Post by: trilobyte on April 17, 2009, 03:58:18 PM
Please, I want these out of my life.
2 x GVP-m / TekMagic 2060 boards for A2000. Bought new in '98. Thought I'd upgrade my A2000 and take it to college with me. That decision would leave me altered forever.
The first board I could never get to work correctly. It could have been SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS I was doing wrong that I don't, to this day, know if it was the board, or me, or the RAM, or my Amiga, or my power supply, or my incorrect combination of ECS/OCS chips on my motherboard, or the GVP-m Jeff Boyer 68060 libraries, or lack thereof... so many different things go into the setup of these boards that I just want them out of my life!
Anyway, that first board didn't get working for me, I was skipping classes at college, and the retailer (Dimensions, IIRC) sent me another board. Something happened (did I trade my 64 MB SIMM for two 8 MB SIMMs?) and the board started working more reliably! ...so long as I did not shift my Amiga at all. The board did not sit in the CPU slot very well.
All in all I decided I needed a PowerMac to get my homework done without having to fiddle with hardware, I dropped out of college, and two years later bought a 4000T, which despite some time without a functioning power supply has been a great machine (knock on wood).
My experiment this week was to get another A2000 going with these TekMagic boards and I have decided I am too old for this nonsense. The '2000 is going to stick with its GVP Combo '040 and I am going to sell you these TekMagic boards. Please, meet my ex-girlfriends... :-P
Should I put them on eBay or AmiBay or what? Do you want them both? One has a slightly broken external SCSI connector.
I can throw in some RAM. Whether you can get the RAM to work or not is your problem!
Thanks
tim
Post by: jkonstan on April 17, 2009, 04:11:30 PM
Post by: terminator4 on April 17, 2009, 09:09:02 PM
Post by: OSS542 on April 18, 2009, 03:22:27 AM
Post by: terminator4 on April 18, 2009, 04:12:28 AM
"he first board I could never get to work correctly"
Photos would be nice.
Post by: trilobyte on April 18, 2009, 05:38:09 PM
Quote
OSS542 wrote:
I'd be interested I think....how much would you want for them both ?
I am looking for $275 for one or $425 for both.
Also I would consider some items for some trade equity, such as GVP SIMMs, a One Stop Music Shop board, an A600, a Live! board from A-Squared, uhmm... a Toccata board :)
- tim
Post by: trilobyte on April 18, 2009, 05:46:37 PM
Quote
terminator4 wrote:
What do you mean by:
"he first board I could never get to work correctly"
Photos would be nice.
Well it's complicated. I never was able to get the first board working 100% on my first try. The problems are my fault though: I was trying to use a single 64MB SIMM, and surely had the jumpers wrong. I got little-to-no support from Michael at GVP-m. The 68060 libraries included with the board are crap and don't work with a lot of software. (plus, I was 18 years old, ignorant, and trying to start my freshman year of college!)
The second board I did get working, but by that time I had other RAM to use with it, had the jumpers correctly set, and began to use Carsten Schlote's 68060 libraries. Eventually I used the Phase5 libraries and had even more success.
By this time I had some success and more of an idea of what it took to get the boards working, so I took the "spare" board and put it in a rev 4.2/4.3 mobo and used it with my Toaster. It worked OK but that machine only has OS 2.04 so it wasn't the best environment for an '060.
Look up the "Unofficial" support pages for these boards and see what some users have had to do to get them working. They are *BLAZING* fast, especially with the right RAM configuration, but it takes some work to get them set up. For me, the variables are too many, and my "need for speed" is not strong anymore since I have my 4000T w/060... also I am trying to get this system going "from scratch" with a base 3.1 setup, and not go to 3.5bb2 which is the latest OS I legally own, which means I can't use my already-set-up partition from my old dead Quantum Fireball SCSI drive... and I haven't got the time or patience to get all the patches, libs, etc., going, to use 3.1 with an '060 in a '2000. I'd rather just stick with the Combo 040 which works well. 3.5bb2 really makes this board easier to use...
I will certainly put up some pictures today... I wouldn't expect anyone to buy these without pictures anyway :-P Just sorta getting the feelers out first... and there's been enough interest that it is now definitely time to get some pictures up.
