be sure though.
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i had big issues with my 2B mobo the bppc did never work on it and i am just too lazy to do the fixes but the newest 1d4s are ok . Note that i have also had problems with amiga not booting. the whole thing can well be a timing issue as well as a power issue check you powersuply connection ! i had a power connection at 400watts not booting with bppc but fine with out was down to the connection that was verry badly solderd to gether. my board was a bppc 240\060 noscsi
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Piru wrote:
Interestingly my rev 1d.4 A1200 worked just fine with BPPC, no mods required. Eventually I did apply to fix just to be sure though.
Mine too :-/
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So, Blizzards are affected by these timing problems afterall. I thought that only apollos and some other cards has problems with these Motherboards.
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It's ok. If Effy wants to play that game thats fine. His response stemmed from this last email I sent him (below). He is worried that I will try to further discredit him. I did ask for help here because I am having trouble.
I am upset because I have spent so much trying to get this working. Anybody who has spent 500USD on Amiga parts just to receive a non-working unit would be equally upset especially if the seller's only response was to say, "Keep asking people, I am sure you'll get it working."
If I can get it working thats great. You're all right that I wasn't aware of any timing issue. I'll take photos of the board and continue trying new things as I indicated in the email before I further discredit him but not once has he come close to stating he'd return the money. Based on his actions I doubt he will. Even though it's something I'd do. I didn't want to sell the BPPC before ensuring it worked for that very reason. Which is why I went through the process of purchasing an Amiga 1200T to test it with.
I have noticed that of all things you don't seem very upfront about guaranteeing your purchase. Did you sell me a broken accelerator? Because it was broken when I received it... If this cannot be resolved I can be sure to make sure that others know you won't make good on your sales and that nobody should trust you with purchases. I don't mean to strong arm you but you walked away with my money and I got your broken BPPC. I will keep trying a bit more before I let everyone know but I am not exactly happy with your stance on the whole thing.
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Ho !
It reminds me about a f**** 420W ATX PSU that could not give more than 4.56v (for 5v) when it was in loads, so it could not boot my BPPC, and makes crash my PC ...
And also the old 140W AT PSU that give only 4.86v on my 1200PPC+GREX+tons of hardware and boot 1 times about 10...
I replace it by a 230W AT PSU that give me 4.96V (for 5V) and my machine works very well :-D
So I suggest you to check the voltage on the PPC FAN, if it's under 4.9v you 'll have lots of problems to start your machine !
So check all the voltage :rtfm:
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Nyteschayde : I don´t mind dragging the subject to this forum, but to be honest you forgot to add my answer I gave you yesterday :
"hi Gabriel,
I know for myself that when I have a problem that I can not solve that I ask for help at Amiga.org, just like you did. Check out their answers.
greets,
Effy."
So far I have not only seen possible answers to this problem, I have also learned answers that I didn´t know yet. But it worries me that you seem to be so sure that the card won´t work, even when you get different possible reasons from people that have more experience in these things than you and me together :-o
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Ok, so here are some pictures of the mobo. It appears to be a 1D4 model. But on the url supplied above, they mention only a Budgie Rev 01 and Budgie Rev 02 fix for 1D4 mobos. Any ideas on which model this is? It seems to be a Budgie Rev 0.
(http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/7817/a1200026lg.th.jpg) (http://img102.imageshack.us/my.php?image=a1200026lg.jpg) (http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7130/a1200018zz.th.jpg) (http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=a1200018zz.jpg)
And the BPPC card with and without RAM
(http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/1152/bppc016mm.th.jpg) (http://img108.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bppc016mm.jpg) (http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9400/bppc024is.th.jpg) (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bppc024is.jpg) (http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9250/bppc037pf.th.jpg) (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bppc037pf.jpg)
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Hi,
and what about the voltage ? I'm still waiting for your answer !!
Try also to look at the Quartz and under the 68k CPU if their pins are well solded. I had this problem in time :rtfm:
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nyteschayde wrote:
Ok, so here are some pictures of the mobo. It appears to be a 1D4 model. But on the url supplied above, they mention only a Budgie Rev 01 and Budgie Rev 02 fix for 1D4 mobos. Any ideas on which model this is? It seems to be a Budgie Rev 0.
