GVP HD8+ problems

[sim085]

Hello, I was using my A500+ when all of a sudden I got an error that a file could not be accessed on disk. I restarted my A500+ and it did not boot...

The GVP HD8+ does seem to get power but there is no disk activity. The A500+ does get power and the keyboard LED stays blinking. I get no color on the screen.

Does anyone know what it might be?

I was thinking this might be a power problem and therefore I was wondering if anyone knows from where I can find how to hack the GVP HD8+ to take power from the A500+

[sim085]

What happens if you cold boot and hold both mouse buttons down to get into the startup-menu?

What does cold boot mean? If I hold both mouse buttons down nothing happens. The A500+ works fine when I pull the GVP HD8+ off...

[sim085]

I didn't know it was working with the HD removed, but a cold boot is a boot from power being off.
If it's a 500+ (kick 2) then there should be a boot menu if you hold down both mouse buttons whilst powering on (or after rebooting).
You could still attach the hard drive and see if you can get into this bootmenu.

I have kickstart 3.1 and with the GVP HD8+ attached I get no boot menu when holding down both mouse buttons.

[sim085]

Can you hear the hard drive spin up? Or doesn't it get that far? (black screen and flashing caps)

My hard disk is a CF card. I changed this with a normal SCSI hard disk and I still have the same problem. Hard disk does start spinning but does not boot. I already had this problem with normal SCSI hard disks and I was told (don't know if here) that it could be because of PSU. At the moment even when I put the switch to 'Game' I still have problems (black screen, LED flashes for around 7 times then pause, then again).

[sim085]

You are a bit stingy with your info, but - assuming you have the GVP PSU unit, and suspect it as a problem, why not take a multimeter to the outputs and see what it says? Could be a bad PSU, or corrosion on the contacts? (Just a couple of wild ideas)

I do have a multimeter but don't really know how to use it where do I put the black and red pin? and what would consist a correct value? I am sure the PSU is still outputting some power but not sure if it is enough to make the GVP work...

[sim085]

you should see 5 volts and 12 volts.  should be in 5 to 10% tolerance to get a hard drive to unpark and do internal diagnostics.

I used the multimeter as suggested and it seems the voltage to the hard drive is right +5V (orrange) and +12V (yellow). I removed the GVP and connected a GrandSlam (from which only the fastRAM part still works) and the A500+ booted without any issue. I also tested the CF card on the PC and this also worked fine.

Therefore it seems that the problem is either with the GVP or with the ACARD SCSI > IDE adapter. However given that other hard disks also don't boot, I think it is safe to belive hat the problem is with the GVP HD8+.

Does anyone know what might have gone bad and what other tests I can do to find out??

Note that the A500+ does not boot (i.e. LED stays blinking) even when the GVP switch is set to Game.

[sim085]

Does anyone know what might have gone bad and what other tests I can do to find out??

Does anyone know how I can test if a chip (LS244 and LS245) is working? I used a multimeter and it seems that these chips are getting the needed supply. However I do not know how to use a multimeter to see if these chips are actually doing what they should be doing? or this is not done with a multimeter?

[sim085]

at this point i would say disconnect the scsi cable from the hard drive. Then boot up with the hd8 connected.

I disconnected the scsi cable and booted up with the hd8 connected ... still same problem I guess this proves the problem is with the hd8, but does it say anything as to where the problem might be?

[sim085]

I would still check the power supply and resoldering IEC plug

I replaced the gvp power supply with a PC power supply, checked all voltages on chips and hard drive are correct, but still same problem. Put switch on "Game", remove hard drive (inc. scsi cable), removed all memory sticks, set jumpers on J8 J7 (0 memory), switched on but still same problem. GVP HD8 green lights comes on, fun starts spinning, A500 turns on with blinking LED and screen is black or maybe very dark grey!!

I really can't understand what is wrong.

[sim085]

the hd8 probably does a scan from device 0 to 6, giving each unit time to come up.

What does this mean exactly? What are device 0 to 6?

[sim085]

When the computer turns on the boot rom in the controller will start looking for a hard drive to boot from (which will be in the range 0 to 6).
 
It's possible that without a drive plugged in or if it's unable to communicate with the drive (maybe a bad scsi cable) then the boot rom will sit there for a long time just in case it comes on eventually.

At the moment I do not have an extra scsi cable so I have to wait before I try that as well. However I did discover something else which I do not know if it says anything about where the fault might be...

The hd8 has two LED lights; one green and one yellow with the yellow LED showing hard disk activity. Now, when no scsi cable is connected to the hd8 only the green LED turns on. When I connect the scsi cable to the hd8, but no hard disk, the yellow LED turns on and off repeatedly. When I then connect the hard disk, again only green LED turns on.

Does this mean that the controller is indeed finding the hard disk and the problem might be something that happens afterwards?

I will try a new scsi cable the moment I have one just to make sure I try any option.

[sim085]

I checked the SCSI cable and this seems to be fine as well. Does anyone know what the hd8 tries to do after it confirms that there is a hard disk?

[sim085]

How did you check the cable?

With a solderless breadboard + jump wires + led light + 3.7V battery. Did a small circuit with the scsi cable in the middle, tested it for each line on the cable and led light turned on each time.

Is this ok? or that was not the right way to test it? I just tried the first thing that came to mind.