Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: barney on May 16, 2008, 01:00:12 AM
-
Hello everybody, how is it going? I have a small problem and maybe somebody here could help me solve it.
I just recently installed OS 3.1 on my machine which also has a 68030 board installed. When I boot up, sometimes it doesn't work. It just freezes with a black screen and the power LED flashes. If I reboot again in 68000 mode, it will work fine. After that, the machine will work fine. It just seems like a cold boot causes problems.
Also, a few days ago, I was experiencing several Checksum errors on my hard drive. Does anybody know what causes this and how can I correct it.
One more question and I will be through. What file system is the most stable... FFS or SFS?
Thanks alot everybody.
Barney
-
Check SCSI termination.
-
Try re-seating all the socketed chips by pushing them
down firmly into the socket (but not so hard that you
break something).
Also inspect closely all the socketed chips for corrosion.
If there's any corrosion on any of the pins, pull the chip
and wash it and the socket with alcohol. If needed you can
use a soft brisseled tooth brush to scrub with, just be
careful not to bend the pins.
That could solve the HDD problem also.
I use Commodore's FFS, never used SFS.
I've never really had a problem with FFS, but then my main
HDD is a 3.2 gig Quantum.
Mel
-
Check around the battery and oxydation on CPU connector.
Try also to look at your psu
-
wasn't there something about some 68030 boards that required a ROM update before they could run OS 3.1?
-
If it's a Fusion Forty then you'll need to check the Rom versions, same for a 2901 SCSI card. It won't boot with the acceleration on without the upgrades. Works fine with the upgrades (thanks TjLaZer) and accelerator enabled.
I've got a second one with a GVP accelerator and 3.1 rom, but it has its own SCSI and works fine. The GVP does have the latest version Roms that are available.
-JM
-
Thanks everybody, I think I figured out the problem. I believe I need the newest 2091 SCSI roms for this card. I am going to give this a try and get back with you.
Thanks
-
@Barney
Please tell us what other specifications your A2000 has.
As for the A2091, you should be able to use up to 1Gb scsi drives with no problem with at least v6.6 version roms and could even use an earlier v6.x rom set with a smaller drive. You don't really need v7.0 roms for OS3.1.
The A2091 is still going to be a bit flaky even with v7.0 roms; the only real solution is to find and install a quite rare now GuruRom made by Ralph Babel. Since that's probably not an option, you can always help yourself by proper scsi termination, as someone already suggested.
The A2091 has two resistor packs installed next to the 50 pin scsi header on the card itself; thus the scsi chain is terminated on the card itself so you can only use internal OR external drives, but not both at the same time without first removing these resistor packs and using terminators at each end of the chain. If you're just using the a2091 for internal drives (e.g. a scsi harddisk and cdrom in the 5.25" bay) you should be okay as long as you have at least passive termination enabled on the last drive. Active terminators are better, imho, but the A2091 is a scsi-1 specification controller so you should be alright with passive.
As for the cpu, if you have a 68040 you *ARE* going to have problems with the A2091. There are DMA and other timing issues so you'd be better off with another scsi controller altogether (I'd suggest a GVP HD8+ for dma).
As for your A2000 itself, there are some subtle differences between motherboard revisions, and not just between Rev. 4 and Rev. 6, but between the myriad of release inbetween Rev. 4.1 and Rev. 6.3. There are instructions on how to upgrade each of the earlier Rev. 4.x and Rev. 6.x versions to the latest v.4.5 and v.6.3 revisions, most of which can be done with simple home soldering additions here and there an a chip replacement or two (e.g. Gary).
Hope this helps. The A2000 is one of my favorite if not favorite Amigas, partly because it was my first and partly because it's so big, easy to work on and probably had the most peripherals made for it of any machine, outside of PPC and Zorro III cards which it obviously can't use.
-
Actually, I am using a hard drive larget than 1GB. I am using a 2.1 GB hard drive. could this be my problem. It seems to be booting good for the most part except that I receive full screen "Software Error" messages in red lettering. It asks me to click the left mouse button to continue and the machine usually recovers. Should I go back down to a smaller hard drive.
Barney
-
Hey Barney,
Try setting up the HD with two partitions instead of just one that is over 2GB in size. If this does not help, I have a M.A.S.T. Fireball ZorroII SCSI controller for sale cheap. (see my thread FS before they go to eBay, or something like that).
-
barney wrote:
Actually, I am using a hard drive larget than 1GB. I am using a 2.1 GB hard drive. could this be my problem.
Barney
Well, you need *at least* v.7 roms to use a drive larger than 1Gb. That's not to say you won't be able to access a larger drive, but you're asking for trouble, disk invalidation and read/write or checksum errors, particularly with large file transfers or transfers into that space able 1Gb. You may be able to get away with only formatting the first 1Gb of space, but even then I'd make several partitions. Leave the rest/upper part of the drive (i.e. to 2.1Gb) unformatted and unpartitioned.