Amiga 4000 Upgrade Plans?!

[LordSpunky]

Hi, as most of you know I have recently bought an Amiga 4000. Complete with battery leak, which I am in the process if repairing,
Here is the spec:
Commodore Amiga 4000 / EC 030
3.0 ROM
3.0 Workbench
2MB ChipRAM
Cyberstorm MK2 68040/040
32MB FastRAM
Picasso IV
2GB IDE 3.5" HDD
IDE CD-ROM Drive

What I would like to know is what I can expand the ChipRAM too and what can I expand the FastRAM too? I do have a lot of random 72-pin SIMM chips knocking about from my old PC-Days, will they work?
I plan a Amigakit 4GB CF HDD & 3.1 ROMS.
Can I put in any old CD/DVD Drives? I have many and even spare DVD-Burners knocking around. Infact I have spare 10GB+ PC Hard Drives.
I have a Citizen Monitor with it.....but I also bought a Commodore 1048S Monitor, I also have a modern 19" Sony - which is better?
Do I do SCSI if so how?
If I wanted to go Ethernet, I assume the USB controller is best?
Do I got Workbench 3.1 [which I know] or go even more modern?
Er, think that is it for now! Thanks in advance, I wanna get some planning together while the A4000 is in bits in a box!

[save2600]

Quick and dirty:

You can only do 2MB Chip Ram max and 16mb Fast onboard + whatever your acclerator card allows.

Choice in monitors is yours, but since you have a Picasso, you're gonna want to use the 19" Sony. 1084 might be better for gaming depending on your preference.

Yes, most old PC IDE drives work fine with the IDE port built in.  

3.1 Kickstart and OS3.9 is what I'd be using on an 040 setup such as yours.

And yes, Deneb to do USB Ethernet among lots of other things would be ideal in your case.

Nice system!

[tone007]

The only issue you might run into with CD drives is many (especially older ones) are too deep to fit into the case without bumping into the power supply and sticking out.  I had a nice shorter Sony CD-RW drive that fit well, though.

SCSI isn't too important if you've already got IDE stuff.

[LordSpunky]

That 32MB FastRAM is on the Cyberstorm - so does that make a difference? There is one SIMM used....I assume this is the 2MB ChipRAM? New to this Big Amiga stuff!

[tone007]

Accelerator RAM is Fastram, and is the best performing RAM.  You could also additionally throw 16MB Fastram onto the motherboard, though.

[LordSpunky]

So I could slap some old PC 72 SIMM and see if they work and what they are?

Also, I have totally stripped the A4000 to sort out this battery leak, and I'm kinda thinking now is the time to change the 3.0 ROM for 3.1.

It is running OS3.0 on the HDD, if I change the ROM's does it all still just 'work' or do I need to installed WB3.1?

Cheers Chaps......much love ;p

 - I have looked on Amigakit and I am confused. I thought I could buy Amiga 4000 3.1 ROMs to run Workbench 3.1.
The Amiga Kit description, says:

Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips for the Amiga 4000T.  This can also be used on an Amiga 4000D with AmigaOS 3.9 or AmigaOS 3.5.

This pack contains genuine Amiga® manufactured v40.70 ROMs part number 391657-01 and v40.70 ROM part number 391658-01.
   
Supplied complete with illustrated installation instructions.

These are essential for AmigaOS 3.9 or AmigaOS 3.5.

That is all I can find!

[whiteb]

That 32MB FastRAM is on the Cyberstorm - so does that make a difference? There is one SIMM used....I assume this is the 2MB ChipRAM? New to this Big Amiga stuff!

Yes.  If there was *NO* simm, the machine would not boot.

The Simm sockets are hard coded to their size..

ChipRam will always be 2MB, even if you put in a 16MB simm, and the same goes for the Fastram sockets, each Simm can only use 4MB in each socket.  If you put 16MB simms in the sockets, only 16MB will be addressed.

Fastram on the Cyberstorm is *SUPER* fast compared to the Ram on the motherboard.  The slowest part of the A4000 Motherboard, is when one of the peripherals is transferring data, nothing else can..., which includes reading/writing to/from the ram.  The Cyberstorm does not take any such penalty, when the CPU reads/writes to the Ram, it has its own personal motorway to get the traffic down.  The only time data has to leave the Cyberstorm, is to go for Display, Custom chip access, and HDD (if you use the 4000 IDE).

Any time you put dedicated Ram on to a device, such as CPU expansion cards, it always helps the system.  I have 128MB of ram on my Cyberstorm MK II (060)..

[nicholas]

Accelerator RAM is Fastram, and is the best performing RAM.  You could also additionally throw 16MB Fastram onto the motherboard, though.

Dedicating it as a 16MB non-volatile RAD workbench partition is my plan.

[LordSpunky]

Ok....I think I understand, amyway to test old ram sizes? Or just put them in and see what happens?