ROMS????

[Herewegoagain]

Hmmm.  Just had my A3000 apart.  I'm running the 3640 in mine and it has always worked ok.  But as I recall, there were about 3 or so jumper settings that had to be made on the motherboard and they did have to do with timing differences when using the 3640.  There was also Buster rev11 (min rev9, I think) for it to work, and one other chip (Gary maybe??) that had to be Rev 7.  This is probably the root of all your problems.  I remember specifically that I had to change timing jumpers on the motherboard though.

Mine problems now are worse.  I just got the thing connected to the broadband cable connection earlier today and it worked great.  I had a couple of lockups with sucessful reboots.  Then it quit booting at all.  Just a black screen.  The monitor gets a sync light, but it never attempts to boot (no hd led activity).  A CTRL+A+A will reset as the hd reinits, but still a black screen and no attempt of disk activity.  I've gone all the way down to the mainboard reseating everything about 3 times....I think something in mine has finally died.     :-(

[Herewegoagain]

Well... It sounds like you know the drill... Remove everything from the 3000 (zorro cards, etc) and try to boot it clean with a minimal setup, and then start adding back from there. I had a zorro network card (x-surf, if it matters) fail in a 4000 that caused a very similiar set of error conditions. Hopefully it's just an accessory that has died, and your miggy itself is ok.

Yeah, unfortunately, I know it all too well.  After I got it reassembled, I left out the CV64/3D and Ariadne II ethernet card, just to keep it minimal.  I even disconnected both hard drives in case they were causing a problem, but nothing.... I've had a similiar thing happen before, and reseating the daughter card usually takes care of it, but not this time.

[Herewegoagain]

These roms are NEW (not used) so its reasonable
to assume they are OK. I'm just wondering if by
changing roms it threw off the timing some place
else.

I don't think it is possible for a change in Roms to interfere with timing.

Could it be that the drive is not validating???

So you cannot see the drive from Workbench, but what if you open up HDToolbox?  Does it see it attached at all?  Also, what version of OS are you running with the 3.1 roms?

[Herewegoagain]

WoooHoooo!  Just got my A3000 working again!  I'm posting this reply from Ibrowse 2.3 on my broadband connection.  :-D

Persistance with that 3640.  Oh, and yes you will see a difference with this card installed.  There are some benefits of having an 040 in there.  If you are using a card like CV64/3D (like me) then it will only work in ZII mode without an 040.  With the 040, it works in full ZIII mode.  Don't remember where I read that, but that's the way I remember it.

[Herewegoagain]

What did you do to get it going???
Did you have to change any jumpers or what.

Nope.  Mine was already running before but had just quit booting.  But one final reseat of the 3640 seemed to be what got it booting again.

Here is a link to a good article on installing the 3640 into an A3000, and possible issues.  It gives you the chip revisions you need for DMAC, Ramsey, and Buster (later not required, but recommended).  The thing I was remembering about jumper setting on the mother board had to do with if your system was originally a 16Mhz or 25Mhz '030.  The 16Mhz version required additional settings for it to work with the 3640.

There is also the issue of which revision of the 3640 board you have.  Rev 3.0 will not work at all, so it seems, but Rev 3.1 and 3.2 boards will.  I hope you find all of the info here to get your system running properly.


http://www.l8r.net/technical/t-a3640.shtml

[Herewegoagain]

After discharging any static electricity in yourself, press down on each and every socketed chip.

Ah... I forgot to mention this... Just assumed that because I do it everyone knows to try that.   :-P