Troubleshooting an unfamiliar machine ...

[macto]

So I'm new to the Amiga.  My new toy is an Amiga 2000 with a GVP Combo 030 and SupraRAM 2000 card.  Until recently I thought that the "random" crashes were the product of a user who is unfamiliar with a system pushing it in unusual ways.  I'm beginning to think otherwise.

But the question is, how do I diagnose the problem?  I'm not very familiar with the machine, so just pulling the GVP card and hoping that the problem will go away is not of much use because I wouldn't know how to use the machine in order to reproduce the problem.  So can somebody suggest something which would use a significant chunk of the machines resources when I pull the card.  The software would have to fit on two 720 kB MS-DOS formatted floppies since removing the controller means removing my hard drive.

In terms of software, I have Workbench 1.3 and 2.0.4 (I have Amiga OS 3.9, but it sounds like it needs a 68020 which would disappear when I pull the GVP card).  The Amiga has a 3.1 ROM.  Unfortunately, I don't Workbench 3.1.

Thank-you for any advice.

[macto]

QuikSanz: Reseating the chips seemed to do the job, but I'm going to wait a few days before reinstalling the SIMMs in the GVP card and SupraRAM card.  This is just to be sure, seeming as the errors are semi-random.

One curious thing though.  The chip at U301 (an 8520A) had pin 40 bent and pin 20 looked odd.  I noticed this when I pulled it out, so I presume that the previous owner left it like that.  Should I be replacing the UART?  I haven't been having trouble with the serial port thus far.

Oh, and I'm sure your A2000 will look much more impressive when I know what half of that stuff is.  

On the other comments: I was running a clean install of OS 3.9 and had crashes.  Ditto for 2.0.4, but they didn't seem as common.  I even saw errors with 1.3, which was available on the SupraRAM and GVP diagnostic disks.

As for the nature of the errors, the system would run fine for a while, then any number of things can happen.  Sometimes a guru style error will pop up (8000000n and 8100000n).  Some times the mouse would be frozen and the keyboard unresponsive, including .  Sometimes there would be corruption of the image on the screen, may that be random or a blank block which just floated there.

A broad range of programs would cause or see problems.  The Fonts control panel in OS 3.9 was a consistent source of errors.  The GVP RAM test was another.  In both cases, the machine would have to be running for half an hour or so before things went nuts.  Formatting a partition or even copying a large number of files could cause problems.  Demos would have problems, but I presume that is normal.

Castellen: it sounds like you have a number of good suggestions, but I don't have the equipment to look for noise on the power supply, or replacement RAM modules for the GVP.

Thank-you all.  Hopefully reseating the chips solve the problem.  If not, there is a more complete description of the problem.

[macto]

Okay, the following site labels the pin 40 on u301 (CIA-B) as PPOUT.  Any idea what this means?  What ever it is connected to should be floating at this point.

http://www.amiga-stuff.com/hardware/8520.html

I think I have a few of these lying around from my previous attempts to get an Amiga.  Here's hoping that the CIA wasn't the problem in those cases.  (I presume these are fairly interchangable.)

[macto]

On virii: if you can suggest a way to create a clean boot floppy for OS 3.9, I'll bypass the virus scan for now and do another clean install.  The situation over here is that I have three versions of the OS, one of which is on CD-ROM; a batch of driver/diagnostic diskettes, which I can download fresh copies of; and a few things from Aminet, which I can download fresh copies of.

I replaced the CIA with a pair from an Amiga 1000.  There was no change in the condition of the machine.  At this point, I'm going to pull out the GVP card to see if that critter is causing all of the trouble.  Then I'll consider mainboard problems, and replacing the sockets if need be.  Otherwise I risk damaging something which isn't broken.  I dug around my box of Amiga goodies and found a DataFlyer which will give me a hard drive to play with.  Reducing the machine to an 8 MHz 68000 may be painful, but I'll just keep reminding myself that it is only to figure out where the problem is.

Again, thank-you for all of the advice.  Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this soon.

[macto]

I have two sets of documentation, which conflict in a couple of cases!  Okay, the second is just a sheet detailing the jumpers for a revision 3 board.  Does a part number 500025-03 suggest a revision 3 to you?  It does to me.

The differences between the board and the sheet are: CN15 (was on 2-3, should be on 1-2, listed as reserved, now on 1-2), J12 (was open, should be shorted, selects between autoconfig and extended RAM, left open), CN8 (was on 2-3, should be open (!), listed as reserved, is now open).  There is another thing worth noting, the card has a 68030 rather than a 68EC030.

