networking card... which way to go

[dschallock]

Hello,
I have an Amiga 3000 that is currently in a Mirage3000D tower from Elbox.  I have never really been able to get this setup with the mediator card working.
It works in that the computer powers on and the mediator works as a zorro pass through.  But it has never worked in that it does not recognize any of the pci cards I have tried to plug into it.  **namely** the easynet card and software I bought from amigakit.  But it isn't an easynet problem because I don't think it has ever really recognized any PCI card I plugged into it.
So I have another a3000 that I can get parts from... considering abandoning the whole mediator/mirage tower set up and just getting back into a stock amiga case... but if I do that I don't know what my options are to get a darn Ethernet plug into the system.  I have read that if I had a a1200 I could just use the pcmcia slot, but with zorro as my option what can I do.  Is there any product that is still sold?  I feel like I have thrown so much money at this over the last several years and still can't seem to get the machine connected.... so frustrated.
Any help would be appreciated.
-Dan

[dschallock]

I have tried two different voodoo 3 PCI cards and more recently a Voodoo 5500 PCI card and I can't seem to get anything to work.
I will try PCIinfo and see what it says.

[dschallock]

UPDATE.

ok, so I run scanpci and it sees the voodoo 3 card.
I can't cut and paste from the amiga over to this computer (as Im not on the net yet with it. hahaha)
but at the top line it says "PCI Device 0, Function 0 (single function):
the next line says "VendorID   : 0x121A    ; 3dfx Interactive Inc

So based on that alone I am assuming that means its plugged in correctly and should be a software issue after that.

I started to go through the voodoo install guide supplied with my mediator CD.
I already have os 3.9 installed and picasso 96 powering my picasso IV card, but I did an update install from the os 3.9 cd to add the cybervision 3d card.  I changed the name of the card in the devs directory and then restarted and ran picasso96mode.  Here is where the problem starts.  It does not see the voodoo to attach to.  It shows the picasso IV card on Board0 and nothing else.

Where do I go from here?
Thanks for any help.
-Dan

[dschallock]

ok, I'll be updating the next attempt tomorrow. When I went to one of those links posted to get the latest picasso96 drivers I found those boing bag updates 1-3 caught my eye and I got stupid and distracted and I installed them, and the ROM update and my blew my system up.
So I need to reinstall 3.9 tonight and get everything back to square one and then I'll try the suggestions.
Thanks again for the help, I will post the results soon.
-Dan

[dschallock]

OK,
I started by re-installing OS 3.1 from the disks. (worked fine)
Then Installed 3.9 from CD (worked fine)
Installed Boingbag 1 (worked fine)
Installed Boingbag 2 (worked fine)
Installed Boingbag 3 (at this point I got errors on the changes I tried to make to the startup-sequence as per the instructions... but when I undid those changes to the startup-sequence it booted fine again).
Installed boingbag 4 (again, changes to startup-sequence did not work, had to revert that file.  Also Ghostbuster "whatever that program is" crashed right at bootup, so I dragged that out of the WBstartup drawer, then everything booted up fine.
Next: I installed the latest picasso 96 software from the website listed and got the picasso IV working just fine.  Nice output.
Then I installed the mediator 2.1 up archive from the link sent to me above.  I went through the automated process of setting the all the default variables. seemed fine.
At this point the Amiga is booting fine, and running fine and any zorro cards plugged in are working.
Next I follow the steps from the voodoo guide.  But just like before when I get the picasso96mode screen and go to the "attach to" menu it sees Board 0:picasso but it does not see any additional board ie. the voodoo.

This is the same step that I have been stuck on for about 6 years now!  from the moment I plugged in my brand new mediator till now.  At one point I thought that the board wasn't getting proper voltage so I bought the mirage 3000D tower conversion from Elbox and shipped to the states.
Then I thought maybe my voodoo was bad so I bought another voodoo 3.  Then I bought an old virge card.  Then I bought a voodoo 5 card (took me a while and cost quite a bit actually).  And I still can't seem to do what I set up to do... get my Amiga on the net!!!
(cough) ok, thanks for letting me vent.  Sorry for blowing off steam.
Please tell me I am doing something wrong still, and I didn't order a defective mediator 6 years ago?
-Dan

[dschallock]

Thanks Darren for looking up that email.  I started doing it last night and will finish tonight.
Question:  About those jumpers... using a voodoo card is there a particular jumper arrangement I should be looking for or should I maybe just try it both ways?
Also you mentioned that even when you had the jumper in the wrong position the jump still showed up in picasso96mode attach menu right?  I still have never seen the card appear in that menu... but scanpci saw something at some point.
The last time I ran scanpci now after the re-install of everything it seems to go into some kind of loop.  printing the same message on the cli over and over again.  Can't break it actually, I eventually have to reboot.   Not sure if you have ever seen something like this.
-Dan

[dschallock]

magnetic- why do you recommend against the use of BB4 out of curiosity?
-Dan