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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: desantii on February 11, 2010, 02:50:31 PM

Title: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: desantii on February 11, 2010, 02:50:31 PM

I recently upgraded my A3000 with a Buster 11 and a DMAC04, is there any benefit of the DMAC04?
Currently it is working fine but I had read that you need Ramsey7 to work with DMAC4, mine works fine with Ramsey 4
 
Any benefit of Ramset 7? or should I go back to DMAC2
 
thanks

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: alexh on February 12, 2010, 10:19:08 PM

You would be mad not to get a Ramsey -07. They are very very common, and cheap as hell as they were used in A4000. Whereas the DMAC -04 is very rare and VERY VERY expensive because it was A3000+ and upgrades only there are considerably less of them than there are A3000's. WTF did you find yours?

Benefits are stability with accelerators. If you have no turbocard you probably wont see any difference.

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: matthey on February 13, 2010, 12:03:32 AM

Quote from: alexh;542896

Benefits are stability with accelerators. If you have no turbocard you probably wont see any difference.

I have seen exactly the opposite in a 3000 with DMAC 4 and Ramsey 7. It was stable with faster memory access without an accelerator or with 3640. This chip combo does not like some accelerators though and will cause SCSI checksum errors and possibly crashes. I replaced the old chips and everything was fine. This was with AmigaOS 3.9 and my hunch is that it may try to set the fast Ramsey mode if these chips are detected but it doesn't work with all configurations. It may work fine with 3.1 but with less speed where the fast Ramsey mode has to be set manually. All my theory though.

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: tone007 on February 13, 2010, 12:09:02 AM

Quote from: alexh;542896

Benefits are stability with accelerators. If you have no turbocard you probably wont see any difference.

It also makes your **** bigger.

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: alexh on February 13, 2010, 01:28:05 PM

Do you have a -04 PROTO SCSI chip or the latest version (-08?) A proto SCSI chip could explain the SCSI errors with the DMAC -04 / Ramsey -07 combo.

If you decide you want to sell your DMAC -04 there are lots of people who would pay silly money for one. It could easily fund a major A3000 upgrade.

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: matthey on February 13, 2010, 04:14:19 PM

@alexh
I have the latest version of the SCSI chip in all my 3000s. The SCSI chip and Buster 11 are nice upgrades for a reasonable price. The Ramsey 7 and DMAC 4 upgrade is over rated IMHO. I am aware of the insane prices the DMAC 4 brings. Thanks.

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: desantii on February 16, 2010, 05:25:11 PM

Tempting to sell my DMAC 04 as it is sitting in a stock A3000 :) an 040 for the 3000 sounds tempting!
 
I got it from a dead 3000 Tower

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: alexh on February 16, 2010, 11:22:10 PM

Quote from: desantii;543512

Tempting to sell my DMAC 04 as it is sitting in a stock A3000 :) 040

Erm do you mean 030?

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: desantii on February 17, 2010, 01:27:00 AM

I meant an 040 as an upgrade

Title: Re: Benefit of DMAC04 in A3000
Post by: alexh on February 17, 2010, 11:26:28 AM

Oh, ok. I thought that one of the features of the DMAC -04 / Ramsey -07 combination was improved A3640 compatibility?

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~miles.j/a3640.html