My A2000 currently has the DataFlyer IDE and DataFlyer RAM.   WB 2.0.4 is being installed.  Hopefully that'll tell me whether it is the mainboard or GVP board which is causing the troubles.  At this point I don't know whether to hope that the 2000 or the GVP board is toast.  The 2000 would probably be easier to fix, but a 2000 is still a 2000 without the 68030.

[macto]

My error, this is a GVP G-Force 030.  I discovered there was a difference when I went in search of a difference between our cards.  Notably, I cannot find a CN17.  The settings are remarkably similar though, so maybe you knew what I was really talking about ...

Anyhow, I will try the GVP card, with the jumpers corrected, in a couple of days.  It is a tight squeeze, and I'm afraid that too much flexing isn't good for it.  Besides, I want to figure out whether the problem is with the mainboard or the GVP card.  I won't be able to figure that out unless I try the system without the GVP card.

As for upgrades, the ethernet card sounds great.  I'm not sure about the video card.  The old monitor reminds me a bit of my old Apple IIgs, only the Amiga is much faster (even with the 68000).

[macto]

Well, I do have SCSI.  On the other hand, I don't have the shielding over the CPU and FPU or CN17.  They must have had a couple of revisions of the board or similar products which were identified differently.

The CPU in mine has been replaced.  It is a 68030RC50B.  In other words, it is not the embedded controller version so it has an MMU.  (The crystal is still 40 MHz.)

On stripping her down: the basic problem is software.  Aside from what I mentioned above, I have Directory Opus and Textcraft Plus on floppies.  Everything else comes from Aminet and I don't know how to make bootable floppies yet.  My comprimise: to try running her with the DataFlyer board.  It's even IDE, so I cannot use the same drive.

Then there is the problem of which software to use: the problem appears to be associated with memory in some way.  I don't recall if I mentioned the error numbers popping up, when I was so lucky, they were 80000003, 80000004, and 81000005.  But it doesn't happen straight off, since the machine has to be up for a bit (warmed up, so to speak).  This is evident in the pattern of the crashes, and the GVP RAM diagnostics program bore that out: perfect results when the computer was just turned on, it failed when the tests were done about 1/2 hour  (or so) after it was turned on.  Of course the GVP program only tests GVP RAM, so I wasn't able to figure out if the problem hit the SupraRAM card as well (ie. is this a system wide thing).  The GVP program is also useless when the GVP card is pulled.  While a lot of little things were triggering the problem in OS 3.9, it is still consistent because OS 3.9 uses memory more heavily to start with.  All of this is what leads me to believe it is the GVP card.  On the other hand, I kinda hope it isn't the GVP card because all of the memory is soldered on to the board at this point (ie. I'm having problems with the SIMMs removed).

For what it's worth: the errors the GVP RAM diagnostics program was reporting seemed to involve a failure to flip certain bits (3rd or 4th, I believe).  The problem appeared to be very consistent.

This whole situation is frustrating.  I will tackle it a bit more in the morning.  For now, I need some rest else I'll be as bad off as my Amiga.

[macto]

Morley: I'm doing a sector scan with VirusZ on all of my floppies and the hard drive.  Nothing yet, but the scan is still in progress.  Granted, it is a fresh install seeming as I replaced the GVP card (SCSI) with a DataFlyer (IDE).  Then again, any infection would have to come from those diskettes or files from Aminet seeming as those are my only sources of software.

On to the more probable cause, hardware:

I've been running the system for about 12 hours without an incident.  This is with a base A2000, plus DataFlyer IDE, plus DataFlyer RAM.  The machine hasn't been given a heavy workout, but the serial port, RAM (via the RAM disk), and hard drive have been put to good use.  I downloaded some more generic RAM testing software and will try to leave that running for a few hours this afternoon.  If everything checks out, I'll plug the GVP back in and copy my existing setup over to a fresh SCSI hard drive (so that I can pull the IDE controller) and see what happens.  If that seems to work, I'll conteplate swapping the fresh SCSI hard drive with my old SCSI hard drive to see if the jumpers on the GVP were the problem.  Or maybe I'll avoid pushing my luck if everything works. ;-)

On hard drives:

I have plenty of SCSI units, ranging from 40 MB to 2 GB.  Before the Amiga, I was working with 68k Macs. :nervous:  All of those old Macs had a SCSI controller or two.  IDE drives are actually an oddity for me.

