networking card... which way to go

[magnetic]

1.  Ariandne - (not the Ariandne II) this is the fastest performing zorro solution.  Very nice card.

I think the best/fastest card is the ultra rare Commodore A4066 network card. Great buffers for send/receive

[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

[magnetic]

I wouldnt use BB4 if I were you....

[Darrin]

I seem to recall having this issue when I first plugged a Radeon into my Mediator.  IIRC I had set a jumper on my Mediator board wrong.

I'll dig through the emails I received from Elbox and see if I can find the solution...

[Darrin]

OK, found the correct emails.  Remember, this was for the 256MB Radeon card, but the principle should be similar.

In short, they told me to do the following (and this seems to be what you did):



#1:  Install the Picasso96 graphic system following its documentation.  Choose Cybervison 64 3D as the graphic card.  

(I installed P96 2.1c package)

#2:  After the Picasso96 installation, start Picasso96 installation once again and choose the "Update an installed version".  Select only "Monitorsettings" and choose the frequency supported by your monitor.  

#3:  After successful installation you need to:
 
a:  Find the CVision3D and CVision3D.info in the DEVS:Monitor drawer, rename these files to Radeon and Radeon.info  respectively.

b:  Change in the tool type window of Radeon.icon:
     BOARDTYPE = from CVision3D to Radeon.

c:  Copy the enclosed Radeon.card driver to the Libs:Picasso96 drawer.  

(I copied the one from the 1.33 package)

d:  Double click on the Radeon icon (in Devs:Monitors drawer).

e:  Start the Picasso96Mode program (in SYS:Prefs drawer) and select:
    Attach setting to Board0: Radeon.
    Exit Picasso96Mode by SAVE.

This is where my setup failed and I got "NO BOARD" reported, which seems to be the same problem you have.

I then used the MedConfig program to dump an error log, emailed it to them and they sent this back:

Thank you for the MedConfig report.
You have not updated drivers (running quick install script) from MM CD 1.33.

Copy
http://elbox.com/download/newest/pci.library to Libs:
http://elbox.com/download/newest/Radeon.card to Libs:Picasso96
http://elbox.com/download/newest/sb128.audio to Devs:AHI
and all should start to work.

It seemed that the old installer wasn't putting the new files where it should.  After manually copying them I got the Radeon to show up in P96.

However, the card still didn't work, but they also spotted this:

Your Radeon card cannot work because you have wrongly setting of the WINSIZE jumper on the Mediator Core Logic board.
This jumper has to be closed (set to 512 MB, not 256 MB).

Change it and your Radeon will start working with pci.libarry 8.1 and with 9.0 (with added memory).

So, make sure you change the tooltype for the monitor icon (4b), try manually copying the correct files for your card into the various folders mentioned (libs:  &  Libs:Picasso98) and finally try playing with the WINSIZE jumper.

[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

[Darrin]

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

I bought my Mediator off eBay, so to be honest I have no documentation on the jumpers.

I also never saw the card initially, but then it appeared after I did the first set of things above.

Personally, I got my Mediator up and running after installing the OS3.9 version of ClassicWB, adding the Internet stuff of the OS3.9 CD and applying BB1 & BB2.

[Darrin]

Here's another idea for you.  While I was waiting for my Radeon to arrive, I put in a "no-brand" ViRGE 1MB garphics card pulled from an old Pentium 1 PC.  I followed the instructions for installing the ViRGE and it worked fine.  I also tried another "no-name" ViRGE card and it worked with no tinkering.  If you have one of these relics lying around then it might at least show that the Mediator is working OK.