Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: pan1k on November 18, 2007, 08:46:39 PM
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Before I send it off to France, any other ideas?
It works for ahwile then Amiga refuses to boot with it installed. When it works, it works fine, no crashes etc. I've noticed that the clock says 1978 sometimes and now it's set to 1995. Could that be an issue with the CS? I've totally taken the system apart to look for anything that could be grounding, used different standoffs on the CPU board... my A3640 works without fail in this system so I know the jumpers are set correctly for the CS.
Confusing and sad.. if you've mailed something off to France from the US what have you guys used, USPS or UPS or...?
Thanks,
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The clock jumping around could be a sign of a bigger problem. How's the battery? My only other suggestion is that there's a loose connection between the board and the motherboard slot. Try reseating it (again).
I sent a 3640 to France earlier this year via the USPS. Cost about $12, took less than a week to get there.
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Uhm I took the battery out. There is nothing there anymore... On a side note it was working last night.. then I powered it of.. and it refused to boot again so I put my trusty A3640 in, and works fine now.. :-?
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Bummer! Have you tried aiming a small fan directly at the card, to see if you can determine whether it is a temperature related thing? Might be a failing cap somewhere.
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I had a slot fan in there .. mostly due to the 040. I guess it's time for a visit to France.
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Provide a photograph?
The usual failure on these cards is the 68060 socket which is not soldered through the card, but just to the surface.
Expansion of the plastic when the CPU gets hot can make a failing card worse.
You could try to use a cooler MC68060RC50 version 6 (Mask E41J).
If you send it to JB, first thing he's just going to do is reflow the solder on the socket.
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Can provide a photo. What angles do you want?
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Shipping was only $10.50 USPS for me. I would know. I picked up a used broken card and sent it in for repair which was fixed and then it stopped working again a little less than 3 months later and when I sent it back it's not repairable. The CPU works but not the ram and of course the card won't boot without ram. These are great cards when they work.
I wish Elbox or somebody would make a simplified accelerator with socket for '040 or '060 with jumpers for either, a fpga to reduce the size (to easily fit in 3000) and improve reliability, better faster newer ram support, and possibly a 68 pin SCSI interface if it didn't add too much cost. I'd pay $500 easy for one if it came with at least a 1 year warranty. With all the money and time spent on Minimig, it doesn't help the severe shortage of "fast" bigbox Amiga accelerators. I have plenty of "slow" ECS machines for crying out loud! Would anybody else be interested in approaching a manufacturer to make some accelerators for us even if we have to prepay? If the AmigaOS4 thing gets worked out I'd still want a 68k accelerator and keep a classic Amiga or 2 around. I'd buy the newer PowerPC AmigaOS4 machine also.
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You might pay $500 but no one else would.
It's only a matter of time before someone makes a MegaMig :-)
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@alexh
I'd love to have a MegaMig motherboard with AGA, PCI, 68060, flickerfixer/scandoubler and fits in a standard tower using a standard power supply. The same problem exists as AmigaOS4 though. How long will we have to wait? An accelerator is a much simpler project that should be able to be done quickly and fairly inexpensively.
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Off to France it goes.. no sense letting it collect dust on my shelf. I miss the extra FastRam already :-(
Thanks for all the info tho :)
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matthey wrote:
How long will we have to wait? (for MegaMig)
For the specification you have listed, probably forever.
The specification for MiniMig is too low (A500) for it to be of enthusiast interest and too expensive for non enthusiasts.
A small re-design with a 100MHz 68060 and 128Mbytes SDRAM, AGA capable video circuitry, maybe a slightly larger FPGA. That would make it an Amiga enthusiast product, every Amiga user would want one. You'd sell enough to cover costs and make a small profit.
But we are straying off topic.
matthey wrote:
An accelerator is a much simpler project that should be able to be done quickly and fairly inexpensively.
Bollox. The motherboard->Accelerator connectors alone will cost at least £1000 as there will be a 500 or 1000 minimum order.
There is no real market for a new Amiga accelerator, there are not enough users and too many existing accelerators.
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alexh wrote:
Bollox. The motherboard->Accelerator connectors alone will cost at least £1000 as there will be a 500 or 1000 minimum order.
There is no real market for a new Amiga accelerator, there are not enough users and too many existing accelerators.
