FS: 2 x GVP-M TekMagic 2060 boards

[Damion]

The first board I could never get to work correctly. It could have been SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS I was doing wrong that I don't, to this day, know if it was the board, or me, or the RAM, or my Amiga, or my power supply, or my incorrect combination of ECS/OCS chips on my motherboard, or the GVP-m Jeff Boyer 68060 libraries, or lack thereof... so many different things go into the setup of these boards that I just want them out of my life!

These boards seem to be a bit fussy.

I spent a large amount of time, and did various things to get mine relatively stable (software wasn't a problem for me).  Only issue left is that certain WHDLoad games crap out in a predictable/repeatable way after about 30 minutes of operation. If I shoot the bottom FPGA on the card with some component cooler, it will run a while before getting flaky again. :roll: I'm going to contact GVP-M about the possibility of getting a replacement chip, but I'm not really expecting anything.

I think it can be a solid card if you get a good one, have a *lot* of spare time to fiddle, and have a motherboard it likes.

 

[Damion]

On the software end, I suggest using Thor's mmulib package. The processor library works fantastic with the TekMagic, and then you have a nice set of tools that all work together... you can do away with the supplied software entirely. (For example, I use mufastrom instead of ksremap, and mumaprom for testing kickstart images before burning.)

On the hardware side of things I've had a lot of problems.

First of all, lots of random lockups and freezes not attributable to software. My "BigFoot" PSU was full of cheap quality (and 10 years old) JPCon capacitors, so those were all replaced.

This helped significantly, but I was still encountering periodic freezes while the WB blanker was running. Same symptoms I encounter on accelerated A600/A1200's when the caps have failed. (Funny side note -- "blanker" seems to be a good hardware test, as my TekMagic would easily fly through hours of CPU intensive benchmarks (like AmigaMark), yet lock after 15 minutes of blanker, LOL.) I replaced all motherboard caps, afterward, no more freezing.

Third hardware related problem. After 30 minutes or so, some WHDLoad games exit back to WB, returning similar errors. Pinball Dreams in particular - just let a table run, and eventually it quits to WB, more frequently as the machine warms, until it exits almost immediately. This was directly related to the +5v rail and the lower FPGA on the TekMagic.

4.95v - Pinball crashes almost immediately, warm or cold. WB is stable for hours.

5.0v - From cold, Pinball runs for 30 minutes before the errors become more and more frequent. Cool the FPGA (cooler spray), and the errors disappear for 15 minutes or so. Point a huge fan at the FPGA, and no problems at all.

At 5.15v, and a large sink on the FPGA, the errors are almost eliminated. Solder joints are all fine, and the chip barely gets warm, so it seems to be some sort of flaky component. :/ I'm confident that another small voltage increase would solve it completely, but then the unregulated +12v line becomes a little too high for my liking.

On the plus side, GVP has offered to replace both FPGAs, though I'll need to send in the card since they require programing on the board. Waiting to hear details, but I'm happy it's able to be fixed.

Do you have Burst Mode enabled?

I do, and I don't recall a difference with it off, but I haven't tried disabling it recently. I'll give it a shot and let you know if it makes any difference.

[Damion]

I think I've about got it resolved.

The card needs a healthy +5V supply, about +5.2V measured at a molex (translates to around +5.05V at at the accelerator and various ICs around the motherboard). Much lower and it gets flaky (starting here with the lower FPGA). Disabling burst mode *might* help the card to function more reliably with lower voltage. With the Tek disabled, or possibly even different accelerators (tried a Vector '030 here), the computer is stable with less voltage (even slightly below +5V at a molex).

I also suggest finding some 60ns FPM Micron - this works flawlessly here. EDO doesn't work at all (including the same Micron EDO which works fine in other Amiga accelerators), and some FPM RAM seems to work better than others. :/

I'm going to go ahead and cool both FPGA's anyway, and add a Nexus WaveAir to the PCI slot nearest the accelerator.

My guess is that with a good RAM and PSU combination, your cards should work correctly, burst mode included. After that, the motherboard caps might also have to be done if you're still getting random freezes or gurus.

[Damion]

So now I wonder why switching out the power supply brought up trashed pixels on P96 screens, when I never saw this with the other power supply in the system

The card is simply damn fussy, worse than any other amiga hardware I've owned. Also, the computers are getting older, and things like caps need to be changed (particularly in expanded systems). It might be worth scouting ebay for some good SIMMs... I can give you the part # of the ones I have if you like, they pop up frequently, sometimes NOS.

[Damion]

Just wanted to add some more info:

I never fully resolved my issues, although much improved, the computer would still freeze on rare occasion.

Also, I couldn't use my PIV - as soon as I attempted holding LMB and drawing a selection window, and the window touched any other image on the screen (icons, window border, backdrop, etc) the computer would lock solid. I tried every imaginable thing to resolve this problem... swapped out all the chips, tried all manner of software configuration, and couldn't fix it. No problem whatsoever with a CV3D.

Then, I buy AmigaPete's A2000. Everything now works perfect, using the _exact_ same hardware and software combination (PSU included) as before, with the only variable being the motherboard. No more lockups with the PIV, and the machine is finally stable.

The "problematic" motherboard was a Rev 6.3, while the working one is a 6.2. I have no idea if the Rev 6.3 board was damaged at some point in its life, or if (as I've read) the TekMagic is simply picky what motherboard it likes.

[Damion]

@terminator4

Interesting that one card works, while the other is flaky, in the same motherboard. Is the RAM the same between the two cards?

One thing: the majority of my issues (like the WHDLoad faults) were solved when I cooled the lower FPGA on the TekMagic, just a little fan blowing on it was enough. Increasing the +5v reduced the need for cooling the FPGA. Might be something to try on your flaky board.

If I get some time over the weekend, I'm going to drop the +5v down a bit and see if it starts misbehaving with WHDLoad again, or if the motherboard was the sole issue. The thing is fortunately running fantastic now... it's a real nice card when it's working properly!!