I'm not sure if this is a hardware problem or software...

[icbrkr]

So, I'll pretend it's hardware right now  I got an A1200 some months back from a friend of mine (for free! ), it has a '030 upgrade in the trapdoor with 8MB of RAM on it.  I put in a new drive, installed Workbench 3.0 (I think), got it all up and going.  I installed Miami to connect to the net via dialup, installed MagicWB, and MUI.  I use Degrader, and Tude to boot into older games...

Everything was going fine and then...

The weirdest thing happens.  When I initially bootup, it only boots up with a 16 color palette.  If I go into the screen settings, I only have the option of switching to 16 colors max on my AGA machine.

Now it gets weirder...

If I go into the boot options (ie, hold both mouse buttons down), and then immediately exit without doing ANYTHING, it comes up in 256 colors.  If I warm boot or cold boot after that it drops back to 16 until I do the above process again.  Is it possible that there is some software doing this or am I missing something obvious?!

Any enlightenment would be great...

Brian

[Quixote]

:pint: Hello, Brian, and welcome to Amiga.org!
 
:-( As to your situation, nothing obvious springs to mind.
 
My first suspect would be Degrader, since it is able to do things like that. (sixteen colors was the maximum for high-res, OCS and ECS miggies.)  Also, there is an option in the early-startup menu to fall back to the OCS and ECS chipsets.
 
:-? Is there something in your WBStartup, or Startup-sequence or User-startup that calls Degrader, maybe?

[lorddef]

Sounds like it's a hardware problem, but I wouldn't know where to start to track it down.  Maybe its the roms, try reseating them.  Does your accelerator map the roms into its local memory ? try dissabling if it does, see what that does, does it still do it without the accelerator?

It is a weird problem.

[icbrkr]

uixote on 2003/6/22 20:50:16

 Hello, Brian, and welcome to Amiga.org!

Hey thanks

I checked the startup-sequence, and also to see if there was anything hiding in WBStartup, but I don't see anything.  I booted off a WB disk, and was able to get a 256 color palette.

But, there is still something odd...

It's been awhile since I used an Amiga (I had a 500/600/CDTV in the early 90s)... and when it's booting, the screen is "blank" (and black)  until the Workbench comes up ready to go... shouldn't I see some sort of outline of a WB window or something while it boots?

If so, I'll take the other suggestion and start reseating the accelerator and Kickstart chips.

Thanks for the suggestions..!

Brian

[Jaruzel]

It's been awhile since I used an Amiga (I had a 500/600/CDTV in the early 90s)... and when it's booting, the screen is "blank" (and black) until the Workbench comes up ready to go... shouldn't I see some sort of outline of a WB window or something while it boots?

Mine does this also, I noticed it after I upgraded the ROMs to 3.1, so I presumed it was that. If you have something in User-startup (or startup-sequence) that outputs text, then the CLI windows appears before WB loads (the way it used to).

-Jar.

[thorrin]

Quixote wrote:
 
My first suspect would be Degrader, since it is able to do things like that. (sixteen colors was the maximum for high-res, OCS and ECS miggies.)  Also, there is an option in the early-startup menu to fall back to the OCS and ECS chipsets.
 
:-? Is there something in your WBStartup, or Startup-sequence or User-startup that calls Degrader, maybe?

Yeah, this sounds like a software problem to me...

What happens if you boot without a startup sequence or boot from the floppies (if you have them)?  Its been a while since I used degrader, but I think it had a 'survive reboot' feature or something like that.  Maybe thats the problem?

-EDIT-  OK, I just read above that things work when you boot from a floppy...  Take a closer look at startup sequence, the startup drawer, and user-startup as well.

As far as the outline of the cli, what was stated above is correct.  You dont get this unless you are outputting text to the shell.

-Thorrin

[Lando]

I had this happen also  with an A1200 I had a couple of years ago - I couldn't get more than 16 colours, and it also only had 1MB Chip RAM.  Nothing I could do would fix it - even booting off floppy it was still the same.

