Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Marcb on August 28, 2008, 10:25:13 AM
-
Hi all,
Help!!!
I'm at my wits end with this A3000...
Today I received my Deneb from Amigakit (quick posting as usual, thanks!) and installed it into the 3000.. (ks 3.1).
Power on and nothing! I can hear the scsi HD spinning up etc but it just stops dead, the power LED doesn't even come on...
The led indicators on the Deneb do light up so I assume the card is ok.( Holding down both mouse buttons doesn't work.)
Remove the Deneb and all back to normal, boots fine, power LED comes on.
I bought a Buddha ages ago and had exactly the same problem but at the time I assumed I'd fried the Buddha somewhere along the way so just put it down to my clumsiness. ( Still sitting in its box under the desk)
Any ideas anyone? Is my Daughterboard stuffed or is there something else I'm missing?
Marc
-
what's the rev of your buster ? did you set the rescue jumper on deneb ? (did you even RTFM ?)
-
countzero wrote:
what's the rev of your buster ? did you set the rescue jumper on deneb ? (did you even RTFM ?)
Rev 7 buster, The rescue jumper is set and yes, I rtfm.
-
If no Zorro board works you should first check the slots' solder points on the daughter board and those on the motherboard. (I've had a couple lacking solder on my 3000.)
-
I've checked the solder points on the daughterboard and all seem fine, I'll have to wait until the weekedn to dismantle the mb and have a good look at it, thanks for the tip!
BTW, it's actually not the POWER LED that doesn't come on, it's the HD LED that won't come on...
-
If it's not the solder points it can be just about anything... Any change in screen colors while it gets stuck?
btw: The power LED is hardwired (apart from filter status), if it doesn't turn on the PSU is faulty or there's a short.
-
No change in colour, stays on dark grey...
I actually meant to say HD LED, the power is ok.
I can hear the disk spinning up but there is no LED activity at all and then it just hangs...
-
At the risk of repeating myself, the 3000 is an excellent (and repairable) computer. However, after 17 years of collecting dust, the connectors are notorious for becoming intermittant if disturbed.
Last week, I disassembled mine to annually blow out all the dust (causes overheating - another form of unreliable operation). After the first 2 re-assembles, I got the same indications you describe (no HD LED). After the 3rd attempt and a soft drop from 10mm off the tabletop, everything is back to normal.
This has been going on with my 3000 for 10 years. I've always wondered how many "dead" 3000s could be rescued with a thorough cleaning and a little patience.
Do you have an accelerator? I would try again several times. Maybe test boot with the cover off.
-
@ Tenacious,
I'll take it apart today and give it a thorough cleaning, I don't have an accelerator but the thing that gets me is that it works fine without anything on the Zorro slots.
Aside from my 1200 which has loads of sentimental value, the 3000 has to be my favourite Ami so I'm not giving up on it. I've ordered another buster chip and I'm hunting for another daughterboard... even if dissassemble/reassemble works I'll have some spares...
I spoke to a guy a few months ago who used to repair Amigas for a living, he told me the soft drop technique was his favourite, especially if he could do it in front of the customers and watch their horrified faces :-)
-
You should also keep in mind that you might have a broken Deneb card
-
alexh wrote:
You should also keep in mind that you might have a broken Deneb card
That would be too cruel :-)
But altogether possible although I have tried a working Buddha in it with the same results...
-
You should also keep in mind that you might have a broken Deneb card
Very unlikely.
Each DENEB has been tested in Zorro II and Zorro III mode before shipping. So we can almost exclude a broken card out there - with the possibility that it was damaged during shipment (which we had in two cases up to now, but this damage was of mechanical nature and clearly visible on the parcel, and didn't inhibit the DENEB from working in Zorro).
So best thing would to check if your Amiga is really working to 100% with other Zorro cards, and maybe in parallel to double check if your DENEB is working in another Amiga setup.
As long the "FPGA booted" LED is on, it should react on Zorro accesses and autoconfigure.
