Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Unit21 on December 01, 2003, 07:52:39 PM
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Once again I turn to the vast knowledge of the Amiga.org- members for help. ;-)
I got my old Amiga 4000T & Co. out of the closet the other day. The Amiga is fitted with a PPC and a Mediator. The Gfx-card is a Voodoo3 2000.
It also has some TV-card and an RTL-based network card.
Both the Cyberstorm and the Amiga mainboard is fully populated with Memory.
When using the machine it seems to hang at random. I cannot spot the error,
and snoopdos is of no help cause the machine crashes with a black screen or freezes.
It has an IBM deskstar ATA100 IDE-drive for some reason (not SCSI).
This drive is connected with a 40 pin IDE-cable. Can this be a problem? Should I connect it with an 80pin cable instead??
I remember that random lockups were usually connected with dodgy RAM. Does anyone remember if the CyberStorm uses FPM or EDO RAM?
All creative advice is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!!
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Unit21 wrote:
Once again I turn to the vast knowledge of the Amiga.org- members for help. ;-)
I got my old Amiga 4000T & Co. out of the closet the other day. The Amiga is fitted with a PPC and a Mediator. The Gfx-card is a Voodoo3 2000.
It also has some TV-card and an RTL-based network card.
Both the Cyberstorm and the Amiga mainboard is fully populated with Memory.
When using the machine it seems to hang at random. I cannot spot the error,
and snoopdos is of no help cause the machine crashes with a black screen or freezes.
It has an IBM deskstar ATA100 IDE-drive for some reason (not SCSI).
This drive is connected with a 40 pin IDE-cable. Can this be a problem? Should I connect it with an 80pin cable instead??
I remember that random lockups were usually connected with dodgy RAM. Does anyone remember if the CyberStorm uses FPM or EDO RAM?
All creative advice is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!!
I was gonna say that I found the cause of my Random lock ups... but then I noticed that you can't uninstall Windows Media player :lol:
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Hey hey!!
Can we focus on my problems for once... :-D
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It has an IBM deskstar ATA100 IDE-drive for some reason (not SCSI).
This drive is connected with a 40 pin IDE-cable. Can this be a problem?
No.
Should I connect it with an 80pin cable instead??
No need.
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I got my old Amiga 4000T & Co. out of the closet the other day
What is it doing in the closet!?!?! :-)
Try and reseat all the cards in the PCI slots, if the system has been in storage for a while.
Cyberstorm accelerators can use both EDO and FPM RAM. If EDO is used you get no extra benefits though, as it is treated exactly the same as FPM.
Get a UW-SCSI3 hd and install everything from scratch. It would be a shame for that SCSI-3 controller to sit idle.
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I had the same problem so try my recipe.First of all resemble your Mediator and clean all golden sockets. Then check your simms if they are identical because I had lots of crashings with different simms. And if is a software prob try out StackAttack from aminet. :-D
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bloodline wrote:
Unit21 wrote:
Once again I turn to the vast knowledge of the Amiga.org- members for help. ;-)
I got my old Amiga 4000T & Co. out of the closet the other day. The Amiga is fitted with a PPC and a Mediator. The Gfx-card is a Voodoo3 2000.
It also has some TV-card and an RTL-based network card.
Both the Cyberstorm and the Amiga mainboard is fully populated with Memory.
When using the machine it seems to hang at random. I cannot spot the error,
and snoopdos is of no help cause the machine crashes with a black screen or freezes.
It has an IBM deskstar ATA100 IDE-drive for some reason (not SCSI).
This drive is connected with a 40 pin IDE-cable. Can this be a problem? Should I connect it with an 80pin cable instead??
I remember that random lockups were usually connected with dodgy RAM. Does anyone remember if the CyberStorm uses FPM or EDO RAM?
All creative advice is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!!
I was gonna say that I found the cause of my Random lock ups... but then I noticed that you can't uninstall Windows Media player :lol:
Have you installed Media Player 9?
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I go through something like this about once every few months. My A4000 will run without any trouble for months, and then at some point will just lock up. It'll reboot, but a few minutes later it's frozen again. The freezing cycle increases until it freezes in mid-boot.