IIRC, my mobo is similar. I always assumed that the line below the Rev 0 indicated the real revision - i.e. Rev 01 in your case (this is the same as my mobo).
I forget if Escom updated the copyright on the mobo - possibly not. It's just that the A1200 HD sticker looks the same as mine - i.e. a post-1995 Escom A1200, rather than a Commodore one. I mention this because my mobo is an Escom version, revision 1D4. I remember checking the mobo fixes out long ago, only to find that Escom had apparently already performed the 1D4 fixes at the factory. So, it's worth checking the component numbers on your mobo to see what is there on your 1D4, since an Escom 1D4 is not necessarily the same as an original Commodore 1D4.
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nyteschayde wrote: It appears to be a 1D4 model.
It is a 1D.4 motherboard.
nyteschayde wrote: But on the url supplied above, they mention only a Budgie Rev 01 and Budgie Rev 02 fix for 1D4 mobos.
Unfortunately a badly worded help page, due to poorly numbered chips! There were two budgie chips: Budgie Rev 0 (part no. 391425-01) and Budgie Rev A (part no. 391425-02).
nyteschayde wrote: Any ideas on which model this is? It seems to be a Budgie Rev 0.
You have a 1D.4 motherboard with a Budgie Rev 0 391425-01. You follow the instructions on that help page marked 1d5 Budgie Rev1. I think you can follow from there?
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I have to say that looking at the photographs of your BPPC you can see that it's had it's two crystals replaced AND the Zero Ohm link jumpers (clock multiplier settings) changed sometime after it was sold (i.e. neither are factory issue)
Pressumably these mods were to overclock both the 040 (33MHz) / 060 (66MHz) and PPC (266MHz).
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/giorsign/overclock.html
Just looking at the soldering work you can see it was not done to.. lets say.. "the highest" of standards. Not only did they not clean up all of the PCB resist with some alcohol afterwards, you can see where they accidentally melted part of the plastic on the top of SIMM socket with the soldering iron when they were doing the mod :-)
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I wished I had known it was overclocked from the get go. Effy never bothered letting me know that he was selling an overclocked accelerator. These things are super picky about being touched let alone going under the torch so to speak by an amateur.
Sigh. I suppose someone will point out what I have found after receiving the card; which is that they never made a 68040 @ 33Mhz, 603e @ 200MHz model. I also noticed after the purchase that the fan on the 040 was added.
As far as the voltage goes I am still trying to find my multi-meter. And finally as some have inquired about the Mediator/Voodoo situation in my A4K it seems that it has something to do with the MMU.
Karlos mentioned it may be an incorrect 040.library since the voodoo started working when I used the following two commands
cpu >nil: nocache noburst nodatacache nodataburst
cpu >nil: nocache noburst datacache databurst
but not when I use
cpu >nil: instcache instburst datacache databurst
Thats all for now. The BPPC still creates a black screen whilst the A1200T without the BPPC works fine. The BPPC does the same with or without RAM and never lets me into either the early access ROM menu nor the ESC BPPC menu.
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nyteshcayde wrote:they never made a 68040 @ 33Mhz, 603e @ 200MHz [/b]
Reading the multiplier settings on your board photo, "1010" it's a 4x clock with a 66MHz crystal, that's ~266MHz as I read it. The only way you'll know for sure what speed the board was originally would be to remove the heatsinks and read the ratings off the chips. But I wouldnt recommend doing that.
nyteshcayde wrote: I also noticed after the purchase that the fan on the 040 was added.[/b]
040's need heatsinks and fans, they are significantly hotter than 060's.
P.S. Please dont bin it, or take a hammer to it in disgust. I still feel that Effy wouldnt sell you a dead board and it's more likely an incompatibility issue.
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I have not given up yet nor will I just toss it away. I know even if I cannot get it up and running somebody else can. I have not completely decided that its Effy's fault yet either but if it turns out to be I doubt I'll get my money back and that makes me sad.
