Speedup-System HD-CD

[ceaser]

Hi,

I have a product that is pretty cheaply made but I should be able to get working and can't seem to.  It is just a IDE splitter hardware for A4000.  You have 1 IDE ribbon that goes from the motherboard IDE to it, and then a cable running to the CD-ROM on the middle connection, and a ribbon running to the Hard Disk on another cable.  I've tried all jumper settings.  I've also run the installation program off the floppy install disk that came with it before I put it on, thinking that would prep my Hard Disk for this piece of hardware.  I get no love from it though.  Been playing with it all day.  Manual is in all German so I'm slowly but surely typing it all into a notepad and translating it on Google
Something is going through it  When I reverse IDE ribbon on either device, CD-ROM or Hard Disk, I get cyan boot error screen (i think it's cyan)  Whatever slightly different shade of some color it is, it's a for sure, it fails to get to floppy bootup screen when you reverse either ribbon cable.  It's hooked up to voltage as it's supposed to be, it has a female molex/px4 power connector coming off it so you can put one of the power leads to it then it has a male which is a pass-thru, to make up for the power connector you used for the "Speedup-System" itself.  I see that it is supposed to work with Workbench 2.04 and up.  It shouldn't have a problem with Workbench 3.1 and 3.0 ROM (what I got)

Help!  The guy I got it from is cool and I know the thing works.  I'm probably going to grab myself an Octagon (I don't know if that's with a K or C and also don't know if there are any other brands of these cards) Zorro III card that is a SCSI controller.  I don't even have any internal SCSI stuff laying around but it'd be well worth it to score a couple SCSI internal hard drives and a CD-ROM.  I want my 4000 running as good as she can.  And this thing has IDE connectors on it that are even cheaper than the one on the 4000 motherboard.  I'm just trying to get this to work, so even though I could use IDEFix software to make a CD-ROM and Hard Disk work on the same chain, but I did want to have 2 Hard Disks in there on 1 chain and CD-ROM on the other from the piece "Speedup-System" (lol that name makes me laugh.  it's super german sounding!).  Also this product has a 25-pin internal type SCSI, and that spot is vacant because I don't have an internal SCSI device*

Let me know.  I've been reading a bit and it sounds like I should get myself an IDE terminator for the motherboard and do everything through Zorro III to SCSI card :x  (mo money mo money mo money)

[A4000_Mad]

I'm not sure what you've got there but this one works great for 4 IDE devices in the A4000.......




Amigakit might sell them

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[ceaser]

It keeps mentioning AT-BUS kabel in the instructions.  It has this spot for a 44-pin connection and I'm only 29 but I've never seen this connector type in my lifetime.  I'm wondering if maybe my friend forgot a special cable.  Maybe that weird 44-pin has a cable that is this AT-BUS kabel that keeps getting referenced.  He told me take pictures of instructions so he can give me a real non-google translation of it.

I've tried it with 2 old hard drives now that both work fine with Amiga 4000, they boot when not hooked to this thing.  Old ones, one is 400 MB and other is 540 MB.  So it's not that I'm using a Hard Disk it can't work with.

Very confusing why it won't work.

*tried jumper settings already*

[tone007]

Sounds like that's for a 1200.

The 44 pin cable is a standard, used on 2.5" laptop-style hard drives, and present in the A600 and A1200.

It could possibly be used with adapters.

[ceaser]

Sounds like that's for a 1200.

The 44 pin cable is a standard, used on 2.5" laptop-style hard drives, and present in the A600 and A1200.

It could possibly be used with adapters.

Right indeed!  Seller verified that's what it's for.  All I got to add to this at this point is that I couldn't find my scanner so I typed the whole manual out by hand and sent it to the German guy I bought it from

I type fast at least.

So... if I put a hard disk verified to work in Amiga 4000 and has Workbench 3.1 installed on it, on the correct place on the board, larger IDE furthest from to motherboard, it seeks for about 10 seconds then shows insert floppy screen. When I hook it to a hard disk that has a corrupted Workbench 3.1 install on it, it doesn't seek at all.  There is only 1 hard disk connected to the farther from the to motherboard IDE port, and 1 CD-ROM connected to the IDE port between the hard disk and the to motherboard IDE.  Hope that makes a little sense.

I installed the software for this board on the hard disk before I tried the board.  The install program seemed to complete without error but it's in German and I don't speak enough German to understand what it said.  Only enough in context to see it installed the software (with hard disk still hooked straight to IDE).