On memory:

What is the limit, and how would the problem manifest itself (eg. irratic errors, undetected memory)?

The with the 6 MB SupraRAM and the 16 MB GVP board and the 1 MB on board, the Workbench was consistently reporting 23 MB RAM.  I don't know if I ever used a quarter of that, but it was there for the taking.  There appears to be some sort of conflict between the SupraRAM board and the DataFlyer RAM card.

Seeming as this problem usually manifests itself after the machine has been running for a while, I'm assuming that there is some sort of thermal problem.  Perhaps it is a bad connection?  Perhaps the circulation is extremely poor and something is over heating (with the GVP board in, the machine is pretty much broken into two compartments, with most of the heat generating stuff (the majority of the RAM, the hard drive, the processor) being tightly packed next to the power supply.

Actually, the speed of this thing isn't too bad with the GVP board removed.  Much slower, to be sure, but I've seen worse.

[macto]

I was running the GVP card with the stock 4 MB for a little while, and still had problems.  I went through the jumpers, and the descriptions in the manuals really didn't say much.  In most cases they used the word "RESERVED", even though it is clearly there for a reason.  Other things, like "autoconfig address space" came up, but I'm not really sure what that means.  A lot of the (online) documentation I do find seems piecemeal, but that may be because I'm jumping into the middle of somebody else's mess.  (I would imagine that very few people would just have the assemblage of equipment I have dumped on them.  Rather they would build it up over time, as any sane person would do.  ;-) )

The autoconfig bit does answer one question: when I put the DataFlyer RAM and SupraRAM cards in, only 8 MB was recognised.  I guess that's why.  Likewise, using the autoconfig RAM jumper on the G-Force 030 card limited the system to 16 MB RAM (8 MB autoconfig on the G-Force 030 and 8 MB non-autoconfig on the G-Force 030, meaning that the DataFlyer RAM and/or SupraRAM would be ignored).  See, I am learning.

Anyhow, the system seems to be stable without that card.  For the time being, I'm going to set that card aside and get to know my A2000 a little better, both from a technical perspective and from the perspective of software.  Once I know how particular software behaves (ie. when it crashes and why), I'll tackle the GVP board again.  Until then, I'll have a mighty difficult time separating my mistakes (or those of other programmers) from the computers.

I would like to thank everybody for their help thus far.  The problem may remain unsolved, but I learned a lot and will continue plugging at this machine.  Sorry, the machine to my left.  While this machine has a G4, I'd be lying if I said that it was an AmigaOne.

[macto]

I'm not giving up on the critter, I'm just setting it aside until I know a bit more.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there is much on this card which can be fixed.  Besides the crystal, CPU, and FPU, the only socketed components are PALs.  You would probably need an identical card to swap those out.  Though I can also inspect it more carefully for physical damage and repair that, assuming that my hands are steady enough for surface mount.

As for the G3/G4 Amigas ... I originally got into Macs after picking up an SE to replace my dying 486.  Now the SE is another 68000 running at 8 MHz, so it isn't all that different from my A2000 with respect to performance.  I loved that machine because it was fun to use.  Of course, I upgraded with time.  Most of the 68k models were fun, but the jump to the PowerPC models took away the fun.

Now I can see the same thing happening here: the A2000 is fun.  It may be a virtual cripple compared to what I thought I had (ie. the unreliable GVP card), but it doesn't make much of a difference in my mind.  I learned a long time ago, there is no such thing as a slow machine if you use software which was written for it.  Well, almost.  In my case, making the jump to an A1 would risk tarnishing another platform in my eyes.  Then what would I be left with?  The Atari ST?   :evilgrin:

Granted, the A1 looks neat.  But I do believe that a serial port would be more useful than a parallel port.

[macto]

That could have been an SE.  As for big hard drives, it depends upon what you mean by big.  I've seen big hard drives (30 to 60 cm diameter platters), and I've been told that there were even bigger ones.

After dealing with clumsy OSes like MS-DOS, and bloated GUIs like Windows and OS/2, the relative elegance of Mac OS 6 and 7 were a revelation.  While I won't go as far as claiming that the Amiga is a revelation, it is the first time I've seen preemptive multitasking in such a small OS.  I was beginning to think that such was impossible.

Then again, maybe I should check the disk and memory usage.  It is possible that WB 2.0.4 is being less of a resource hog than System 6, so maybe the Amiga is a revelation.   :-o

As for those kids who think I'm an old timer, just give them five or ten years and they'll know what it feels like. :lol: