A1200 w. M-Tec 1230/28 acting up

[Retrograde]

Hi!

Been running a 1200 paired with an M-Tec 1230/28 w. 8mb RAM for a good week now, and it's been working fine, but today it started screwing up. Had a nice long WHDload session in the evening/afternoon, turned off the comp, then started it up again a couple hours later and now it just won't run stable for long.

The rig keeps resetting under load, wonder why... occasionally I also get a software failure (press left mouse to reboot, etc).

It was running Classic Workbench when I bought it, one of the heavier setups as far as I could tell (ADV or ADVSP w. Scalos, high colour icons and god knows what else), I tried to install LITE and at least I can run a few applets after boot, but anything heavier seems to cause a reset again. Reinstalled ADV and it gives me alot more trouble.

I am suspecting the expansion RAM, it looked a bit corroded so I cleaned it up, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. (I do recall seeing more RAM in Workbench now that I've reseated it a few times, but not 100% sure...)
Or could it be power supply... quirky in any case. Sadly the floppy is whacked so I just can't load a disk game and see how it behaves... dunno a good way to test the rig really.

Anyone seen this before, or something similar?
Some advice would be great.

[bbond007]

Hi!

Been running a 1200 paired with an M-Tec 1230/28 w. 8mb RAM for a good week now, and it's been working fine, but today it started screwing up. Had a nice long WHDload session in the evening/afternoon, turned off the comp, then started it up again a couple hours later and now it just won't run stable for long.

The rig keeps resetting under load, wonder why... occasionally I also get a software failure (press left mouse to reboot, etc).

It was running Classic Workbench when I bought it, one of the heavier setups as far as I could tell (ADV or ADVSP w. Scalos, high colour icons and god knows what else), I tried to install LITE and at least I can run a few applets after boot, but anything heavier seems to cause a reset again. Reinstalled ADV and it gives me alot more trouble.

I am suspecting the expansion RAM, it looked a bit corroded so I cleaned it up, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. (I do recall seeing more RAM in Workbench now that I've reseated it a few times, but not 100% sure...)
Or could it be power supply... quirky in any case. Sadly the floppy is whacked so I just can't load a disk game and see how it behaves... dunno a good way to test the rig really.

Anyone seen this before, or something similar?
Some advice would be great.

Try to look at the guru messages when they eventually pop up. like I have (or had - just sent back for rma)  a Typhoon 030/40 that continuously got GURU. #8000000D "Coprocessor Protocol Violation".

[Retrograde]

Error: 8000 0004 seems to be common (didn't note adress).

Been screwing around in WB for the last 15 mins w/o acc. board, so far nothing has happened, guessing it could be tied to it.

Headin to bed though, more testing tomorrow or sunday. :hammer:

[Retrograde]

Well, getting a few of those 0000 0004 errors, also 0000 01cf, as soon as I'm trying to do something intensive like unpacking large archives or running larger WHDload games, DOpus doesn't seem happy either. The errors consistently seem to refer to high RAM (over 2MB). Did another few hours of testings, machine seems to run stable and fine without turbo board, just doing generic tasks aswell as (small) WHDload games.

Must be turbo board memory or the board itself that's failing then. =/

Seems I have to go ahead and source a new one and/or new machine.

[johnklos]

You should be able to get an 8 meg SIMM for next to nothing these days so you could see if it's the memory.

Another thing to try is to clean the contacts on the motherboard where the accelerator connects, plus try cleaning the power supply connection (unplugging and replugging a dozen times or so should scrape off anything on the metal). If you have a multimeter, check the voltages from the floppy power connector to see if either is lower than it should be.

[rkauer]

I bet good money on a under-powered power supply brick and/or bad capacitors on the motherboard.

[Retrograde]

I bet good money on a under-powered power supply brick and/or bad capacitors on the motherboard.

Might well be so, I've looked at the one supplied and saw it's for A600(!), so I ran it off the A500+ PSU insted which is somewhat better, but still not a powerhorse exactly.

I'm in the process of buying another machine with a hopefully good brick, then I can take my time to play with this one.

[Argus]

Like rkauer said, look for bad caps on the motherboard.  They are fairly easy to replace and you can usually spot the ones that leak because the solder pads beneath are slightly oxidized.  I have a finicky A1200 with an Apollo board that exhibits similar symptoms.  Sometimes it runs fine, then gurus constantly.  I shut it off, power on again and it may work for a while before guruing.  I also noticed problems with the amount of fast RAM recognized; tried different simms but the same gurus kept happening.  I'm probably going to eventually just replace all the caps on the board as they are all over 15 years old now.

[Retrograde]

(Gonna shamelessly zombie resurrect this thread a year later!)

Got my hands on a beefier PSU and tested things again, also I scored a bunch of cheap RAM sticks so I could try with several different ones, so it doesn't seem to be the RAM (it behaves the same regardless of which stick I use).

Thing is with the new power it runs better, still crashes on some boots but after the third try I could run it for a good hour and half. Though trying different games ended up with one not starting properly, taking me back to WB and throwing an error, another one actually ended up rebooting the machine.

With the plain 8MB RAM expansion board things seem very solid.

Of course the aging caps could still be a weak point and affecting stability etc, but I'm hoping I ruled out bad power feed problem now.

I'll have to scrutinize the mainboard one day and see if I can find any problems, possible one day I'll be decent enough at soldering (and have a more suitable iron) to at least get rid of the worst offenders and mount something else instead.

/blog off  :pint: