AmigaKit Zorro-3 256MB BigRAM card "defective" red error screen

[arongooch]

I recently received a BigRAM 256MB card from AmigaKit to work in my desktop A4000 machine. I have followed the install instructions very closely and used the correct anti-static install precautions and measures also with grounded wrist-strap. Unfortunately on system boot up I get a red error screen saying this particular card is "defective".

I have tried the card solo without other cards installed, in all 4 different positions on the daughterboard to no avail. Further more to this my other cards that I have being the Prisma card & X-Surf-100 card all perform perfectly and in any of the four daughterboard slots.

I have Superbuster 11 on the motherboard, ROM 3.1 and WB 3.1 installed. I am also fairly sure all connectors on the daughterboard, and where the daughterboard plug into the mainboard, are all clean and properly aligned etc.

I have tried several times to remove and insert the card now and in many different daughterboard slots but every single time I get the red error screen saying this board is "defective".

Any help from the Amiga community would be greatly appreciated on this one.

[Acill]

I just have to ask so your sure, but have you checked to be sure its in the right direction? Do you have a Mediator or anything? They are picky on non original buss boards.

If you're sure you should be able to contact AmigaKit and they will take care of you.

[Bennymee]

Did you give it a try by removing all the memory on the mainboard ?

[arongooch]

To confirm, the card is most definitely inserted the correct way and located correctly in the front case card holder groove. As far as I am aware the card cannot be inserted incorrectly. I have checked online photo's of other peoples rigs to confirm this also.

I have no mediator or anything like that. I have been in contact with AmigaKit and waiting to hear back from them. Thought I would check this forum in the meantime in case anything else can be thought of.

I thought about removing the Fast RAM from the motherboard too but haven't done so yet. Is this necessary? Nothing in the install instructions seem to suggest so but I could certainly give it a try.

[Acill]

To confirm, the card is most definitely inserted the correct way and located correctly in the front case card holder groove. As far as I am aware the card cannot be inserted incorrectly. I have checked online photo's of other peoples rigs to confirm this also.

I have no mediator or anything like that. I have been in contact with AmigaKit and waiting to hear back from them. Thought I would check this forum in the meantime in case anything else can be thought of.

I thought about removing the Fast RAM from the motherboard too but haven't done so yet. Is this necessary? Nothing in the install instructions seem to suggest so but I could certainly give it a try.

No you dont have to remove the motherboard fast ram. I have one in my 4000D as well and left all RAM in place.

[arongooch]

I tried it anyway without the Fast RAM SIMMs installed and still not working, same red error screen saying the card is defective.

I also went over all connectors and re-cleaned them all and reseated everything and tried the card in all different slots and still made no difference.

I had a thought and probably should of mentioned this earlier but didn't think about it at the time, I have an overclocked 3640 processor card to 33MHz. I had a very strange issue with this overclock mod because a reroute is required from the clock delay module on the card but I could never get the machine to boot with the reroute. I ended up getting the machine to work with a very small length jumper wire that reverts it back to the stock configuration and assume the small wire is adding a very tiny delay enough for everything to work. I have seen no other problems and the machine is extremely stable and like I mention, my other cards work in the Zorro slots with no issue. Could this be causing an issue with the BigRAM card? I could revert back to a stock 25MHz and try that but my oscillator is soldered direct to the cpu card and would be a bit of a pain to swap over. I should of used an IC socket but didn't have any at the time and was feeling lazy.

[Acill]

I tried it anyway without the Fast RAM SIMMs installed and still not working, same red error screen saying the card is defective.

I also went over all connectors and re-cleaned them all and reseated everything and tried the card in all different slots and still made no difference.

I had a thought and probably should of mentioned this earlier but didn't think about it at the time, I have an overclocked 3640 processor card to 33MHz. I had a very strange issue with this overclock mod because a reroute is required from the clock delay module on the card but I could never get the machine to boot with the reroute. I ended up getting the machine to work with a very small length jumper wire that reverts it back to the stock configuration and assume the small wire is adding a very tiny delay enough for everything to work. I have seen no other problems and the machine is extremely stable and like I mention, my other cards work in the Zorro slots with no issue. Could this be causing an issue with the BigRAM card? I could revert back to a stock 25MHz and try that but my oscillator is soldered direct to the cpu card and would be a bit of a pain to swap over. I should of used an IC socket but didn't have any at the time and was feeling lazy.

Thats a very popular mod and shouldnt matter. I usualy do it to the 3640's I recap and leave them at stock speeds. I've found it makes them more stable usually. Is your 3640 a recap or still original? Can you post a pic of the top side?

[arongooch]

Will try to get a picture real soon of the top side of the 3640 board.

I recaped the processor board and making sure to get the 3 wrong polarity caps the right way around. They all measure perfect polarity.

I put the original oscillator in back to 25MHz now and the systems boots perfectly without and Zorro cards installed. When I put the BigRAM card in it most times sits there at a black screen on boot up but with multiple resets I eventually get the red error defective card screen and can continue to boot to WB where every runs as normal alas without the BigRAM working.

This machine definitely seems to have a problem though because at stock 25MHz speed I now cannot get my Xsurf network card or Prisma card to work at all now. When running anything that attempts to use the network card or prismaplay function they all crash with an 80000004 error. This is so weird.

Do appreciate the help there Acill as well. Cheers.

[arongooch]

Hopefully this photo attachment works of the 3640 processor card top view.

[Acill]

Well its been capped properly so I dont think that is the issue. The timing fix also looks okay.

Sorry, I cant offer more help, I think you may have just got a bad card.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Hopefully this photo attachment works of the 3640 processor card top view.

Out of idle curiosity, could you post a picture of the table the card is sitting on in this photo?  Good luck getting it working!