/edit: these boards should be considered "working", just whether you are going to be able to get them working in your configuration is really a test of your own cajones. One of them I did use for many years in my primary Amiga and the only trouble it gave me was after I moved the computer... I would usually have to take the machine apart and reseat the board.
thanks
tim
Post by: trilobyte on April 18, 2009, 06:28:44 PM
!["amigas]("http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3578/3452505369_c9c9bf2a92.jpg")
the boards themselves:
!["tekmagic]("http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3614/3453318860_07c0eec253.jpg")
now i suppose you probably want me to take a shot of a screen with the tekmagics in the a2000 with the output of showconfig even though (1) showconfig in OS 3.1 only goes up to an '040 and (2) i happily have the gvp combo board in this a2000 and disassembling it again would make me very unhappy :evil: :boohoo:
thank you
tim
Post by: trilobyte on April 18, 2009, 06:38:44 PM
if i recall, the connector still *works*, but i suppose there would be a chance of some cross-conductance happening!
!["tekmagic]("http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3375/3452546687_fc81855ce0.jpg")
Post by: X-ray on April 19, 2009, 09:33:00 AM
----------------------------------------------------------
Well, one is considered working and the other has to be sold as-is, because you've never had it working.
Post by: trilobyte on April 19, 2009, 05:04:53 PM
Quote
X-ray wrote:
"...edit: these boards should be considered "working", just whether you are going to be able to get them working in your configuration is really a test of your own cajones..."
----------------------------------------------------------
Well, one is considered working and the other has to be sold as-is, because you've never had it working.
Yes, I did have it working, in a rev 4.3 motherboard A2000. Also it works to a point in this A2000 but the system is not as stable as with the other board. That could be, though, because I had (a) a bad hard drive and (b) the wrong 68060 lib installed. I didn't discover (b) until I put in the other board for testing.
I suppose calling the second board "as-is" is not a bad call, but to say it's not working is not entirely correct either.
- t
Post by: Damion on April 19, 2009, 07:39:08 PM
Quote
The first board I could never get to work correctly. It could have been SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS I was doing wrong that I don't, to this day, know if it was the board, or me, or the RAM, or my Amiga, or my power supply, or my incorrect combination of ECS/OCS chips on my motherboard, or the GVP-m Jeff Boyer 68060 libraries, or lack thereof... so many different things go into the setup of these boards that I just want them out of my life!
These boards seem to be a bit fussy.
I spent a large amount of time, and did various things to get mine relatively stable (software wasn't a problem for me). Only issue left is that certain WHDLoad games crap out in a predictable/repeatable way after about 30 minutes of operation. If I shoot the bottom FPGA on the card with some component cooler, it will run a while before getting flaky again. :roll: I'm going to contact GVP-M about the possibility of getting a replacement chip, but I'm not really expecting anything.
I think it can be a solid card if you get a good one, have a *lot* of spare time to fiddle, and have a motherboard it likes.
Post by: trilobyte on April 20, 2009, 03:46:14 PM
Quote
These boards seem to be a bit fussy.
I spent a large amount of time, and did various things to get mine relatively stable (software wasn't a problem for me). Only issue left is that certain WHDLoad games crap out in a predictable/repeatable way after about 30 minutes of operation. If I shoot the bottom FPGA on the card with some component cooler, it will run a while before getting flaky again. :roll: I'm going to contact GVP-M about the possibility of getting a replacement chip, but I'm not really expecting anything.
I think it can be a solid card if you get a good one, have a *lot* of spare time to fiddle, and have a motherboard it likes.
Agreed. As I just sent in a PM, I just got the boards working by disabling Burst Mode ... turning JR1 off. It's a bummer, because it reduces memory bandwidth by 1/2. I wonder if this is what you're running into, because that FPGA is probably the one mentioned on this page:
http://s.guillard.free.fr/GForce/GVP-m.htm
Do you have Burst Mode enabled? Have you tried without? Very interesting that by cooling the FPGA you can get it to perform again.
I just noticed on my more-used board that the jumper for "ROM Type" was missing, and I really have *no idea* how long it has been missing... I replaced it to match the other board, so maybe that will help with stability (yeah right)
Also I noticed that the ROM remapper on the original TekMagic disk claims to not only remap Kickstart ROM, but also do a "datacachefix"... which I wonder -- could this be the same data cache fix which is mentioned as being a problem on earlier 68060s, in the documentation for the Phase5 util "cpu060"? I wonder if these TekMagic board are subject to this 68060 flaw, and running the TekMagic ROM remapper actually fixes it, as would running cpu060 with "NOSTOREBYPASS"... as it says in Cpu060.doc:
"o NOSTOREBYPASS
Some old 060 bugs can be "fixed" by using this arg."
anyway, this has turned into a ramble. I'm sorry.
