Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: XDelusion on May 11, 2010, 03:37:26 AM
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I just purchased this item:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290431755934&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
When I installed it, I noticed the Silver Rectangle in the lower left hand corner of the picture (I presume this is the crystal?) was hanging on at an angle. I pressed it down, put the board into place on the 1200, and fired up my system.
Everything booted up fine, the memory read correctly as did the CPU and what have you. I then booted up OctaMED S.S. and began playing my latest track while I took a shower.
When I came back, I was sitting at a RED SCREEN OF DEATH, which told me to press my RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON. Which I did, but nothing happened, my system was locked up.
I then powered down the system and booted it back up.
At this point I had to goto work, so naturally, like any sane person, I ran Amiga Explorer on the Amiga and my PC, and began transferring over ADOOM and the DOOM2 iwad file so I could see how well it ran when I got back home.
Well as fate would have it, I came home to the YELLOW SCREEN OF DEATH, telling me to click my RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON, which again did not work.
I powered down the system, tried to boot again, but only got a HARD DRIVE error message of some sort. I noticed the 030 was pretty hot, so I turned the system off for 10 minutes, let the 030 cool, then booted again.
I then tried to run Amiga explorer, but now it keeps giving me messages saying that it can't communicate with the com port, blah blah blah. Yet all my settings are unchanged from when I was using it all before.
I then rebooted the PC, double checked my settings on both the PC and the Amiga, pulled the serial cable off both systems then re-attached it. AMiga Explorer will go for about a minute, then all of a sudden it looses the serial port all over again and my transfer fails.
On the Amiga side it gives me the error window that says:
------------
Skip
Program Failed (Error: #0000000B4)
Wait for disk activity to finish.
Suspend Reboot.
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If I do a Warm Boot, I get a RED SCREEN OF DEATH. When I click the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON, it reboots to a gray screen and I then have to power down for a few seconds in order to boot back up.
For the note I am currently running Work Bench 3.0 and am waiting on my Kickstart 3.1 ROMS to arrive in the mail so I can upgrade to Work Bench 3.1 as well.
I am also using a IDE to CF adapter with a Sandisc Ultra CF card and a 450Watt PC PSU.
Everything was working like normal until I installed the 030.
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You should boot up your Amiga and access the early bootup menu by holding both mouse buttons, and see there if the accelerator is detected and showed as working.
On the other hand, the motherboard you have, 1D1 is the most compatible one regarding accelerators, so it is a bit weird.
Have you checked your ram stick? Try to boot your Amiga with the accelerator plugged and no simm fitted.
Good luck mate! I hope you find what the problem is!
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The silver rectangle thing is your oscillator/clock generator. I don't think your system will work well unless it is soldered in properly. Is it?
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@Gulliver: I have removed the card so I can transfer my DOOM files over. When that finishes, I will try your advice.
@Fanscale: It looks soldered in fine from the bottom, but the block part its self seems to be able to slip up the poles that it sits upon, the part that is soldered to the board. I pressed it down and it "seems" secure in its place now.
I hope that description makes sense.
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The silver rectangle thing is your oscillator/clock generator. I don't think your system will work well unless it is soldered in properly. Is it?
AFAIK Apollo didn't solder the crystals. If the crystal is pushed all the way in the card will work, mine did for 10 years, till one day after moving my 1200, the crystal fell out ( no trapdoor cover, to cool the card). If the crystal dislodges when powered up, it can harm the cpu. It happened to my Apollo 1240.
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@stefcep2 What were the symptoms when you had trouble with your 040? I.E. how did your Amiga begin to act?
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I've removed the RAM and tried to boot, which gave me an all red screen when I turned on the Amiga.
I moved the jumper on the 030 board and I booted into an error screen that said device F1 was not responding, working propper, something to that effect. I'd have to reproduce the error again and write it down.
I tried it again and it booted fine. I then ran Amiga Explorer which again ran for a moment, but this time popped up a window saying:
Avail
Program failed (error #000000004)
Wait for disk activity to finish.
Suspend Reboot.
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Needless to say, I put the RAM back in.
When I boot while holding both mouse buttons, the 030 is detected.
