A question for any OS 4.0 Classic users on 604e's.....NOT Blizzard 603e's

[Kin-Hell]

Still not sure whats going on here...I need more time!

[AMC258]

Sorry to jump in so late, but,

I know a guy who won't post here, he has an A3000 with CSPPC, 604@233.  He is having the exact same issues with networking.  I am not.  I have an A3000 with CSPPC, 604@200.  I cannot duplicate his/your problem no matter what.

In case you didn't read my other thread, I have 70ns SIMMs.  I made sure the setting was 70ns before installing OS4.  After installing, OS4 was very crash-happy.  For no good reason, I switched my setting to 60ns, and OS4 has been very stable ever since!

[amiga4001]

I am using an amiga4000D with a csppc and mediator setup to (voodoo3 rtl8029) VArio IO card Spider USB PCI soundcard run OS4.
I made a bracket to push down the ppc chip a bit to get it booting this works fine now.
Ibrowse also crashed on me but when I changed the cache folder to ram: to try it is stable now.
It would randomly crash before I changed this setting.
It is rocksolid now.
But must change afew things though:
Scsi harddisk with OS4 still set to Asynchron and so is the yamaha scsi cdrw.
Yamaha cdrw is a bit flaky(ols age?) so gonna change that to ide harddisk.
Using the yamaha to be able to copy cd's with makecd..if that works with os4.
Also printed with the VArio with a HP lasetjet4 works great and fast!

[Oli_hd]

Hmm. I just can NOT get my A4KT to go online without locking up. Well...I did once & googled "hello" to proove I was on line. Then, after shutting down & rebooting & dragging the Voodoo Monitor to Devs/Monitors, the Miggy locks up when launching IBrowse.

I think its safe to say that everyone is having trouble of some sort with OS4, I know I am.

The thing that gets me is "not compatiable" hardware means the system wont boot with it in, Im dual booting between 3.9 and 4 at the moment (95% 3.9 5% 4) and loosing my Fastlane is a real pain (I used it for connecting my external DAT drive and Zip drive as well as for the extra 64meg of memory, and dont have a go at the speed, its faster than the motherboard ram) but with it installed OS4 just wont boot.

For some reason you cant have an empty Prometheus installed (Im waiting for a 90 degree slot adaptor to arrive) because it panics with the OS4 kickstart (the power light flashes and then resets then flashes etc)

My IOBlix ethernet card (add-on to the normal ioblix) works 100% of the time under 3.9 and lower but 4.0 it will stay on for a short time and then crash the TCP/IP program which in turn locks all the internet programs up solid.

For some reason I just cant get the OS4 USB stack to see the Thylacine even though the same OS4 stack in 68K code works just fine. (in 3.9) So no USB on the OS4 side even though I have the card.

you get asked if you want to overwrite Font files @ around 7% completion of the install process.

I got that too, but overall the installation process was fast so mehh.

So yeah Im thinking of uninstalling OS4 for a while, see if things get better later but mehh, compatiablilty is a must for the OS yet they seem to come back with "well the original software wasnt designed right and thats the problem" well sorry, if it works from 3.0-3.9 and 4.0 is the only one not working then its OS4's fault.



Oh one note, excluding when connected to the network Ive found OS4 to be stable although thats only running mplayer and dvplayer, specially designed for OS4.

[Framiga]

@Kin-Hell

i've tryed to understand what system are having trouble with, without success.

Have you problems going online with the XSurf? or ...

[Kin-Hell]

Framiga wrote:
@Kin-Hell

i've tryed to understand what system are having trouble with, without success.

Have you problems going online with the XSurf? or ...

It's an A4Kt with PicassoIV, Mediator, Voodoo 5500 & 8139 Realtek NIC along with Spider II USB. Cant get the USB to work Either!

@ Everyone else

Thanks for the feedback so far folks. I have a 200Mhz PPC card as well as 2 x 233 PPC cards & I have no sucess with OS4 & the Mediator on any of them! OS3.9 is fine.

Waiting for an 8029 NIC to arrive & try 10Mbit, though I might as well use the X-Surf as bother! :-?

[Hans_]

Oli_hd wrote:

So yeah Im thinking of uninstalling OS4 for a while, see if things get better later but mehh, compatiablilty is a must for the OS yet they seem to come back with "well the original software wasnt designed right and thats the problem" well sorry, if it works from 3.0-3.9 and 4.0 is the only one not working then its OS4's fault.