-t
Post by: Damion on April 21, 2009, 06:52:06 PM
On the hardware side of things I've had a lot of problems.
First of all, lots of random lockups and freezes not attributable to software. My "BigFoot" PSU was full of cheap quality (and 10 years old) JPCon capacitors, so those were all replaced.
This helped significantly, but I was still encountering periodic freezes while the WB blanker was running. Same symptoms I encounter on accelerated A600/A1200's when the caps have failed. (Funny side note -- "blanker" seems to be a good hardware test, as my TekMagic would easily fly through hours of CPU intensive benchmarks (like AmigaMark), yet lock after 15 minutes of blanker, LOL.) I replaced all motherboard caps, afterward, no more freezing.
Third hardware related problem. :) After 30 minutes or so, some WHDLoad games exit back to WB, returning similar errors. Pinball Dreams in particular - just let a table run, and eventually it quits to WB, more frequently as the machine warms, until it exits almost immediately. This was directly related to the +5v rail and the lower FPGA on the TekMagic.
4.95v - Pinball crashes almost immediately, warm or cold. WB is stable for hours.
5.0v - From cold, Pinball runs for 30 minutes before the errors become more and more frequent. Cool the FPGA (cooler spray), and the errors disappear for 15 minutes or so. Point a huge fan at the FPGA, and no problems at all.
At 5.15v, and a large sink on the FPGA, the errors are almost eliminated. Solder joints are all fine, and the chip barely gets warm, so it seems to be some sort of flaky component. :/ I'm confident that another small voltage increase would solve it completely, but then the unregulated +12v line becomes a little too high for my liking.
On the plus side, GVP has offered to replace both FPGAs, though I'll need to send in the card since they require programing on the board. Waiting to hear details, but I'm happy it's able to be fixed. :)
Quote
Do you have Burst Mode enabled?
I do, and I don't recall a difference with it off, but I haven't tried disabling it recently. I'll give it a shot and let you know if it makes any difference.
Post by: trilobyte on April 23, 2009, 10:08:23 PM
Quote
-D- wrote:
On the software end, I suggest using Thor's mmulib package. The processor library works fantastic with the TekMagic, and then you have a nice set of tools that all work together... you can do away with the supplied software entirely. (For example, I use mufastrom instead of ksremap, and mumaprom for testing kickstart images before burning.)
I've been using the Phase5 software with great results, because I was scared of some possible conflicts with MuLib and Picasso96. One thing I guess that needs to be looked out for is that some 68060 libraries will enable the FPU/MMU on 68EC060 chips, even if they are not supposed to be enabled (hence the EC designation). Both of my TekMagic boards have XC68EC060RC60 chips on them, so I'm not sure how reliable the FPU/MMU could be on either.
Quote
On the hardware side of things I've had a lot of problems.
First of all, lots of random lockups and freezes not attributable to software. My "BigFoot" PSU was full of cheap quality (and 10 years old) JPCon capacitors, so those were all replaced.
Wish I could do that with my A2000 PSUs too... but I'm not an electronics guy :(
Quote
This helped significantly, but I was still encountering periodic freezes while the WB blanker was running. Same symptoms I encounter on accelerated A600/A1200's when the caps have failed. (Funny side note -- "blanker" seems to be a good hardware test, as my TekMagic would easily fly through hours of CPU intensive benchmarks (like AmigaMark), yet lock after 15 minutes of blanker, LOL.) I replaced all motherboard caps, afterward, no more freezing.
Third hardware related problem. :) After 30 minutes or so, some WHDLoad games exit back to WB, returning similar errors. Pinball Dreams in particular - just let a table run, and eventually it quits to WB, more frequently as the machine warms, until it exits almost immediately. This was directly related to the +5v rail and the lower FPGA on the TekMagic.
I'm amazed at the lengths you've gone to. Far beyond anything I've done. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you've definitely narrowed down the problem.
Quote
On the plus side, GVP has offered to replace both FPGAs, though I'll need to send in the card since they require programing on the board. Waiting to hear details, but I'm happy it's able to be fixed. :)
I'm surprised GVP is still servicing these boards. That's good news.
Quote
QuoteDo you have Burst Mode enabled?
I do, and I don't recall a difference with it off, but I haven't tried disabling it recently. I'll give it a shot and let you know if it makes any difference.
Since according to that webpage, the FPGA is what controls burst mode, and you have narrowed down your problems to that FPGA, I wonder still what will happen if you disable burst mode (JR1) altogether.