[Boot_WB]

Hey Ceaser,

Is it this (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1110)?

If so, forget about the disk which came with the hardware - you can just install using IDEfix97, however you'll need to select "VOB" when prompted during the installation.

Dont' know why the implementaton of splitting the IDE channels is different on this particular adapter, but...

EDIT: From memory, the 44-pin connector at the top (in the picture linked to above) can be used instead of the top 40-pin connector - useful if you're adding a laptop hard drive I suppose... Also, you may want to check for burnt/broken traces - it's been a long while since I played with this bit of kit, but I vaguely remember there was a burned out trace which I needed to repair - prob. from someone connecting a cable the wrong way round at some point.

EDIT: Don't expect it to be any faster than other IDE-splitter implementations either :-/

Regards


Rich

[Tension]

WHAT THE HELL!!!

I was always under the impression that you couldn`t split the A4000`s IDE interface because it was 'buffered' whereas you could split the one in the A1200 because it isn`t buffered.

Read it in some Eyetech notices/webpages back in the day...

... Ahh those were the days ...

[ceaser]

Hey Ceaser,

Is it this (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1110)?

If so, forget about the disk which came with the hardware - you can just install using IDEfix97, however you'll need to select "VOB" when prompted during the installation.

Dont' know why the implementaton of splitting the IDE channels is different on this particular adapter, but...

EDIT: From memory, the 44-pin connector at the top (in the picture linked to above) can be used instead of the top 40-pin connector - useful if you're adding a laptop hard drive I suppose... Also, you may want to check for burnt/broken traces - it's been a long while since I played with this bit of kit, but I vaguely remember there was a burned out trace which I needed to repair - prob. from someone connecting a cable the wrong way round at some point.

EDIT: Don't expect it to be any faster than other IDE-splitter implementations either :-/

Regards


Rich

Hey Rich yes that's it along with what sounds like some great info.  I do believe almost for certain the board got fried though.  Somehow...  Nothing goes through it.  Just today I got this Catweasel that is sort of more for A1200 tower than 4000, but it's main function is to let you use crappy old PC floppy drives with the Amiga.  Of course many kinds don't work with it but many do.  And it worked for that.  But also it hooks to the IDE for some reason even though it's working on your floppies.  Weird kinda.  So it's got like a "pass-thru" for the regular single IDE channel too then, and it boots my Hard Disk through that without me having to first install anything.  I gave up on this Speedup-System btw because I just think it's broken.  It doesn't care how I hook anything through it or whether or not I install the software before I put it on.  I just now tried it on a fresh Workbench 3.1 install and no go there either.  Just screwed up my Workbench sort of on purpose to try something out and upon reinstall still no go on Speedup-System board.  It's a shame but I do believe she is broken.

In a couple weeks, when I'm done negotiating with the Germans to receive a ton of stuff, Merlin graphics card (Zorro), Oktagon IDE Zorro card, M1538 Monitor, SurfX 3cc network card (Zorro) and a Chinon FB357 floppy, I won't have to worry about this I thought.  But I read a post where someone was complaining that they had troubles even making their CD-ROM work on the Oktagon.  I figured with that you just install the drivers on your boot Hard Disk then whatever you plug into Oktagon is addressed correctly.

What's really angering me a great deal right now is I can't get the program that decompresses .lha files onto my Amiga because EVERYTHING on aminet is .lha almost.  There's maybe a few files that aren't.  For DMS I was able to find this program that worked on FreeBSD called XDMS.  I can't seem to find a similar program for .lha though.  I'm pretty sure this IDEFix got messed up in decompression since WinRAR isn't good on .lha because it crashes when I run the install program.

I'm going to post requesting it because it's so dumb at aminet they have everything in .lha but they don't have a Linux/BSD, Windows or Amiga formatted file ready.  They must figure everyone uses that WHDLoad thing.  I do not.

now for some reason the idefix i'm downloading off aminet doesn't include a proper install program.

[Piru]

WHAT THE HELL!!!

I was always under the impression that you couldn`t split the A4000`s IDE interface because it was 'buffered' whereas you could split the one in the A1200 because it isn't buffered.

Read it in some Eyetech notices/webpages back in the day...

Eyetech were technically incompetent. They knew nothing of the HW they sold pretty much. Most of them were rebadged products from 3rd parties anyway.

Whether the interface is buffered or not is irrelevant really. Don't get fooled to pay more for simple IDE-splitter just because it's "buffered". Practically there's no difference to non-buffered one.