I moved the WAIT jumper on the 030 board and booted again, trying Amiga Explorer. It went further than ever, but again failed. When I tried to close Amiga Explorer on the Amiga side, I got no response, so I assume the program is crashing on the Amiga side, thus causing the Windows side to spit out errors.
I'm currently running OctaMED S.S. again and it just crashed to a RED press mouse screen. I didn't press anything and now it is at a black screen. THIS SUCKS!!!
Oh ya, and does anyone know why the Amiga didn't notice that I don't have a floppy drive installed until after I put this 030 in there? Every once in a while when I boot with the 030 in, it says that it can't find device DF0:
Strange things are a foot at Circle K.
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I've removed the RAM and tried to boot, which gave me an all red screen when I turned on the Amiga.
I moved the jumper on the 030 board and I booted into an error screen that said device F1 was not responding, working propper, something to that effect. I'd have to reproduce the error again and write it down.
I tried it again and it booted fine. I then ran Amiga Explorer which again ran for a moment, but this time popped up a window saying:
Avail
Program failed (error #000000004)
Wait for disk activity to finish.
Suspend Reboot.
---------
Needless to say, I put the RAM back in.
When I boot while holding both mouse buttons, the 030 is detected.
I moved the WAIT jumper on the 030 board and booted again, trying Amiga Explorer. It went further than ever, but again failed. When I tried to close Amiga Explorer on the Amiga side, I got no response, so I assume the program is crashing on the Amiga side, thus causing the Windows side to spit out errors.
I'm currently running OctaMED S.S. again and it just crashed to a RED press mouse screen. I didn't press anything and now it is at a black screen. THIS SUCKS!!!
Oh ya, and does anyone know why the Amiga didn't notice that I don't have a floppy drive installed until after I put this 030 in there? Every once in a while when I boot with the 030 in, it says that it can't find device DF0:
Strange things are a foot at Circle K.
I initially got red guru;s and then black screen too,
see here:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37909&highlight=apollo+stefcep2
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Hmm. Well mine still boots, it was just that one time when I removed the RAM without setting the jumper that I got a RED screen.
Out of curiostity, did you ever get your board repaired? If so, through whom? If anything I'd rather see this repaired than to send it back and call it an bad day on Ebay.
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I took the RAM out again and tried Amiga Explorer once more.
I was able to transfer an entire ADF file for once, but after that it crashed and reset itself.
I then loaded up OctaMED again only to receive this message:
OcraMED
Program Failed (error #000000004).
Wait for disk activity to finish.
---
Mind you, the system is locked, meaning I can't move my mouse, but the musick is still playing fine, though OctaMED is standing perfectly still as it does so.
So it ain't just Amiga Explorer that is crash happy when it comes to this board, and I'd presume it's not the RAM either.
Now how hot should my CPU and FPU be?
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Of all the hardware problems I've had most of them have been bad (or fried) memory chips. Is it possible to swap the memory simm for another one?
Also what wattage power supply are using? If it's the 15Watt that came with the A1200 it might not be enough.
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Hmm. Well mine still boots, it was just that one time when I removed the RAM without setting the jumper that I got a RED screen.
Out of curiostity, did you ever get your board repaired? If so, through whom? If anything I'd rather see this repaired than to send it back and call it an bad day on Ebay.
Yes, PG Per Gunnar repaired it for me. Actually he put an '060 in it, but it works only at 40 mhz. Benchmarked on AIBB its 25 % faster than a 40 mhz 68040. PG did a great job, his soldering was first class
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@Fanscale: Yes, as mentioned above I am using a 450 Watt PSU, and I have successfully booted my system with the 030 and RAM removed, still got the same exact results.
@stefcep2: I got your PM and thankx! I wonder if this board can be upgraded. Assuming it can be fixed...
...assuming it's broken. :)
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to echo the point on the PSU - you NEED a more powerful PSU for this card. I have an A1200 with a Microbiotics 68030/50 with (if memory serves, been quite a while since I used the computer - sad) 32mb RAM in it - I used to get all sorts of quirky (non-fatal) problems with it until I upgraded the power supply - then voila, rock and roll.