Best try with the ROMOFF jumper, and best try also in Zorro II mode in case your Buster has problems on Zorro III.
I can't say more from a distance.
Michael
-
mboehmer_e3b wrote:
Best try with the ROMOFF jumper, and best try also in Zorro II mode in case your Buster has problems on Zorro III.
He has buster rev 7. So no Zorro3.
-
He has buster rev 7. So no Zorro3.
Sorry, wrong.
Buster 7 does not allow Zorro III DMA operation at all, but will allow normal Zorro III PIO operation.
Buster 7 does also lack burst support and quick interrupts, which are not vital for DENEB Zorro III operation (both options were never supported to my knowledge on any Zorro III card, as burst is in most cases only possible with 030 cards, and quick interrupts are not supported by phase5 060 cards).
Just read the Definitive Buster (http://home.nikocity.de/rs/A4k-HW3.html) text from Dave Haynie.
Nevertheless, the DENEB will always autoconfigure in Zorro III mode as two logical cards, one Zorro II card (64k) for the embedded FlashROM, and one Zorro III card for USB operation.
So at least the Zorro II card must be visible, though I think it could be a real problem in case you have an Amiga system which tells the DENEB to support Zorro III operation (by /SENSEZ3 pin of the Zorro slot), as the DENEB will activate the Zorro III logic in this case and not finish autoconfiguration before the Zorro III USB card has been successfully autoconfigured (or shutup, in case).
Michael
-
What is the easiest way of checking what Buster version you have?
Cheers
-
tonyyeb wrote:
What is the easiest way of checking what Buster version you have?
Cheers
I think the easiest way is to take a peek at it ...
@ everyone , I'm now fairly sure the Deneb is not the problem, I'm sure the dark grey boot screen points to the buster chip , I will have my new Buster next week so I'll let you know if that fixes my problem.
-
Woo Hoo!
Got my new Buster today , installed it and the Deneb is up and running!
:cheers:
-
Great news. Let us know if you end up inserting any new hardware into the Deneb and whether it works or not.
-
Marcb wrote:
Woo Hoo!
Got my new Buster today , installed it and the Deneb is up and running!
:cheers:
Great news! Was it easy to fit the new buster? Pull out old drop in new?
-
tonyyeb wrote:
Great news! Was it easy to fit the new buster? Pull out old drop in new?
Simple as that, surprised myself when I didn't break anything! :-)
@Darrin,
I've tried a thumbdrive and the Deneb found it in a millisecond, very happy...
Now I just have to figure out why everything locks up and I have to boot witg cpu caches disabled as soon as I click any icon! ( I've had to disable flashrom and I'm using pio mode)
-
you got somekind of accelerator ? did you install proper 040/060 libs ? setpatch working ?
-
Marcb wrote:
Simple as that, surprised myself when I didn't break anything! :-)
Great stuff!
-
countzero wrote:
you got somekind of accelerator ? did you install proper 040/060 libs ? setpatch working ?
Nope, no accelerator, just a bog standard A3000 with 12mb fast ram.
Not sure if Setpatch is working, how do I check?
I am running in pio mode, have disabled the flashrom on the Deneb and what happens is if I start from scratch and select the correct device (pio in my case) put it online then plug in a thumbdrive etc. it finds it and works perfectly... when I cold boot I run trident and one of two things happen:
either fails to enumerate the usb or it enumerates them ok but when I exit Trident if I click on any icon it hangs...
-
Do you have the USB stack running at startup or are you having to start it manually through Trident each time?
-
I'm starting it manually through Trident, I'll go put the line back in the startup sequence and see what happens..
(BTW, I've got Easynet working with some shares set up on the win pc, love not having to burn a CD for 2 files to transfer over to the Amiga!)
***EDIT***
Put it back in the startup-sequence an no dice, it still hangs...
What seems to work is if I delete all the configs, remove the device, save... Thne reboot, got to ENV: and ENVARC: and delete the Stackloader file then run Trident, choose the device, save put the device online and then re-plug in the usb devices...