Effy has some standing here at A.org and many people seem to know him. I hope that the product turns out to be a working unit. I am just not having a lot of luck at the moment with this.
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Note the tag line "Too Much Caffiene".
Relax please : )
I know you've spent some good money
on your accelerator and A1200T but
half the fun (I find) is tinkering
with the parts until you get them
to work. There is always a great
feeling of accomplishment when just
by moving a jumper, or soldering in/out
a cap, that the system wakes up and
you're greeted with the friendly boot-up
menu. Hang in there and keep tinkering.
Lots of folks here to help and offer tips
also. Don't feel like you're alone !
You'll get to the other side for sure.
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About the BPPC, of course it is overclocked as there is no 33 Mhz BPPC sold as you can find on The Big Book, that´s the first place where I look for information when I am not sure about a product. The PPC used to run at 160 Mhz and had a four hour 100% processorload for testing and it worked like a dream. There have been reports about other 160 Mhz PPC´s that have been overclocked to 225 Mhz and still worked very well. The 68040 used to run at 25 Mhz and is now clocked at 33 Mhz. It may survive with a big heatsink but the best thing with an 68040 is indeed always to add a cooler, even on an 25 Mhz one.
The card was working when I sold it to you for 215 Euro including 128 Mb Simm + 64 Mb Simm and including 19 Euro shipping to the USA so from my point of view this was not a high price for a good working BPPC card. I have seen many higher prices being asked at AmiBench and even at Ebay. And just for the record, I am not the type of guy who sells broken cards, there´s no fun in doing that, at least not for me ...
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For me the fun bit is looking at Effy's girlfriends boobs on his adverts :roll:
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Effy is a well respected seller within this community, and I'm sure he didn't knowingly sell a defective unit. Amiga items aren't getting any younger, it took me almost 2 months to get my CyberstormPPC working properly, with the help of people here, so just be patient. FYI it cost more than $500 :-P
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For me the fun bit is looking at Effy's girlfriends boobs on his adverts
HEY! He is married! :-P
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No I am not, I have a steady girlfriend which is in my eyes similar to marriage :lol:
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@all
Hmm I thought I set a mostly positive note in my last post but it has been taken the wrong way. Let me reiterate in bold this time; I have not given up yet nor will I just toss it away. I know even if I cannot get it up and running somebody else can.
All in all I think I am doing as well as can be expected of the situation. I am very thankful everbody is here. Granted my life is very busy and I don't really have a lot of time to be dealing with this extra headache but getting my A4K to work with the mediator/voodoo solution has improved my attitude somewhat.
I am well aware of the age of Amiga parts given I got my first Amiga in 89. I had to do a fair amount of soldering on the A500 I had back then too but I had taken a long break from using Amigas outside an emulator until fairly recently and have become quite spoiled by building modern PCs.
I greatly appreciate the advice and knowledge presented by the folks on A.org which is why I came to you guys with my problems. This whole transaction was a big collection of assumption (Effy's part) and lack of general knowledge of AGA and PPC Amigas (on my part). Those things coupled with lack of communication set the stage for a very sour taste.
I am doing my best to make the situation a good one which is why I mentioned that if in the end I find I have a bad part I will be sad. (<--- Notice the use of the word sad rather than mad).
I am looking for the giant reset button for the various attitudes of all including myself on this thread so that I can progress and figure out if I am capable of fixing this board or if I must cut my losses and find someone who can.
Remember that there are no Amiga repair facilities left (to my knowledge) in the United States where I reside. And the Amiga community here is at least half what it is in Europe; and we all know that isn't much.
At this point it looks like I need to do the following things:
1. Check the voltage on my power supply
2. Remove my mobo from the case, turn it over and desolder the two capacitors.
If I am missing something please let me know. I would like to go in with as much knowledge as I can before hand. Although slow I have tried to provide pictures along the way the whole time.
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Yes you missed that :
0 - Clean the expansion connector with a special electrical contact cleaner, Check the motherboard if any track were cut, check the speed jumpers and the quartz if they are well solded (the cause have broke with the transport...). For the 68040 you can also try to resold it.