I found the following, while I was testing out these boards again after starting this thread (though I had sort of promised myself I was done with them
:roll: )... neither board would allow the system to even POST with JR1 enabled and certain RAM installed. (One of those boards would boot with JR1 enabled, and certain unmatched SIMMs installed (a pair of them), but it was such an anomaly I don't even consider it a success.) Matched pairs, marked 60ns, some not marked 60ns... as soon as I took JR1 off, disabling burst mode, both boards would again boot.
One of the boards (the one I used for many years) could not render SpaceFighters from LW3D 3.5 into a HAM6 anim without hard-locking the machine part way through. The other board, with infinitely less hours on it, can render the same anim fine, with the same RAM and similar jumper settings (burst mode off, of course). I say *similar* jumper settings because it wasn't until I had both boards next to each other again that I realized my more-used board has had the "ROM type" jumper set wrong for ... who knows how long. As the machine seemed to lock when doing *disk access* while saving the ANIM frames out, I wonder if this ROM jumper could have had something to do with that board's problems, though I do doubt it.
Whether I'm going to do more testing to determine if this jumper was causing the locks during LW3D rendering disk saves, I don't know. I'd rather just sell/trade the card.
Again, please do let me know if you find anything from changing the burst mode jumper...
thanks,
t
Post by: Damion on April 27, 2009, 09:31:46 PM
The card needs a healthy +5V supply, about +5.2V measured at a molex (translates to around +5.05V at at the accelerator and various ICs around the motherboard). Much lower and it gets flaky (starting here with the lower FPGA). Disabling burst mode *might* help the card to function more reliably with lower voltage. With the Tek disabled, or possibly even different accelerators (tried a Vector '030 here), the computer is stable with less voltage (even slightly below +5V at a molex).
I also suggest finding some 60ns FPM Micron - this works flawlessly here. EDO doesn't work at all (including the same Micron EDO which works fine in other Amiga accelerators), and some FPM RAM seems to work better than others. :/
I'm going to go ahead and cool both FPGA's anyway, and add a Nexus WaveAir (http://www.nexustek.nl/NXS-nexus-waveair.htm) to the PCI slot nearest the accelerator.
My guess is that with a good RAM and PSU combination, your cards should work correctly, burst mode included. After that, the motherboard caps might also have to be done if you're still getting random freezes or gurus.
Post by: trilobyte on April 28, 2009, 02:31:36 AM
I tested the power supply I'd been using in the test machine, and it indeed did test at ~4.8V. I tested another PSU I had, and it tested at around ~5.2V. Both are low on the +12V lines -- both read at a steady 11.7V.
So I swapped out power supplies, and still was not able to enable JR1 Burst Mode with my two 16MB single-sided SIMMs (which work great otherwise!)
So I thought I would try a couple of other SIMMs, and I did get the machine to boot with 2 or 4 single-sided 4MB SIMMs installed and JR1 burst-mode enabled. Hooray! But then I saw that I was getting the dreaded trashed pixels on my Picasso screen*. Also the machine was not stable. It crashed for no reason. Decided that I would rather have 32MB of tested-good RAM, rather than 8MB or 16MB of burst-mode, unproven RAM.
For what it's worth, this TekMagic board will boot with practically any SIMMs installed, so long as I have JR1 turned off. And it is still very fast. But as soon as I enable JR1, I get blinky green power light as soon as I turn the machine on. (That is, except with these exact 4MB SIMMs).
Otherwise this machine is rock solid, and I've seen the results of having this board in my other A2000s as well. Same stuff.
So now I wonder why switching out the power supply brought up trashed pixels on P96 screens, when I never saw this with the other power supply in the system :)
See why I just wanted to get rid of these boards?!
:pissed: :-( :-P
-t
* usually found from using the wrong (15/16, PC/non-PC) video mode in a Zorro II system ...
Post by: Damion on April 28, 2009, 05:14:16 AM
Quote
So now I wonder why switching out the power supply brought up trashed pixels on P96 screens, when I never saw this with the other power supply in the system :)
The card is simply damn fussy, worse than any other amiga hardware I've owned. Also, the computers are getting older, and things like caps need to be changed (particularly in expanded systems). It might be worth scouting ebay for some good SIMMs... I can give you the part # of the ones I have if you like, they pop up frequently, sometimes NOS.
Post by: terminator4 on May 12, 2009, 07:55:11 PM
> Both of my TekMagic boards have XC68EC060RC60 chips on them, so I'm not sure how reliable the FPU/MMU could be on either.
