Crashing A1200 + Apollo 1230 Mk 2

[TCMSLP]

Hi All,

I have a sick Amiga A1200.  It randomly crashes, complete hang with a flashing power LED.

This happens once the machine has warmed up - booting from cold it remains ok for 5 minutes.

The machine is stable by itself, although a program I found 'amigatest' often fails tests.  Sods law I'm now trying to replicate this and I can't.  I have a feeling it used to say 'blitter fail' - but I need to confirm this.

The machine has a 2.5" HD fitted and is running from a heavy A500 PSU (although I used to power it with a PC PSU with the same issues).

At one point I believed it may have been a timing issue (I think from memory it's a 1D4 revision board?) so I applied a fix (a wire connecting pins of two chips together). This made no difference.

I've attached some screenshots of sysinfo and also a photo of the accelerator (68030 @ 50Mhz).

At this point I'm not sure if the A1200 or accelerator (or both?) are to blame.  Any clues or obvious things to check?

I hope to build this into a machine for basic online browsing - so keen to get it stable.

I should also add I've tried the accelerator with and without RAM, with various combinations of jumper settings - none make any difference to stability.

Any clues appreciated ...

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Oops - how do I add inline images?  Sorry ...

[TCMSLP]

This does still crash even when booting off workbench floppies.  It also seems stable when cool despite moving/knocking the accelerator.

I've also noticed some graphics corruption; I think I'm using a productivity mode (640x400?) and after a while I sometimes get a few lines of colour corruption.

Are 50Mhz 030's known to suffer from heat problems?  I'll raise the machine off the desk and fit a heatsink or fan to test this

If this does solve the problem, is there a heat conductive glue I can use to bond the heatsink to the CPU?  There's no space/holes to clamp a heatsink in the traditional fashion.

Then all I need is a network card and I should be up and running!

Thanks,


Steve

[TCMSLP]

Interesting - thanks for that.

I'm running a higher res as it's one of the few modes my TFT can display.   I also hope to use this machine as a daily workstation so running any of the low res modes would be frustrating.

I'll do some further tests and maybe add some case fans - this should also help with cooling the accelerator.

Thanks again!

[TCMSLP]

Thanks Cammy - I'll take a look!

Also, can anyone tell me if my accelerator (http://www.track3.org.uk/~steve/DSCF3058s.JPG) with <4Mb RAM is PCMCIA friendly?  I've seen mixed opinions on this.

http://www.amiga-hardware.org/Apollo_1230_Mk-II states it *is* PCMCIA friendly, but the image shown is slightly different to mine (an optional second SIMM socket plus the connector for a SCSI expansion - mine lacks these - see my photo above).

This may explain a number of the lock-up issues (I often use a PCMCIA CF 'drive').

[TCMSLP]

OK, the problem is really apparent tonight.  I've been un-LHA'ing so perhaps the extra activity has caused things to heat up a bit.  However, it's been running fine for the past hour - it's only now starting doing this.  It also happens right after a reboot.

Take a look at this:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am73Zsn6ntA

This is now running in high res DBLPAL mode, and the same problem occurs with and without the accelerator connected.

Definitely seems like it's heat related - but should it be doing this with just a 2.5" internal hard disk?  Is DBLPAL enough in itself to heat the chipset this much?

Or - am I looking at a bigger hardware issue here?

Opinions appreciated

[TCMSLP]

Excellent - thanks all!  This happens without the accelerator or any external devices connected and I've tried two different PSU's (including a 250W PC PSU) so I think I've ruled out that.

I'll replace the aging capacitors *and* fit some heatsinks and fans.

Thanks again for all your help.  I really want to revive this board - rather than simply replace it (probably with another board with similar issues...).


Steve

[TCMSLP]

I've not tried the palette patches yet - but the screen corruption is currently really bad.  I'll try them anyway but I don't expect them to help much

I've taken the machine apart and removed the metal shielding to help airflow.   I've also taken a look at the capacitors and noticed they all seem to be tantalum (?) except 3 which are standard electrolytic.  Could it really be these 3 capacitors at fault?  One (or two) are on the PSU side - so I guess it's a possibly.  Surprised to see all the others as tantalums though - this hasn't been modified in the past;  I expect many more.

[TCMSLP]

I'll try a few things - but I may well end up having to find another A1200 motherboard.

I don't think this is accelerator related as surely graphics corruption is more of a chipmem/chipset issue?  I'll try removing the accelerator though and see how it runs without it.

Xanxi: The HD is mounted on a bracket.  I'll fit some fans in the case, although I suspect this will just hide the issue (by cooling) rather than fix the actual problem


Steve