(My BPPC 060 gave me a similar trick after a long time getting hot).
:rtfm:
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Which connection was bad? See my next post to see that the timing fixes had already been applied to my board.
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The 68040/68060 connections might be bad like mine were.
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@nyteschayde
Do you have it running now?
If no, what are you going to do with it?
On a note. BlizzardPPC's seem to simply work with me in 1D4 motherboards without the fixes.
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No nothing works. Seems "my next post" never posted. Anyhow, I tried a second motherboard and both motherboards do not need the fix. I don't know what I am going to do with it. I have a 300+ USD paper weight.
Both motherboards work fine without the card and deliver a black screen with the board.
Out of ideas here.
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The motherboard fixes just improve the stability of an Amiga 1200 with a 68040/68060 CPU. If the CPU card doesn't boot at all, the fixes will not help. Sorry for not having said something more essential but i'm out of ideas too. :-(
I bought my PPC equipment in a good price from effy a few years ago and everything was working perfectly. I don't know...
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How come you haven't said anything about the voltage yet ?
It seems to me that this is trivial.
Do you have the tools for this ?
Do you know were to measure the voltage ?
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HellCoder wrote:
How come you haven't said anything about the voltage yet ?
It seems to me that this is trivial.
Do you have the tools for this ?
Do you know were to measure the voltage ?
Don't you mean 'not trivial'?
The voltage certainly is important. You can't just assume that a high power supply will give you good performance. The voltage has to match the requirements of the device(s) being driven. Also, the total power available at each voltage output is important, ie current at V1, current at V2, etc. One can't ignore this, and assume it's all fine. Modern PC's tend to be more tolerant of lower voltages than miggies are.
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Don't you mean 'not trivial'?
Since your native language is English I assume you're right. :-)
Interesting topic:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22505
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@nyteschayde
I think the best thing to do is put the card back to its original state.
That means the 68040 should be put back to 25 MHz again. The PowerPC is likely a 160 Mhz one so it should be put at that speed. It was clocked that way because you have 2 oscillators. If you had 1 it would be clocked at 175 Mhz.
Overclocking a 68040 is pointless. Just get the cash and send it to the Amiga Center in France and get a 68060 on it.
The possibilities I see is that either the oscillator that is driving the 68040 is dead or there is break in the signal line or the 68040 is dead.
If you don't want to send it of to get it fixed I am willing to buy if from you but ofcourse for a defect price because in the mean time the thing might actually be dead.
On a note:
There were different versions of the BlizzardPPC and especially the first versions had timing problems. These were later fixed. I had a BlizzardPPC once that didn't like a motherboard at all too.
Later on Phase 5 sold 160 Mhz PowerPC versions with 1 oscillator which made the PowerPC run at 175 Mhz and these cards can take any motherboard.
On a second note:
75% of Amigans should get there hands of these expensive pieces of hardware. I have seen 6 BlizzardPPC's so far and of these 3 had missing components like capacitors broken of where they should have been. I even saw this on a BVisionPPC!!
I have managed to replace all those broken of components and I'm really gutted to see how some people seem to handle these things.
Please, please, please if you don't intend to fix these cards, send them to me. For free! :-D
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just a thought and this might be a stupid question that no one has mentioned in this thread yet??
but you have installed the necc libs from the cd and floppy discs that should be with it ??
before fitting the bppc?
because it wont work until you do.
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@HellCoder
I haven't checked the voltage because I am without a volt meter at the moment. I tried three different power supplies some ranging in over 550W just to see if any would work. All would power the A1200 just fine and all failed with BPPC installed.
@PulsatingQuasar
I am going to send the unit to France for a free inspection. I wasn't aware they could or would solder on an 060. I will have to ask about that.
@Twizzle
I'd like to get to the insert floppy prompt. I have used a driveless system, a system with a drive both to no avail. I don't even have a drive installed for these tests anymore. And yes I am giving sufficient time for the "delay" for no drives.
