A4000D a3640 prob.... help is needed.

[Raist]

Hi y'all

This is my first time to write to this forum (hello to all:-) ), reason to write is that i can't seem to get my a4000 work with a3640 card. On the other hand the problem might not be the a3640 card, cause some progs works fine, but the computer is very unstable:(

Sometimes when i power up, powerled blinks, and "yellow error code" appear, that caused bad chip ram, right? so it might be memory error? On the other hand, sometimes it works fine, you can use WB like nothing is wrong, and then it might reboot suddenly.

And one mysterious thing, when i boot directly to the WB, it doesn't show the memory right (in the "upper corner" of the WB), just some silly bs or nothing). But when i boot without boot-up sequence, it shows memory (chip and fast) just right, what's the point?

The motherboard is rev C and a3640 is rev 3.0 (upgraded 3.1), is there any issues with these revs?

Sorry my bad english...

[lopos]

Hi there,
have a look at this: A1200/A4000 Startup colours

I had a similar problem with my A4000D. It wouldn't boot with the A3640 at all. I had to replace an IC (U103) on the motherboard. Mine was a QS74FCT240 ATP and I repalced it with a 74FCT240. Works fine now.
Hope that will hel you.

[Raist]

Did you have memory errors that i'm having, or just boot up problems? It might be the power supply also, i should try to change it if i can find one?

[Tahoe]

Check your battery! On a rev B 4000 these tend to leak, if they do the acid can cut through traces around the clock circuitry but also memory traces of the SIMM sockets...

[lopos]

No, I didn't have any memory errors. It didn't boot at all. Just a flashing yellow screen.

[Raist]

Battery has been moved away from the motherboard, and the motherboard is in good condition. So there isn't any leaking.

[alexh]

Ok, so you have a 3.1 A3640 and a RevC motherboard eh?

Which version buster do you have? (It should be soldered down in a RevC :-()

What Zorro cards do you have?

Do you have the 040 library on your hard drive?

Answer these questions and I might be able to advise more.

[Raist]

Oh, i mean the a3640 is ver 3.0 (there was some way to upgrade it to ver 3.0, am i wrong?)

Buster is version 11

I haven't got(yet:-)) any Zorro-cards, actually the daughterboard isn't connected, cause i had to change jumpers and so on, so the zorro-card isn't it's place.

I have tried many different 040 libs, some are working fine, some ain't. But it's look like a more hardware prob to me.

[dnelsonfl]

Try plugging the daughterboard back in and boot up with it in there, and try with the 040 lib from the install disks of the OS version you're using.
-David

[Raist]

Ok, now i've done what you told and it works much better. It's been booting very nice, first time allways, without any power led blinks (for now).

How i can test that my daughterboard is working, without any zorro-cards? And another thing, WB is still showing the memory size wrong in normal (only characters and bizarre symbols or nothing). But if i boot without startup-sequence, and go to WB in that way, it shows the memory size correcly, why?

[Matt_H]

The 4000 (and presumably 3000 as well) will not work if the daughterboard isn't connected. Now that you've reattached it, I'd take that as a good sign that it's working. Besides, there are only 2 little chips on the whole daughterboard; the rest is just simple trace circuitry and resistors (which means it'd probably be quite difficult to break).

As to your garbled memory display, maybe a previous owner has/had an unusual font/locale set? There could also be a weird program in WBStartup or user-startup that's causing the problem. I'd suggest either checking through everything manually, or backing up and then performing a fresh install of the OS.

[Argus]

From my experience an A3000 w/o daughterboard yields a yellow screen on bootup (i.e. won't boot).  But you can boot an A4000 even w/o the daughtercard installed.  Has to do with the way the bus autoconfig differs on the A4000.  The daughtercards are not interchangeable and notice that you can't use the same 3rd party replacement daughterboards (including pci ones) for the A3000 and A4000 desktop models.  

You should check all the jumpers on the mainboard for the proper configuration for the A3640, which differs from the A3630 board setup in having its own clock.  The Rev.3 A3640s have a couple of hardware problems (i.e. you may not get it to work with every version of 68040.library or there may be hardware bus conflicts with your Superbuster chip, Rev.11 is best).