Kickflash madness

[Brian]

I purchased a Kickflash to get ridd of resets on my A4000T machine but instead I get more resets.

Without the Kickflash installed I had the IDEhack on the internal IDE header to speed up booting but I had this dreadfull reset a few sec into the startup. My CD makes this loud klonk everytime it get (re)started so usually I have a klock at power on followed by a klonk a second in (guess the Mediator does that reset) then another klonk a few sec later when OS3.9 reset the machine.

Now I install the Kickflash to remove the extra reset (and klonk)... or so I though. First of, after preparing the Kickflash for some reason the machine refuse to start. After pushing and pulling in everything I could see without results I removed the IDE hack and to my surprice after starting up and waiting ages for the machine to start boot of the FastATA controller that was just what the machine did. So I prepared the card as should, fixed startup sequence, then power off and writeprotected the card.

And here's where the fun part start. When I power up now it seem that I don't need the IDE hack to remove the wait state. But to my surprice although there's no reset halfway though the bootup as before there's instead 3 resets at startup aka the Kickflash adds 2 resets in start to remove the one I had beforee aka my CD makes 4 klonks within the first 2 sec or so.

Weird... it works, sortof, but why these extra resets when the card is sold as a way to remove the resets? :-?

[Brian]

The software I use is downloaded today so I belive it to be uptodate yes.

The bootprocess isn't much faster than when I had the IDEhack installed.. perhaps a few sec only and no it doesn't reboot after there's been HD activity (except for spinup of cause) as I did fix the startup-sequence as should be.

Before I got a reset a sec or so after powerup and that I still do... but before it would start reading from the HD and after a sec or so it would rebooted where's now it do two more reboots in rappid succession before the HD starts reading.

[Brian]

I found 1.6 on the site... Ami.ga had 1.56 I belive, and that's what I'm using atm. 1.6 will have to wait untill tomorrow unless of cause there's an even newer one in the hidings that I could get my hands on which case 1.6 will probably never enter my system. ;-)

The IDEhack is simple two 4.7K resistors between pin 3 and 39, and between pin 5 and 39 connected on the connector of an IDE cable. This fools the system into thinking there is something there, even if it don't know what, so it doesn't wait those 30sec but jumps right onto ignoring this "bogus device" and boothing of my FastATA controller. :-D

IDE_Killer.lha on aminet have a great picture showing exactly what you need to do.

[Brian]

It took some time since I don't yet have a switch connected to the "write jumper" so have to open the computer every time I want to write to the Flash, but now the new 1.6 firmware is loaded.

Doesn't seem to change the resets I've been experiencing when starting the machin but I knew that since I got some very helpful info from the Coyote crew.

I got a few firmware betas (16a, 16b, 16c) sent to me and the "b" version was recomended but it seem to lock up my machine and due to all the mess it is with writing to the card (as explained above) I'm staying with plain firmware 1.6 for now.

Truth be told I had some weird problems with the computer not starting as it should but I've ruled out the KickFlash to be the culprit and after stripping out all PCI and Zorro cards and removed and reseated the Mediator and CSPPC and installing all cards again it now work as it should so I'm thinking bad connection somewere. Also my IDE-Hack now work together with the KickFlash so my machine must've started acting up about the time the KickFlash was installed.

Anyway... to save some power I've also removed the CV3D card that was installed but not in use. Still use the CV Scandoubler together with my Voodoo3 and external switchbox though. I just didn't want to mess too much with it in the past... now jumpers are right and everything seems to work. :-D

[Brian]

Well... it wasn't so much a problem as a thing I didn't understood. Now that I do understand it's not a problem at all. The KickFlash adds 2 resets to my system just a few sec after poweron when drives have reported back to the system working but haven't started reading yet.

[Brian]

I don't use the UWSCSI yet but a FastATA... would probably not do me much good and the system do boot pritty fast now anyway so.

[Brian]

Power on... reset 2 sec in, 6 sec in and 7 sec in then at 25 sec OS3.9 with is loaded with background picture and all ready and no more drive activitys.

Does sound much compared to WB3.0/3.1 without much other than a clear install yes but ow well.

[Brian]

Well.. at about 17-18sec the monitor goes blimp and powers up (signal from Voodoo indicating WB is alive and kicking somewhere behind the still black screen)... then it takes a few sec for the reather big background picture to emerge and all disk activity to finnish.