Problem fitting kickstart 3.1 rom's in A3000

[drbytes]

Hi everyone - (my first time on this board...)

Recently i got hold af an A3000 on ebay and i also bought a set of A3000 Kickstart 3.1 Rom's. I fitted the rom's but now the A3000 will no longer boot.

I tried fiddling with the rom timing jumpers and the A2000 rom compatibility jumpers but all seems to make no difference. Also i tried swapping the rom chips (read something about false layout printed on the board) but the Amiga refuses to boot :-?  :-?

My A3000 is a Rev 7.3 with 16Mhz CPU, 2mb chip and 12 or 16mb fastram (i forgot the exact amount). Also it is fitted with a Rom Tower (on which i replaced the bootroms with kick3.1)

I refitted the old chips and the Amiga continues to boot and work like before so the the A3000 is still allright.

Perhaps i forgot something and i was wondering if any of you guys could point me in the right direction to make my amiga work with the 3.1 rom's :idea:

Thanks,

Tom

[Tahoe]

Welcome Tom!
Sorry, no experience fitting the ROM's myself, my A3000 came with Kick 3.1 installed.

[mechy]

Tom,
    it sound like you either have bad roms,or maybe you have roms for an A4000?  can you post the part #'s on the chips?
did you buy them new or used?
as long as you have the rom tower,they should work fine as a exact replacement to my knowledge.

Mike

[TjLaZer]

Try swapping the roms around, there was a problem with that on some units.  Do you have a ROM tower A3000 or not?

[drbytes]

Ok, some extra info can maybe help:

There is no part-no on the chips but they are clearly A3000 rom's. I bought them on e-bay and i can see the chips have been installed before so i think they are used. The chips are actualy eproms with the following information on them:

[color=0000ff]
Kickstart 40.68
Amiga 3000-0  U181     (other chip: Amiga 3000-1  U180)
(c) 83-94 Commodore
All Rights Reserved
[/color]

And yes i have the Rom-Tower in my A3000 and i fitted the chips on them exactly like the original one's and i also tried swapping them but that makes no difference at all

Perhaps i can try to fit them into my A4000 to see if anything happens... :-?

Tom

[alexh]

There are lots of strange things regarding A3000 ROMS.

Whatever you do, do NOT try the ROM's in the wrong orientation, you could destroy your A3000.

What you could try is swapping the chips over (in the correct orientation) sometimes the silk screen on the ROM tower is bad. (Ah I see you have already tried that)

You could try them without the ROM TOWER. Some ROM chips for the A3000 eliminate the need for a ROM TOWER, these go in the REAR set of ROM sockets.

[drbytes]

Thanks for your info Alexh. I was already thinking about installing the rom chips without the rom-tower but i was not sure about the posibility of damaging the A3000.

The strange thing is however (and this has also kept me from trying this) that the rom chips state U180 and U181, just like the description on the rom-Tower but If i remove the tower and install the chips in the REAR sockets (The sockets where the rom-tower was installed) i would install them in socket U182 and U183 while the FRONT sockets are U180 and U181...

Anyway, i'll try it anyway since i think it is my last solution before declaring the rom's defective...

I'll post my findings here after i tried.

[Tahoe]

My A3000 (Rev 9.02) has the 3.1 ROM's installed in the FRONT 2 slots!

[drbytes]

OK, I just tried the 3.1 rom's WITHOUT the rom-tower.

REAR sockets: Nothing happens
REAR sockets (swapped 3.1 roms): Nothing happens
Front sockets: Nothing happens
Front sockets (swapped 3.1 roms): Nothing happens

So now i think my Rom's are bad. Does anyone know if i could test the roms in an A4000 or A1200 to see if there is anything of a bootup phase? (I know IDE will be failing but perhaps i can see somthing on the screen).

Thanks,

Tom

[Chain]

A) 7.1 need a rom tower?

B) Silkscreens ROM 0 and ROM 1 are BAD! Roms must be reversely fitted.

[Tahoe]

So now i think my Rom's are bad. Does anyone know if i could test the roms in an A4000 or A1200 to see if there is anything of a bootup phase?

PM me if you want to try them in one of my A3000's (Amsterdam)

[melott]

@DRBYTES

Sorry to have to say this but it sounds like a
bad burn job on your roms (EProms) or they were
corrupted somehow.
You have done everything you can and they still
don't work.
Where did you buy them, were they shipped across
country borders ?
They may have been subjected to a magnet or UV
light which would probably corrupt or even wipe them.


 :boohoo:

[drbytes]

Where did you buy them, were they shipped across
country borders ?
They may have been subjected to a magnet or UV
light which would probably corrupt or even wipe them.

I bought them from someone in Belgium, our south neighbouring country so they were shipped across borders but it is realy close by and all within Europe but i'm pretty sure nothing happened to them in transport to me. However today I did contact the person I bought them from and he also bougth them from someone else again and did not test the rom's himself. He told me that the rom's should be ok since that was wat he was told when he bought them.

Anyway i'm pretty sure they don't work at this moment so I will look for a new set of working A3000 V3.1 Roms.

So if someone hase a spare set of A3000 V3.1 Roms then i would be interested...

[amigagr]

so why don't you order them from an online shop (amigakit for example) as i did three days ago for my ''new'' ak3?
at least from the shop you will have some kind of safety.

[dnelsonfl]

@drbytes,

What version were the original ROMs on the A3000?

Try reading some of the archived newsgroup messages about rom problems. Some of the solutions might work out for you. (link).

I vaguely remember reading about occasional compatibility problems with rom towers and 3.1 roms. The solution was to try a different set of 3.1 roms. I'm on my way out right now and I couldn't find the original links regarding this issue. Perhaps I've jolted somebody else's memory and they can step up?

Edit: From reading, it looks like there might have been two different versions of the 3.1 ROM out there. One set was for systems without a rom tower (such as rev 9 motherboard). You could also use it with a rom tower on an older motherboard, if it worked for you. If it did not work, then you had to get the special version that was for systems with a rom tower. Except, you didn't use the rom tower. The roms were programmed differently to compensate for what the rom tower did. I also read some issues with getting them to work with 16mhz, and some issues getting them to work at 25mhz.

At this point, your best bet is to contact a reliable Amiga vendor such as AmigaKit or SoftHut (or others, but those are the only two I remember). Explain to them your problem, and see what rom kit they recommend. That way you are sure to get what you need, and some assistance if you run into further problems.

Good luck!

-David