Works a treat, but the next time I boot up I have to go through the same thing again.. I installed the latest version of Poseidon hoping that would fix it but no go...
(however, if I boot with cpu caches disbled, then everything is fine!)
:-(
-
Hi, hoping I can keep this thread going a bit more ? I have A3000 with a DENEB now installed and have a few problems. My machine booted and went to the rom screen.
After reading the whole thread and the manual I put a jumper on the ROM OFF, as mentioned here. Did a check on the early startup screen, all looks good - just like in the manual.
I boot the machine and it loads up fine. I check the LEDS and this indicates FPGAbooted and Rescue mode are green. So in 7.2 of the manual, there is supposed to be virtual drive DenebInstll: but I dont see that.
Do I need to get a buster v9 too?
Thanks.
-
This might sound silly, but when I first booted the Deneb in rescue mode to access the virtual drive containing the install files, I couldn't see it either - until I realsied that it was off the bottom of the screen! A quick rearangement of the icons on the screen and it popped up under my hard drive icon.
-
Marcb wrote:
I'm starting it manually through Trident, I'll go put the line back in the startup sequence and see what happens..
(BTW, I've got Easynet working with some shares set up on the win pc, love not having to burn a CD for 2 files to transfer over to the Amiga!)
***EDIT***
Put it back in the startup-sequence an no dice, it still hangs...
What seems to work is if I delete all the configs, remove the device, save... Thne reboot, got to ENV: and ENVARC: and delete the Stackloader file then run Trident, choose the device, save put the device online and then re-plug in the usb devices...
Works a treat, but the next time I boot up I have to go through the same thing again.. I installed the latest version of Poseidon hoping that would fix it but no go...
(however, if I boot with cpu caches disbled, then everything is fine!)
:-(
Damn. Strange problem.
Do you have a spare hard drive? If so, do a clean basic OS3.1 install, copy over the latest "installer" to the C draw, install MUI and then install the Deneb siftware while in rescue mode along with FAT95.
See if your Deneb card works OK then.
-
@mboehmer_e3b
Just one curiosity, does the Deneb use burst cycles at all or it would be too expensive to make such a card without using an 030 ?
And if it used burst cycles, what would be the added speed ?
Stupid idea: Maybe you could add an 030 to it in a newer version:) Those go cheap these days.
-
Thanks Darrin.
I'm gonna put this forward too, so obvious it is stupid maybe? If the ROM OFF is set, then there is no way that I get to the goodies, says:
"ROM OFF: disable activation of FlashROM contents during booting. In case of problems when starting the computer with DENEB installed you can set this jumper to disable the FlashROM."
And this,
"During the first installation of DENEB in your system the RESCUE jumper must be set (got that part right). This allows accessing the (non erasable) installation software which has been stored in a specially protected area of the DENEB FlashROM."
Sooo, these are what you call "mutually exclusive" me thinks. FlashROM if off, who cares what RESCUE is set to, it's ignored. Verify my understanding?
So, I may need to get over this DMA buster thing after all...
Wonder if AmigaKit has one around?
-
@TheGoose:
Seems to me that your A3000 has triggered the watchdog inside the FPGA of the DENEB. It will automagically deactivate the FlashROM then.
I suggest that you keep the ROMOFF jumper, download the freely available Poseidon V4.2, as well as the new Luciferin, install it, and that's it.
There are new firmwares for Zorro II and Zorro III available, which do not contain the watchdog anymore (which was a fix for an expansion.library bug showing up with the CS MK2, leading to a reset loop).
In case: please mail me at mboehmere3bde, it makes it easier for me to give support than having to browse websites and discussion forums for such support cases...
Michael
-
@Darrin
Tried a fresh 3.1install on a spare hd, still hangs after I setup the Deneb and reboot.. :-(
I have it working now by using the NOCACHE argument with Setpatch...
Michael has also kindly been looking at it, hopefully It'll be something simple ( & cheap to fix) :-)