[KennyR]

AGA is not activated by default on an Amiga, to stay compatible with old games. It is activated by SetPatch on bootup (or by using the bootmenu - maybe). Check if your Setpatch line in Startup-Sequence is ok, if Setpatch is in C:, and whether it is version 39+.

[xeron]

@Lando:

Are you *sure* it was an A1200? The 1Mb version was NEVER released! And did you try running setpatch?

[Lando]

xeron wrote:
@Lando:

Are you *sure* it was an A1200? The 1Mb version was NEVER released! And did you try running setpatch?

Yeah m8 I'm positive it was a 1200.  When I bought it, it was in one of those plastic infinitiv towers along with an Apollo 040 and a Micronik Z-II busboard.

 I couldnt get Workbench to display in more than 16 colours and only had 700k or so Chip RAM.  

So I stripped everything out of the tower and hooked the bare motherboard up to the TV with a floppy drive connected and it turned out it only had 1MB of chip RAM.  Setpatch was in my s-s, but booting from an original 3.1 wb floppy and opening a shell then typing avail said i only had 1048000 or so bytes chip ram (in total).  Booting without startup-sequence and then typing avail said the same thing.

I mentioned it to the guy I bought it from, and he said that he had never bothered about it because he always used the machine with a graphics card.  

So I either had a very rare ECS, 1MB A1200 or a not-so-rare "normal" 1200 with busted memory chips and gfx. :-D

[Matt_H]

Maybe a Commodore prototype? A 1Mb version was planned, even the released user manual mentions it. I think the 2Mb expansion was supposed to connect to the full gazillion pin clockport present only on earlier motherboards.

[lempkee]

chipmem chuncks only die 1 by 1 meg doesnt it??
did that to a machine i had....after that paula died...etc...

anyway the problem the main poster is talking about (brian) is a software problem.

brian: post us your s/startup-sequence and s/user-startup   here in the formum and i can tell u whats wrong.

or hopefully i can

[DanDude]

My first suspicious software utility is Degrader.  If you click on SurviveResets, then every time you reboot warm-start it remembers the last settings you used.  

I would NOT recommend clicking "SurviveResets" unless you tend to use your Amiga as a game machine all night long.  Always click on "SurviveReset" so on the next reboot it'll set up the enviroment and exit immediately.  Your reboot afterwards will return your Amiga back to normal.

If you're using static RAM, it can remember for a short while after you turn off your computer for a very short time.  Possibly, but not always, degrader settings can be retained and can be performed again.  If you keep it off for a minute, that'll wipe out RAM completely.

Hoep this helps...

DanDude
#AmIRC  mesra.dal.net
irc2.beyondirc.net

[BouncingAyatollah]

Like KennyR says AGA is only enabled by Setpatch. To run some AGA demos from "no startup" you have to run Setpatch first for the same reason.

Maybe something you installed has overwritten with a Setpatch from its archive, you need OS3.0+ Setpatch for AGA. Compare the versions of Setpatch on your HD with the one on the boot floppy that enables AGA OK, if the one on the floppy is later copy it to your HD.

[icbrkr]

by BouncingAyatollah on 2003/6/23 11:50:04

Like KennyR says AGA is only enabled by Setpatch. To run some AGA demos from "no startup" you have to run Setpatch first for the same reason.

Maybe something you installed has overwritten with a Setpatch from its archive, you need OS3.0+ Setpatch for AGA. Compare the versions of Setpatch on your HD with the one on the boot floppy that enables AGA OK, if the one on the floppy is later copy it to your HD.

This turned out to be absolutely correct!  I took a look at the SETPATCH date, and it was dated yesterday and was only 2.6K.  I copied the one from my WB 3.0 disk (7.6K) and voila!  Working machine again.  I guess this would explain why it worked when I went into the Boot Options screen.. at that point, "Best display" was selected so that's what it was booting in.

Thanks a lot guys!

Brian