indivision aga question

[som99]

I am one of those who needs extra cooling to keep my system stable with the Indivision AGA MK2, I got flickering and crash within minutes after starting the system and some chips was so hot I could barely touch them for more then a few seconds.

But after adding one 40mm fan directly on top of the indy/Lisa and a few on the vents in the top all problems did go away and I never have any problems anymore

I use Fractal Design Silent series R2, they are quiet and work well.

[som99]

som99: How did you mount that above Lisa?  There's not much space between Lisa and the keyboard?

Did you rule out failing caps?   I'm keen to discover (and resolve) the source of the problem, however if it is purely heat related I'd like to hear how you achieved this

The Fractal design fans I use are quite thin, but I had to do some simple modifications to fit it and also keep it in place, I was quite happy with the outcome tho

If you look at the second picture you see that there are quite decent clearance.



I also recommend people to solder wires as in picture two (it's not done on that picture but you get how it's done), directly from the female DC-plug under the motherboard, I had a slight accident pulling to many amps trough the PCB lanes to the floppy drive when using the floppy cable to power all extra internals and I burned the PCB lanes and had to fix them, no biggie but just a friendly warning Also floppy operations might be affected when pulling extra juice from the floppy cable.


As the matter of heat issues, I have soldered new caps and also done the timing fixes as my motherboard is the rev 2B board (I did the timing fix before adding extra cooling since I thought that was the problem) and the same issues appear if I turn the fans off, Lisa gets CRAZY hot and system gets unstable in minutes, and by crazy hot it's to hot to put your finger on for more then a few seconds.

I guess age and natural variations in manufacturing process is to blame, same as on CPU's, two chips, same model same brand even same batch can tolerate different overclocking values.

I would LOVE to hear from others with heat issues, what rev board they have etc to see if particular revs are more affected then others tho. A soon as I get my hands on another rev motherboard I will test that one to.

Edit: If you look at the traces near Paula, you can see two of the repaired PCB lanes.

Edit: After my Amiga 1200 project which I posted all about in my thread here (pics are gone since UG went down and I hosted my pics there) I got contacted by a writer from one of International data groups Swedish IT magazines who did an 4 page article about my project, so the Amiga 1200 got some media attention in 2012 here in Sweden which is always fun (if anyone would be interested I could scan the magazine and translate and post it here on amiga.org).

[som99]

Ah - I'm confusing my chips.  The Indivision fits over Lisa?  In which case, it's Alice that I fitted heatsinks too (Alice was becoming too hot to touch).  I hadn't given much thought to Lisa - I'm surprised fitting a fan over the Indivision makes much difference;  doesn't the socket covering Lisa make it practically air tight?

FYI: 1D4, poorly done timing fixes in place, suspect caps needs replacing

Yeah the Indivision fits over Lisa, there are 4 holes in the socket of the Indivision and enough air gets down on Lisa to get her much cooler, a really thin copper plate with thermal paste on Lisa could fit under the indivision also which helps a lot.

Please write back and report when caps are replaced!

Alice got quite hot for me to, but Lisa was my biggest issue, but as I also installed 4x 40mm fans at the top grills on my Amiga the airflow in the case kept Alice at a reasonable temperature without any need for any heatsinks, I might install heatsinks on Alice and Paula soon while im doing my external PATA DVD/CD-rom build, to keep them cooler but atm I got no stability issues at all but it wouldn't hurt to give them some love.

[som99]

I was looking to go up from 1024 x 768 to 1280 x 1024 but im not sure now after reading this stuff about glitchy graphics.
My Indi 2 also gets quiet hot on top (where lisa is) so I bend my CF over to left so it isn't resting on it.
At 1024 x 768 I can leave it on all day and I get no problems.
 
Will this heat build up shorten my A1200s life span?
 
Cheers
Tony
 
P.s. How did you attach the fan to the Indi and do you think a standard A500 psu will power it? I already have an Indi2 and an ACA1232 plugged into my A1200. I'm thinking about doing this as a precaution. But, if its working fine now do you think its worth it?

All heat shortens the life of all chips on all systems, but by how much it's hard to say, I cool everything I have to keep the lifespan longer on old hardware.

I do not know why you would want to run 1280x1024 on AGA tho, XTREME screenmode is to much in WB at least I think so but I guess it's individual. What screenmode do you use for 1024x768? I use HighGFX but I mostly keep my Amiga at 800x600 to keep it snappy

How I fitted a fan on my Indivision? Check 4-posts up and you see the picture of it

Edit: Almost forgot your power-brick question, The 40mm fans from fractal design uses such a tiny amount of amps so it will be no probem if you aint got problems now You even can put a resistor and use the fan on 9v instead of 12v to keep it even quieter and keep the power strain even lower

[som99]

Great photos, makes it very clear how you installed yours, if I had an A1200 I'd probably do the same.
 
Quick Q: Whatcha using the Vaseline for?

Thanks mike

Oh, it's not vaseline, it's soldering Flux

While you said Vaseline I got to think about a strange old saying in Sweden, You can do whatever you want if you got the three V's, Vaseline, violence and Will (well in Swedish all three starts with V), I never really thought about the meaning of it before :O It sounds quite horrid in english but the way it's used here it means you can do whatever you want with hard work

[som99]

Failing caps have nothing to do with this problem probably.

Good thread guys. There is one thing I dont want in my a1200 - a fan. It runs silent with cf drive. The only thing makes noise is the floppy lol

Agreed on the caps part and thanks

I had no choice with the fan part, either use fans or not use my Amiga Tho the fans I use are nearly not hearable (13db and at 9v even less). As I have a room just for computers I can say fans in old hardware don't bother me much since my servers and watercooled workstation are the culprits here

But something I can not stand are small high RPM fans, the sound they make are horrid, I allways replace old fans with new silent ones and mod to fit bigger fans on things that use tiny pitchy fans ^^

But for those who have not used the Fractal design 40mm fans, I urge you to try one, many people have the impression that all 40mm fans sounds like they did a few years back

Edit: I have to add, one of the revisions of Fractal designs 40mm fans have a tad sensitive solder joints on the fan.

[som99]

Hello All,

For some reason I prefer a hi end crt monitor 21" over a LCD, and I have a Crt monitors on all my Amiga's!

Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent

2x Amiga 4000T :O Thats some nice setups there

Have you tried your CD32 on another crt monitor?  I do not think your problems are heat related, I do not have any mrk1s but when connected to a LCD without problems are you using VGA then? Check the input values when connected to a LCD monitor and write them here (you can find them in the menu's of the monitor under info or something).

Cheers //som99

[som99]

Wow, that's quite a quote about "Vaseline, violence and Will"! I think that probably would get pretty badly interpreted here in the States, however, haha.  I actually half-remember an old tip about putting vaseline on electrical connectors, so that's why I assumed that's what it was.

Ahh then I understand, yeah this was the first time I translated the quote and reflected over how bad it sounds in english haha ^^ That's not how it's ment here tho

[som99]

@amiga1084

Im using a indivision mk1 on my a1200, with 1024x768 i had some flickering but disabling blacewcp or fblit (i dont remember now) the flicker dissapear.

I dont use any fan on the indivision or 060.

You lucky man I wish I diden't have to use fans either But as you say im quite sure his problems have nothing to do with heat.

[som99]

@som99

Curious... how long it takes flickering without fans?

Well I get most artefacts in WB within 1-2 minutes from boot, if I start a aplication/game directly after start I get artefacts fast and between 1-5 mins I get GURU.

So without fans I can not run my Amiga over 5 mins sadly