I can't comment on the hardware issues, as I don't have the classic version, but which programs aren't working? You can try adding them to the blacklist in the compatibility prefs. That switches off the 68k JIT for that app. I'd assume that apps that access the AGA chipset directly would still work, given that the actual hardware is srill there on the classic.

However, if the program does something naughty like attempt to read/write from the zero page, unallocated memory, or overwrite code, OS4 will stop it and bring up the grim-reaper. Also programs that do things like peek at memory before an AllocVec() to get the size won't work, because this was illegal in the first place, even though it happened to work. Even Commodore said that these programs would break in the next major OS update. These kind of programs would continue to run on OS3.x, and only cause a failure intermittently. Stopping these apps makes the system itself more stable.

BTW, you might want to check out glUAE (also on os4depot). It will allow you to use UAE to run programs that don't work. It's not ideal, but it works. I'm still waiting for someone to integrate OS4's 68k JIT with E-UAE. Hopefully that will be done at some stage.

Hans

[Hans_]

@Kin-Hell

I don't have a classic OS4 setup so I can't help too much, but I do have OS4 on an A-one.

Let's see if I have this right: you installed OS4 ok, but have networking troubles causing lockups, after which OS4 won't startup properly. Is this about right?

I'd suggest trying the following:
In s:startup-sequence, change this line:
C:AddNetInterface QUIET DEVS:NetInterfaces/~(#?.info)
to
Run >NIL: C:AddNetInterface QUIET DEVS:NetInterfaces/~(#?.info)

The original line will wait until your ethernet card is connected, has an IP address, etc. If you're ethernet driver is not working properly, this can cause it to stop at this point. Adding run means that the startup will continue, even if you can't get connected (unless the machine really freezes).

I'm guessing, that the driver and your ethernet card aren't working together properly. Not being able to startup after IBrowse locks up suggests that the ethernet card ends up in some unknown state and doesn't get reset properly. This would cause addnetinterfaces to just sit there.

BTW, what ethernet card are you using? Your sig only mentions 10/100 ethernet. Hopefully you're not the only one with that card.

I know that this is frustrating, but, with the number of different cards in use on classic Amigas, supporting all of them is a huge undertaking. They're planning to release an update that fixes at least the graphics issues and Mediator LT (or whatever sub-model) problems later this month.

Hans

[Cass]

@Kin-Hell
Copy any eth drivers to OS4:Devs/Networks ;-)

[Kin-Hell]

Cass wrote:
@Kin-Hell
Copy any eth drivers to OS4:Devs/Networks ;-)

Er.....! Which ones, - Iv'e tried just about everything possible.......

Mediator Drivers Installed; Mediator Drivers Not installed; FastEthernet to Devs:Networks; MediatorNet to Devs:Networks; OpenPCI_8139.device to Devs:Networks; Ver 2.1 OpenPci.Library to Sys:Libs; Copied OpenPCI folder to Env:; Even tried an OpenPci.Library from OS4 Depot.

To try the X-Surf, I need to remove the Mediator board from the A4KT, otherwise, when using a Z3 Riser to clear the PCI slots, the X-surf's RJ45 Port is half blanked out by the back of the Case.  :roll:  

I can not be arsed to try anyomore.

OS4 for classic Amigas....LOL... What a load of Pi$$!

[Framiga]

maybe going to SYS:Prefs/Internet> Interfaces (double click onto your NIC interface) and tell to the system what driver/device you want use, it could help!

[Kin-Hell]

Hans_ wrote:
@Kin-Hell

BTW, what ethernet card are you using? Your sig only mentions 10/100 ethernet. Hopefully you're not the only one with that card.

I know that this is frustrating, but, with the number of different cards in use on classic Amigas, supporting all of them is a huge undertaking. They're planning to release an update that fixes at least the graphics issues and Mediator LT (or whatever sub-model) problems later this month.

Hans

I said it was the 8139 Chipset just before your first post above Hans.

It's quite obvious the drivers arn't working correctly because the Miggy locks up everytime I point it to any of the drivers I install. At this point, rebooting the Miggy results in NOTHING, so in order to boot again, I boot with No Startup-sequence, loadWB & close the shell. Then I open Prefs:Networks & Delete the Entry the Wizard tried to set up in the first place. OS4 will then boot.
This is so pathetic, even when trying to use OpenPci.library 2.1 & pointing the Network Wizard to OpenPci_8139.device in Devs:Networks, it tells me it can not use OpenPci v2.x?