Actually, both of these chips you mentioned have no FPU/MMU.
I have some 68060 (XC68060RC50 with FPU/MMU) cpu's NOS (new old stock NOT recycled crap) if you/anyone else is interested in backup 68060 - drop me a pm.
Post by: trilobyte on May 13, 2009, 03:15:41 AM
Quote
terminator4 wrote:
@trilobyte
> Both of my TekMagic boards have XC68EC060RC60 chips on them, so I'm not sure how reliable the FPU/MMU could be on either.
Actually, both of these chips you mentioned have no FPU/MMU.
I have some 68060 (XC68060RC50 with FPU/MMU) cpu's NOS (new old stock NOT recycled crap) if you/anyone else is interested in backup 68060 - drop me a pm.
But for whatever reason, they both show up with FPU/MMU in ShowConfig, and FPU/MMU software all works without problem.
I realize this could be due to 68060.library forcing FPU/MMU to be enabled. But I have never noticed a problem... I use P96 in MMU mode, CyberPatcher/OxyPatcher, Fusion/ShapeShifter, and Kickshifters, as well as LightWave/ImageFX/TVPaint/Imagine all in FPU mode.
-t
Post by: Damion on June 23, 2009, 01:52:44 AM
I never fully resolved my issues, although much improved, the computer would still freeze on rare occasion.
Also, I couldn't use my PIV - as soon as I attempted holding LMB and drawing a selection window, and the window touched any other image on the screen (icons, window border, backdrop, etc) the computer would lock solid. I tried every imaginable thing to resolve this problem... swapped out all the chips, tried all manner of software configuration, and couldn't fix it. No problem whatsoever with a CV3D.
Then, I buy AmigaPete's A2000. Everything now works perfect, using the _exact_ same hardware and software combination (PSU included) as before, with the only variable being the motherboard. No more lockups with the PIV, and the machine is finally stable. :D
The "problematic" motherboard was a Rev 6.3, while the working one is a 6.2. I have no idea if the Rev 6.3 board was damaged at some point in its life, or if (as I've read) the TekMagic is simply picky what motherboard it likes.
Post by: terminator4 on June 23, 2009, 09:41:18 AM
Here's my story (June 2009 now), which I'm sure you're familiar with (going back and forth on gmail). This has been going on for at least half a year (?) with some breaks:
- using 2 tekmagic boards
- one works 99% of the time, the other crashes randomly. Using the same hard disk on both. So the only thing swapped is the tekmagic board.
- the one that crashes crashes on the same motherboard (A2000 motherboard is ok). So while the tekmagic can be picky about a A2000 motherboard, it should like this one, since it works with the 1st tekmagic 060.
Items testted:
- tested the CPUs (68060) on Quickpak and on my other Tekmagic 060. both work fine. So CPU is fine.
- the ROMs are also fine.
- the oscillator clock is also fine.
All 3 work fine on the "ok" board with the tested A2000 motherboard.
The main question, what else should I check on this tekmagic board? I'm testing it on a system that likes the 1st tekmagic060 and on the upgraded rom 3.9. I may try swapping the RAM but rather not mess with it.
It's very interesting about, however don't think that applies to my board:
"Then, I buy AmigaPete's A2000. Everything now works perfect, using the _exact_ same hardware and software combination (PSU included) as before, with the only variable being the motherboard. No more lockups with the PIV, and the machine is finally stable."
Joy, its going to be fun to watch Amiga users buy some of those Tekmagic 2060 boards off softhut. I doubt they are being redesigned by GVP. If they are new, they still may be fussy about proper A2000 motherboards.
Post by: Damion on June 25, 2009, 11:14:23 PM
Interesting that one card works, while the other is flaky, in the same motherboard. Is the RAM the same between the two cards?
One thing: the majority of my issues (like the WHDLoad faults) were solved when I cooled the lower FPGA on the TekMagic, just a little fan blowing on it was enough. Increasing the +5v reduced the need for cooling the FPGA. Might be something to try on your flaky board.
If I get some time over the weekend, I'm going to drop the +5v down a bit and see if it starts misbehaving with WHDLoad again, or if the motherboard was the sole issue. The thing is fortunately running fantastic now... it's a real nice card when it's working properly!!
Post by: gertsy on June 26, 2009, 01:45:22 PM
Hi, What are the revisions for your old A2000 Motherboard vs the new one from AmigaPete?
I guess trying the new MB with the old pwr supply isolated your old motherboard as the issue. Be interesting to know the Revs ?