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dude I feel your pain, but you have options the amiga center is one... I hear good things about it. I had a 060 for 6 years I thought it was bad until I finaly organized myself and got it working, with the help of amiga.org I may add. I hope this thing will work for you. Amigas are not as fragile as you might think... Amigas however are very trick machines to work with, by todays standards they are wicked difficult... so many things to know so few resources. While I feel the seller could have given you a better info, you could have gotten the thing on e-bay and NEVER HEARD ANYTHING from the seller. Well now you know that amiga hardware will keep you busy, it's a very time consuming hobby! I find that if I store a machine for a long time, it no longer boots and I have to take the whole thing apart again...usualy it not broken it just in need of love....
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@nyteschayde
Good choice.
BlizzardPPC cards can indeed be upgraded to a 68060. This is not cheap but the speed increcement over a 68040 is huge.
If you have the cash then do it.
I hope Amiga Center can fix it. Maybe they don't have anything to fix and you know also if there is an incompatibility between your Amiga and the BlizzardPPC.
On a NOTE: Everybody that has a BlizzardPPC with a 68040 should send it to Amiga Center in France and get it upgraded to a 68060. A 68060 is sooooooo much better than a 68040 in about all regards. And a socket is part of the upgrade price.
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A 68060 is sooooooo much better than a 68040 in about all regards.
Except in compatibility with 68000-020 software maybe? :-P
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Yes, but that counts for a 68040 also.
With a BlizzardPPC you want to build a power system not a compatible system. And based on that reason alone you should change to a 68060.
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I've just got myself a BPPC for my Amiga 1200 and Mediator system and I too are having black screen problems when the card is connected to the A1200 (but not the mediator).
I get constant resets if I connect it to the A1200 and the mediator.
So I'll be following this thread through tonight and praying I can get mine working too.
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STeADi wrote:
I've just got myself a BPPC for my Amiga 1200 and Mediator system and I too are having black screen problems when the card is connected to the A1200 (but not the mediator).
I get constant resets if I connect it to the A1200 and the mediator.
So I'll be following this thread through tonight and praying I can get mine working too.
I Thing it's best you tell us what your system has. So we can try to help you. :-D
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lopos wrote:
I Thing it's best you tell us what your system has. So we can try to help you. :-D
:-) Well I'll try some of the things I've read here first and try and gather some of the same information people have asked for and I'll get back to you. (No doubt sobbing my little heart out :lol: )
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I recall that Amiga4001 had big problems getting his CyberstormPPC to work with power supplies other than his original A4000 D power supply. It later turned out that all those heavy ATX power supplies (up to 600W) could not give a 5 Volt signal but only close to 4 V and therefor his CyberstormPPC just refused to boot up. Think there must be a thread about that somewhere ... THIS is that thread (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18282), not that it means that this is the same problem with the Blizzard PPC but I just want to point out the problem of not having enough power, even if your power supply tells you it has more power than you would need ...
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Well it turns out the solder points and timing chips were the problem on the board Effy sold me. It WAS broken when I received it. Jeans at the Amiga Repair center in France was able to revive the board and I expect it back, upgraded with an 060 and new timing components for nearly the price I originally paid to Effy.
I know I will never see my money again (or even part of it from Effy) but be careful what you buy online. Even if the seller has previously had a good reputation its possible he will sell you a broken part and refuse to do anything about it.
In Effy's defense I am sure the product probably worked (giving him the benefit of the doubt) when he sold it to me. The product also probably ended up getting damaged in the process of shipping, but nonethless he never once offered to refund the money or to do anything about it. I was angry and immediately accused him without further testing. I was scolded, rightly so, but his response certainly didn't encourage any other type of action *and* in the end my first accusation was correct. I paid for a working accelerator and received a broken one.
For a respected member of the community I think this is a very poor way to handle things. I even admit that my first reaction was equally poor. People should keep this in mind when purchasing any Amiga equipment. Either be willing to buy a broken part for repair regardless of what they promise or make sure they have a non-DOA guarantee.
I am dying to get the product back from the repair center. It will be my first 060 Amiga. Now I have to buy a new mediator for the tower since I originally had a mediator enhanced 68040 A4000D. Not sure what I'll do with it for now. We'll see.
Gabriel