A1200 crashes

[6]

My C= A1200DHD, Vesalia 1260/60/66 megs RAM, WB3.9, six gig HD with five partitions, pcmcia/cable modem connection and ff/sd has been crashing, freezing up and refusing to reboot for 15 minutes or more.

Sometimes it crashes if I launch Genesis and then IBrowse2.4, but not if IB launched first.  It has been crashing a lot during Beneath a Steel Sky HD play.

When it crashes or freezes or a warm reboot is attempted the power light begins to strobe - bright-dim-bright-dim... and every 10-15 seconds the hd light flashes on for a half second.  Then I turn it off and wait.

I thought I had the answer last night - a stronger power supply.  I replaced the A500 PSU with a Bigfoot but the problem persists.  It is the only source of power for the A1200 and add-ons.

There is no CD drive, but it is ready to to install a squirrel scsi card after rearranging some devs files.  I would hate to have to reinstall 3.9, but if it helps...

I recently tried to install MagicWorkBench but don't care for them that much.  I hear that 3.9 must be reinstalled to rid me of it.  Why did I have to install MWB to find that in the help files?  Would reinstallation help my crash/freeze problems?  Help.

I cannot currently think of more to say, so shower me,
O Wise Guys of Amiga, with some wisdom, please. As always, thanks in advance.

be seeing you
6

[AmigaMance]

Download the MCP package from Aminet and install just the mcpramlibpatch in your startup-sequence.
 You can also try to install blizkick with its romfixes module, (you could try SystemPatch too) although i don't think that this will help with OS3.9 .
 Try a newer/different version of the 68060.library.
 If all these doesn't help, open your Amiga and clean it up.

[Brian]

I'd go for removing the CPU card since these problems you're describing sounds a lot like CPU or memory issues to me.

If it works without CPU card then next is replacing the simm since it's the cheapest option. Also if the 060 doesn't have any cooling option (heatsing or better yet heatsink with fan) then add one cause 1260/60 are usually overclocked 50mhz models and they do get hot. Next would be to try the card in a different not expanded A1200 to see if it might be power/compability error and if that's not the case go for yet another different simm (again cheaper option) and if still nogo replace the CPU.

If removing the CPU card doesn't do it for you then I'm a bit lost... I'd go for removing as much addons as possible (even HDD). Boot of a floppy and see if it still crashes after a set period of time.

[DrDekker]

I don't know anything about your particular accelerator - but I'd suspect the memory's at fault.

Try re-seating the RAM module(s).  If there's no improvement, then try different RAM modules.  If still no joy, then try removing as much of the hardware add-ons as possible and reboot.  If all's ok, then install the add-ons one at a time until it fails. Hopefully this will identify what hardware, driver, or WHY that's causing the problem.

Be seeing you number six.

 

[AmigaMance]

 Oh.. I forgot to mention what could be the most probable cause of the random crashes as you describe them: Some A1200 motherboards have "timing problems" with 68040 and 68060 equipped boards.
 If you search this forum with the right keywords, you will find which motherboards are affected by this problem and how to correct it.

[6]

reply to all.  I removed "Magic Server"  from my WBstartup drawer because I got msgs about a Mu utility, MuForce4K I think, which were new.  I do not remember putting that in WBstartup.  Whatever MagicServer did, undoing it worked wonders.

Thanks everyone.
6