Not much point trying your Startup-sequence mod. The card cant find it's own Ass, never mind an IP address over @ my Router!

Time for some more Jack Daniels & time to kick this crap into touch!

[Kin-Hell]

Framiga wrote:
maybe going to SYS:Prefs/Internet> Interfaces (double click onto your NIC interface) and tell to the system what driver/device you want use, it could help!

Only to get the Miggy Booting again after it fk's itself up!  ;-)

[Hans_]

Kin-Hell wrote:
Not much point trying your Startup-sequence mod. The card cant find it's own Ass, never mind an IP address over @ my Router!

The startup-sequence modification should enable you to bootup to workbench despite the ethernet driver issue.

I've just looked at the OS4 classic compatibility list, and it lists the 8139 card as unsupported because it requires the Mediator DMA hack. So there's your problem; you're trying to use a card that is known not to work.

If you haven't done so already, you could try installing the 68k Mediator drivers, but you'll have to do that for absolutely every card plugged into your Mediator board. The OS4 native and classic Mediator drivers can't coexist.

Failing that, bug Elbox to write OS4 drivers that use the graphics-card DMA hack.

Hans

EDIT: I wish that we'd thought to look the card up in the compatibility list earlier as it would have saved so much time and frustration.

[Kin-Hell]

Hans_ wrote:

Kin-Hell wrote:
Not much point trying your Startup-sequence mod. The card cant find it's own Ass, never mind an IP address over @ my Router!

The startup-sequence modification should enable you to bootup to workbench despite the ethernet driver issue.

I've just looked at the OS4 classic compatibility list, and it lists the 8139 card as unsupported because it requires the Mediator DMA hack. So there's your problem; you're trying to use a card that is known not to work.

If you haven't done so already, you could try installing the 68k Mediator drivers, but you'll have to do that for absolutely every card plugged into your Mediator board. The OS4 native and classic Mediator drivers can't coexist.

Failing that, bug Elbox to write OS4 drivers that use the graphics-card DMA hack.

Hans

EDIT: I wish that we'd thought to look the card up in the compatibility list earlier as it would have saved so much time and frustration.

Yeah Hans... I'm not frustrated in the slightest. Not even about spending £60 on an OS that isn't as useable as Linux.
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

I'm using the Mediator 3.10 drivers under OS3.9 with the 8139 card. I am not running a DMA hack as far as I am aware.

Do you have any info about this hack please? The usual searches returned ziltch!

It's quite funny thinking back to when these cards were first released. The PPC chip was suppose to be doing things much much faster whilst running the Native Amiga OS. Here we are now with the PPC running an OS that cant do anything with 68K programs. The Amiga, back in it's hey day could Emulate EVERY platform available.

The Irony of it all. :roll:

[Hans_]

Kin-Hell wrote:
I'm using the Mediator 3.10 drivers under OS3.9 with the 8139 card. I am not running a DMA hack as far as I am aware.

Do you have any info about this hack please? The usual searches returned ziltch!

You are actually using the DMA hack because it's used by Elbox's Mediator drivers. I can't think of any good resources that explain what happens. Basically, the Mediator board can't DMA to main memory (I can't remember why). So what it does is it reserves some memory on your PCI graphics-card and uses PCI bus-mastering to DMA to memory of the PCI graphics-card. From there it can be copied to main memory. This is a hack as it's working around hardware limitations that prevent it from doing direct DMA. It also requires that you have a graphics-card present.

This means that every card that requires DMA in order to work requires special Mediator board code that differs from the driver used by other systems (e.g., the AmigaOne, whose north-bridge supports DMA to main memory). Basically, this would mean that every PCI card that uses DMA would need two drivers, one for PCI northbridges that support DMA, and a special one specifically for the Mediator boards. It's not a minor change to the drivers.

Hopefully Elbox will support their products and release OS4 versions of their drivers. In the mean time, I've been told that you can use the 68K Mediator drivers you use under OS3.9 on OS4 too, but you have to change ALL your PCI drivers to the 68K Mediator ones. You cannot mix the OS4 native and Mediator drivers. Alternatively, you could look for an 8029 card, which does work (and a bugfix for the driver is coming).

Hans