After a mild panic each time, I realize that I might have to push the accelerator down more firmly on the expansion slot, and that usually solves the lockups. I probably should go find myself some better standoffs. Mine are starting to show some wear and tear.
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I think I found the problem...
The accelerator is getting a bit oldish so I took it out and cleaned the contacts around on the board.
I also sprayed the accelerator- port on the mainboard.
The machine has been running stable for a few hours now...
I´ll just have to wait and see what happens.... ;-)
Thanks for the advice guys!
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Hammer wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Unit21 wrote:
Once again I turn to the vast knowledge of the Amiga.org- members for help. ;-)
I got my old Amiga 4000T & Co. out of the closet the other day. The Amiga is fitted with a PPC and a Mediator. The Gfx-card is a Voodoo3 2000.
It also has some TV-card and an RTL-based network card.
Both the Cyberstorm and the Amiga mainboard is fully populated with Memory.
When using the machine it seems to hang at random. I cannot spot the error,
and snoopdos is of no help cause the machine crashes with a black screen or freezes.
It has an IBM deskstar ATA100 IDE-drive for some reason (not SCSI).
This drive is connected with a 40 pin IDE-cable. Can this be a problem? Should I connect it with an 80pin cable instead??
I remember that random lockups were usually connected with dodgy RAM. Does anyone remember if the CyberStorm uses FPM or EDO RAM?
All creative advice is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!!
I was gonna say that I found the cause of my Random lock ups... but then I noticed that you can't uninstall Windows Media player :lol:
Have you installed Media Player 9?
I don't know, What ever Crap comes with XP... now I use Winamp 2.95.. no more random freezing...
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bloodline wrote:
Hammer wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Unit21 wrote:
Once again I turn to the vast knowledge of the Amiga.org- members for help. ;-)
I got my old Amiga 4000T & Co. out of the closet the other day. The Amiga is fitted with a PPC and a Mediator. The Gfx-card is a Voodoo3 2000.
It also has some TV-card and an RTL-based network card.
Both the Cyberstorm and the Amiga mainboard is fully populated with Memory.
When using the machine it seems to hang at random. I cannot spot the error,
and snoopdos is of no help cause the machine crashes with a black screen or freezes.
It has an IBM deskstar ATA100 IDE-drive for some reason (not SCSI).
This drive is connected with a 40 pin IDE-cable. Can this be a problem? Should I connect it with an 80pin cable instead??
I remember that random lockups were usually connected with dodgy RAM. Does anyone remember if the CyberStorm uses FPM or EDO RAM?
All creative advice is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!!
I was gonna say that I found the cause of my Random lock ups... but then I noticed that you can't uninstall Windows Media player :lol:
Have you installed Media Player 9?
I don't know, What ever Crap comes with XP... now I use Winamp 2.95.. no more random freezing...
As I recall, Windows XP Pro only comes Media Player 8 and MS Windows 2003 comes with Media Player 9.
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As I recall, Windows XP Pro only comes Media Player 8 and MS Windows 2003 comes with Media Player 9.
I thought windows 2003 was a server OS?? Can anyone tell me why exactly it is bundled with a mediaplayer?? :-o
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Tomas wrote:
As I recall, Windows XP Pro only comes Media Player 8 and MS Windows 2003 comes with Media Player 9.
I thought windows 2003 was a server OS?? Can anyone tell me why exactly it is bundled with a mediaplayer?? :-o
Because it would make far too much sense for a server to be focused on server tasks only :-D Strange that Win2K comes with the standard no-skins Media Player. Must have been an unforseen attack of good sense on MS's part.
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that_punk_guy wrote:
Tomas wrote:
As I recall, Windows XP Pro only comes Media Player 8 and MS Windows 2003 comes with Media Player 9.
I thought windows 2003 was a server OS?? Can anyone tell me why exactly it is bundled with a mediaplayer?? :-o
Because it would make far too much sense for a server to be focused on server tasks only :-D Strange that Win2K comes with the standard no-skins Media Player. Must have been an unforseen attack of good sense on MS's part.
MediaPlayer2 was (and still is) the pinicle MicroSoft's software acheivements... no wonder it had to be shuffled off to that big hard drive in the sky, and replaced with one that doesn't work.