Before tearing apart your card, RAM, etc. etc. - get a higher power PSU and test first. It likely won't be cheap these days - but it is certainly the simplest solution and likely the optimal one.....
a stopgap (NOT permanent!) solution may be using an A500 power supply - I believe those had slightly more power than the A1200 ones, even though they otherwise look fairly identical.
good luck!
amigau
http://www.amigau.com
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I need more power than a 450Watt ATX PSU?!?!
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Hi:
I believe he didn't read you have that PSU.
I haven't got that accelerator, but for the things I've heard, to start I would make two things:
1) Clean the board with a dry brush thoroughly. This is what @delshay told me: "PCB should be free of *All* materials it should be SUPER CLEAN no dust or fiber of hair as it does affect performance and can lead to random crashs,lock-up,data error or fail to boot altogether.
iv discovered this when i increased the bus speed of my card and got random errors,but found the fault to be dust/fiber built-up behind the simm ram chips legs.
i did not see it with the naked eye,only under a micoscope i spotted it and was very difficult to remove. after removing the dust/fiber the card work perfect with no random errors.
NOTE: random errors did not have much of a effect at lower bus speed when the dust/fiber was present.
dust/fiber can be anywhere with-in the computer and is sometimes very hard to spot, but is what i sometimes have to deal with from time to time."
2ยบ) Put a fan over that accelerator. As you have enough power, you can put an Y-cable from where the floppy plugs in on the board to a fan. A cold board is a happy one.
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@Retrofan: Thankx, I don't own a microscope, but I'll look into this.
Now as for over heating, presuming the issue is not dust, fiber, hair or what have you...
...would it be normal for a card to over heat and flake out within 2 minutes time? The CPU and FPU seem hot, but not hot enough to cook an egg on.
Sadly, I've not heard back from the seller about this matter yet. :/
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I read about another guy having problems whith his Apollo 1240 and it was a problem whith the right libraries. He coudn't boot it and this was he discovered:
Quote:
"Hum,
i seem to remember that the 1240 came with a custom 040.library on floppy....(?)
"
Answer: "Thanks babe, that's exactly what it was! "
Perhaps you should look if you have the right library in your Apollo 1230-50, or at least try to reinstall it.
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I read about another guy having problems whith his Apollo 1240 and it was a problem whith the right libraries. He coudn't boot it and this was he discovered:
Quote:
"Hum,
i seem to remember that the 1240 came with a custom 040.library on floppy....(?)
"
Answer: "Thanks babe, that's exactly what it was! "
Perhaps you should look if you have the right library in your Apollo 1230-50, or at least try to reinstall it.
Never seen -030 specific libraries. 040/060 yes, 030 no
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Ok.
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AFAIK Apollo didn't solder the crystals. If the crystal is pushed all the way in the card will work, mine did for 10 years, till one day after moving my 1200, the crystal fell out ( no trapdoor cover, to cool the card). If the crystal dislodges when powered up, it can harm the cpu. It happened to my Apollo 1240.
Even better than that, the ROM in my Apollo 1240 was socketed, subject to mechanical pressure of the SIMM pushing against it and eventually lost several pins... I can still get it working occasionally but it is pretty wrecked.
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Hi
Did you get this board to work?
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I need more power than a 450Watt ATX PSU?!?!
I would hope not. Unless you have some Voodoo card in there too. I think you just need to make sure it has at least 7 amp on the +5...
You may also want to check the PS with a meter and make sure the 5v is 5v and the 12v is 12v. I don't know the margin of error, but the 5v should not be off much...
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Thats right, keep everything as clean as possible for best performance and keep 5v at the trapdoor near as possible to 5v. Check voltage when everything is running at the same time at measure voltage drop at full load including processor speed.
Stability is key to having a nice A1200, this is what iv being working on for the past few months. Very long test runs for a minimum 24HR.
Modify Master accelerator card is progressing well, its the most stable high speed blizzard ppc card ever and will outclass some or all standard blizzard ppc card for stability.
It will for sure set a new world record for dram bandwidth on classic amiga but with lower CPU overclocking.
NOTE: overclocking is banned until mid 2013 on all my project and is just used for testing dram bandwidth for forthcoming processor change from 603e to processor X.
Bus speed
75Mhz = standard for modified Blizzard card.
83Mhz= reserved for modified Master blizzard card.