I've seen a 28MHz 68040 Warpengine sell for $500 on E-bay and the least I've seen one sell for is $350 (recently). The Cyberstorm 68060 boards usually go for $400-$700. No warranty most of the time and this thread is all about the lack of reliability of the Cyberstorm Mk3/Cyberstorm PPC. Atari has a newer accelerator for 190 Euros...
http://www.czuba-tech.com/CT60/english/prices.htm
Are you saying that an Amiga accelerator can't approach that price? I think a modern 68k Amiga accelerator with more modern memory expansion selling in the 200-300 Euro range with a 1 year warranty would sell like hot cakes.
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I'd drop $350 bux for a good 060 card that could use 128MB of PC100 :) Oh well, Amiga is a good hobby... less dangerous then some hehe I wish it just wasn't so expensive! I wish I could give my gf my xmas wish list for amigakit.com :)
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I'd buy 2 or 3 accelerators at $350.
Did you notice the Atari accelerator uses PC-133 SDRAM and has 1MB of flash ROM all for 190 Euros? The demand for a newer Amiga 68k accelerator has to be bigger than for the Atari. We could contact this guy in France about making an Amiga accelerator if there was enough interest. Anybody else interested? Take a look around this guys web pages (kool stuff)...
http://www.czuba-tech.com/
http://www.czuba-tech.com/CT60/english/welcome.htm
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I fixed my CS MKIII myself:
"Amiga 4000 is working again W00T!" (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=66892605&blogID=144330490)
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I couldnt make a profit on $350 without the sale of say more than 500 units. I wouldnt be able to sell that many I am sure. Plus the sudden availability will push the prices of all accelerators down.
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matthey wrote:
Atari has a newer accelerator for 190 Euros...
A) It's not onsale anymore.
B) It was the only Atari 060 accelerator so had 100% market share.
C) The last run was over €300 ($450) with CPU!
D) It didnt need an expensive custom motherboard connector.
Are you saying that an Amiga accelerator can't approach that price? I think a modern 68k Amiga accelerator with more modern memory expansion selling in the 200-300 Euro range with a 1 year warranty would sell like hot cakes.
You are DREAMING. There just isnt enough A3k/A4k Amiga users out there who dont already have a reasonable accelerator.
Individual Computing, ACK, Elbox, they are not stupid. If there was a market they would have made something.
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The real problem with repairing these cards (and Blizzard PPCs) is replacing the custom memory controller chips on these Phase 5 accelerators. I have a perfectly good BlizzardPPC with a bad memory controller so 68060 & PPC work but no fast ram ergo no joy :-(
Maybe someone out there could figure out a way to replace these custom chips; then a guy like JJB could do a proper surface mount replacement.
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Well my CSMKIII made to to France. JJB says its fixable for 150 Euros. Will post back later what the diagnosis is.
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I got the CSMKIII back last night. Can't get an answer out of JJB what the problem was ( I asked him in English and French), but it fired right up! From the looks of it the flashrom has some kind of sealer on it, i'm guessing that was the prob...
Damn iBrowse is blazingly fast and just about everything else is too.. boy did I miss it!
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@alexh
Count me in for 2 or three accelerators please. "If you build it, they will come.".
Something that doesn't exist of course is going to get zero sales.
I also believe if there was a brand new and reasonably priced accelerator for A3/4000(T) it would sell in the hundreds of units.
You could even sell it without 060 and users of existing boards could move their 060 over...would save on the cost.
Specs could be:
68060 socket
1 or 2 socket(s) for PC-133 memory (upto 512MB or 1GB)
UW SCSI similar to Cybervision PPC/MK3 SCSI
OR DMA IDE chip for fast IDE hard drive (better yet, two SATA ports instead of IDE).
bonus: gfx chip, ethernet, sound. :)
Let's not get carried away... :)
I'd be happy with the 060 socket and PC-133 RAM.
PowerPC accelerator...that would take the cake :)
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@pan1k
I think JJ is doing a roaring business there....I just got my Cyberstorm PPC repaired from him, too. He replaced the 060 socket... :)
I also "fixed" the intermittant PPC by clamping it down tight to the board by using a big heavy, screwed-on heatsink. So now the PPC is cool and reliable :)