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Tomas wrote:
As I recall, Windows XP Pro only comes Media Player 8 and MS Windows 2003 comes with Media Player 9.
I thought windows 2003 was a server OS?? Can anyone tell me why exactly it is bundled with a mediaplayer?? :-o
Media Player 9 is a free upgrade for NT 5.x (Win2K, WinXP) and Win98SE(I think)/WinME.
Win2k3 Enterprise Edition includes Media Streaming Server services, i.e. it’s logical to include the latest Media Player 9 for testing purposes.
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bloodline wrote:
MediaPlayer2 was (and still is) the pinicle MicroSoft's software acheivements... no wonder it had to be shuffled off to that big hard drive in the sky, and replaced with one that doesn't work.
Have you tried to install Media Player 9 to fix the said issues?
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I have an A3000D with a CyberstormPPC board and found out that if you
by mistake put the motherboard clock source switches wrong you may get
some odd lockups and many times the machine didn't even boot
correctly.
Also I use my Amiga to watch DivX movies, due to my main PC has died
and my other PC's are less than 500MHz machines and so are worthless
for movie playback..
One problem I had with FroggerNG (may apply to other apps too) was
that during playback Frogger apparently just freezed. It showed up
that this problem was drastically reduced if I increased the system
oscillator on my PPC board from 50 to 60MHz. Now I run at 66MHz and my
Amiga rarely look-ups. As a bonus some DivX movies ran 5 times faster
after the modification.
It appears to me that PPC and 68k task doesn't always coexist to well,
which can be helped by increasing available bus cycles and so reducing
the risk of bus collisions.
Unfortunatly overclocking might cause you some new troubles so this
might not be the way to go for you.
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Ofcourse, could also be related to heat. I've got heatsink frency on
my PPC board and added a heatsink to the 040, the programmable logic
chips between the two memory rows closest to the oscillator cans and
to the programmable logic chip at the bottom side of the PPC board.
Also, I added a fan to the 040 and replaced the PPC fan with a larger
but less crappy one. There is also a fan placed at the side of the PPC
board to create an airflow above and below the board.
Did also the same to the CyberVisionPPC board.
Simple way to test the need for a heatsink is to run your amiga with
the lid of and after some time of use try touching different
components with your finger. If you can't keep the finger on the
component you should get a heatsink and maybe a fan too.
Regards,
Göran
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I have an A3000D with a CyberstormPPC board and found out that if you by mistake put the motherboard clock source switches wrong you may get some odd lockups and many times the machine didn't even boot correctly.
Hmm, could you please tell me what those jumper settings on your machine are?
Thanks.
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I have tried different things, but after cleaning som of the contact points on the Amiga mainboard things seem to run pretty ok.
I have the occational crash, but they are all related to misbehaving programs.
Now the Amiga has given me something else to worry about.
When I turn it on it takes ages to boot up the first time.
It´s almost like it needs time to heat up.
After leaving it on for 15 to 20 minutes and then performing a soft resert it boots happily and works rock- steady.
Then I can turn it off and on again with no problem....
Do you think this might be my Amigas way of saying that it didn´t like it in the closet?? :-)
Or is my PSU about to retire?
And if so, can I use a standard AT PSU for the Miggy?
(It´s an A4000T)
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As what I found out is that the proper setting for the CyberstormPPC
board is the following.
This is for A3000 but should be similar for A4000
J100 QUADCLK set to EXT
J102 BRDCLK set to EXT
J104 CPUCLK set to INT (Motherboard CPU gets fryed otherwise)
One problem I had when QUADCLK or BRDCLK was set wrong, was that the
system required to warm up for about 1 minute then turned off for 30
seconds and the turned on again to boot.
This problem didn't occour immidiatly but it came when the fan on the
PPC was starting to give up. (When the fan isn't working properly it
steals alot of current from the 5V line, thus causing a voltage drop
that weakens the signal levels at the CPU bus, resulting in
instability)
As a consequence of the latter problem I replaced the fan with a 12V
one that is connected to the harddisk power cable instead. I suggest
anyone with a CyberstormPPC board to do the same. On my A3000 I had to
cut a hole in the second drive bay to fit the fans, but allows for a
better airflow. (No point having two floppies anyway)
/Göran