Adding Ram to A500

[patrik]

The reason the MTec 68020i hasnt configured its memory is probably because it wants to configure it in the 8MB Zorro2 space which is already filled with 6MB (A590 = 2MB, Cortex = 4MB). Populate the Cortex with only 2MB ram or remove it completely, then everything should work fine. To get any speed out of the MTec, you need it to configure its own fastram as it is 32-bit.

The trapdoor-expansion should however work. Are you sure it is not just poping up as 512kB extra chipmem on your A500? Also make sure the Marpets disable-jumper isnt set.


/Patrik

[patrik]

@toca180:

Hmm.. the A590 is a dma scsi controller, which means that it will transfer the data by itself to ram. Maybe the MTec 68020i is one of those ugly hacks which doesn't allow dma transfers to its own ram (only the 68020 on it can access the it) and thus the A590 fails when it is told to transfer to the MTec ram (when enabled, it will get the highest priority) which it then will fail.

I cant find any notes about this on either amiga.resource.cx or www.amiga-hardware.com. The only thing it says is that it is incompatible with the GVP Impact series of harddrives which is a common dma scsi controller which atleast suggest that the case is like I reasoned above. Do you have a manual for it and if so - does it say anything about this?

If this is the case, such cards should mark their memory as non MEMF_24BITDMA to make the driver for the harddrive-controller gracefully avoid it. Though it might not be implemented in the version of the drivers you have or not at all. I also think that you can play around with the transfermask for your partitions to force it to dma to only chip-ram for example. Does anyone else have any good advice on this perhaps?

(edit):

I noticed I was a sloppy reader. On www.amiga-hardware.com it is mentioned that there had been problems reported using this card with a A2091 which is the same hardware as the A590, but as Zorro2 card instead.


/Patrik

[patrik]

@toca180:

The MTec memory should be possible to add with something like AddMem. The marpet though is a 512chip/slowfast expansion and is added by the system if it finds it. Are you sure it doesnt add any chipmem to your system?

Regarding the issues with the A590 - you could always try to upgrade to the latest drivers (you will need to program a eprom) and see if it helps. Ask around the forum for the rom-image for the latest drivers. Btw, what version do you have now? (do a "version full scsi.device" in a cli).


/Patrik

[patrik]

Does anyone know what A590 driver rom version 40.5 of scsi.device corresponds to?

Priority is a number which is used by the system to know which memory to prefer. If say you set it to 5 and the other memory has 0, it will prefer the former.


/Patrik

[patrik]

@toca180:

Wrong address maybe? Let the MTec autoconfigure and run the ShowConfig utility which should be on the Extras disk to get the 100% correct address. If that address is the same or doesn't work, maybe it is so that when you don't let the card autoconfigure the memory it just doesn't setup the memory at any address.


/Patrik