A3000 Hardware Test Program Needed

[98PaceCar]

Hi All,

In my quest to rebuild the used A3000 I just picked up, I've been doing a lot of general playing around. Nothing major, just installing small apps and seeing what I remember. The only real problem I'm having right now is a rash of Guru errors. Normally I would blame them on the software, but they are very inconsistant. Sometimes I'll just be typing in a shell or clicking on an icon in the WB. About an hour ago the machine wouldn't boot from it's HD and the caps lock key would just flash if I booted from floppy. Didn't change anything, just left it off for a bit and it came back up. The errors I'm getting are typically 8000 000x (seeing a lot of 4 and 5 errors in particular).

Is there any software I can get that will let me check out the hardware thoroughly? The system is an A3000 desktop with 2 mb chip, 8 mb fast, 2.1 gb hd, external scsi cdrom, xsurf 2, running 2.04 roms with wb 2.1, and ASIMCDFS. I've run disk salv on the hd and no errors were reported (even though the system has complained about bad sectors a time or two). The hard drive is terminated as use power from drive and the cdrom has an active external terminator on it.

I'm starting to get a bit frustrated with the inconsistencies I'm seeing and any help will be much appreciated. I've got snoopdos on there if seeing a log file of my boot will help. I'm in the middle of trying to get the demo of Genesis installed so I can use the X-Surf, so it's a bit torn up right now!

Thanks in advance,
Darren

[98PaceCar]

Just a bit more info.. I've tried running both with and without the external cdrom attached with the same results. I've verified that the motherboard does not have any resistor packs installed.

Also, I was trying to install the demo of Genesis and getting some strange results. It was telling me that it couldn't find installer. That part is consistent and I'm sure my fault, but one time I would hit retry and it would guru with an 8000 000b. The next time, I could hit retry a couple times and it would be fine. Another time, I would hit retry once or twice and it would guru with an 8000 0004.

Very strange...

[Ilwrath]

Hmm...

That sounds strange, for sure.  Unfortunatly, I don't know of any good A3000 hardware diagnostic programs.  If you find one, let me know.  ;-)  I think you're on the right track suspecting hardware, though.

My first thought is to try removing all Zorro cards (X-Surf, etc) and give it a go.  A bus error or something of the like could be causing random gurus.  In fact, a faulty X-Surf caused very similar problems on my A4000.  Even if the cards themselves are ok, you might not be running a proper Buster revision for a card to function correctly, or there may be some other modification that needs to be performed.  There were several that could cause system instability.

If the system is still acting poorly without the Zorro cards, I might next examine the power supply.  Obviously, if the system is getting poor power, it can lock, crash, guru, or do all sorts of other strange things.  

Let us know if either of those two areas turn up anything.

[MrZammler]

Hi,

I've been getting the same errors such as yours, but only with an extra accelerator plugged into the machine.

As I dont want to let go fo my nice Cyberstorm, I've come to the conclusion that these errors are either a RAM or a power supply fault.

Either way, I havent been able to track the problem down, and has caused many headaches.

Try fiddling around with the above, and let us know if you can come up with a solution.

What you could do is put a Setpatch NOCACHE on you ss. It will slow things down, but you might find it stops the gurus.

[Framiga]

Hi 98PaceCar

if your A3000, is off from years, it's normal that something is lack.

The first thinks to do, is remove/clean and reinstall all the socked stuff (ram, kickstart, cables, connectors).

If you are lucky, all taht should fix the problem.

If not, could be some capacitor-fault inside the PSU or on the mobo.

Ciao
 

[Tenacious]

   I had the same prob. with a fairly expanded 3000, suffered for months with it.  I've done two things that seem to work.  First,  I cleaned the zorro connectors thoroughly,  like Framiga said, both genders.  Second, the chips under the "Power" & "Hard Disk" LEDs on the MB get very hot.  I simply installed a mini fan blowing directly them.
Result: most of the problem is gone, however, when I've been tinkering inside and then re-assembly the machine, sometimes I wont even be able to boot.  I have to unseat the zorro daughter board and expansion cards and reseat them again and test the system.  It seems I can still have an intermittant, especially if I tighten the header-panel screws in the back.  Usually, if I can get the cover back on with out introducing a bad connection, the machine wont crash for months.

[98PaceCar]

Thanks for the advice guys. I am planning on cleaning all the chips and reseating everything sometime this weekend. Hopefully that will clear things up..

What revision of Buster should I be looking for? If that's a potential fix then I'm all for it!!

Thanks,
Darren

[Ilwrath]

Yeah... check the connections on all things, as well.

What revision of Buster should I be looking for? If that's a potential fix then I'm all for it!!

SuperBuster 11 is the newest and most compatible, though those are a bit hard to find.  

I'd probably just make a note of what version number you are running, and if it's less than 11, check for any known incompatabilities, and what their workarounds are.

Though, honestly, I'd guess it's a Zorro card, connection, or power issue.  (Or possibly RAM, though that's a real pain to track down... I HATE all those little ZIPs.)

[98PaceCar]

Just found a website with something called an A3000 Burn In Disk. I assume this is just like a burn in test disk, something that just runs tests over and over until it is either stopped or fails. Anyone know of any reason to not do this?

Thx,
98PaceCar

[destro]

Hi there. In June my Amiga-4000 started acting up. I first thought the Kick-Start roms were going bad So I replaced them, but my 4000 did the
same thing with the new roms as the old roms.

So It was not the Roms causing the Problem.
I then thought that the Power Supply might
be acting up, So I hAd my Power Supply Upgraded
from 150 w to 300w. I had to wait 1 month to get
my Upgraded Power Supply baCK. So In the meantime
I bought 4 4mb 72 pin 60NS Ram chips to replace the ram that had come with the Computer When I
bought it used.

I am now pretty sure the Ram was the Problem
now.

if you can try to take out the ram that is in the
system now and try to use another set of chips.

You might want to use a rubber eraser and Clean the Contacts of the ram chips and make sure the
ram sockets are clean as well.

I do not have any regretts to geting the New Roms or Upgrading my power supply.

I am now A Very Happy Amiga-4000 Owner Again.

Hope this helps you out.

Have A nice day.

[smerf]

Hi

@98PaceCar

When you first turn on your set let it run (even though it guru's out) for about 15 minutes then restart it. Remember that the Amiga's rom is powered from battery on startup, and if it is old and weak it may take some time for it to gather enough charge to power the rom. On your hard drive what worked for me is to put the terminators back on the board and use all terminators for the scsi drive. On some A3000 this works and others it flops. I have had A3000's since 1990 and really like the machine it is the only machine I trust with my important data, have had important data on my A3000 since 1990, it only crashed twice, once when the hard drive died and the other when I was loading OS 3.9.

Hope some of my suggestions work

smerf

[98PaceCar]

Another update! I've been running the burn in program I found and it's reporting back (after about 120 some odd cycles) that the fast ram has a failure. Makes sense as this would explain the random failures. I'm going to try the cleaning method first. If that doesn't work, I have a couple old memory cards that I think I can use the ram from. It's not zip ram, but rather 256X4 dram in a dip. The exact model number is either HY51C4256S-10 or HY534256S-70. Will either of these be acceptable? I guess I could swap back half of the chip ram and go to a 2 mb config for the time being.

If it does turn out that I have a ram problem, what is my best approach? I've found one place online that has the 1X4 zips, but they want $5 a piece. That's $160 to fully populate the machine or $80 to get to where I am now. Assuming I have one or two bad chips and can isolate which ones they are (any advice on how to do this??), is it worth it to try to fully populate the on board slots or just save my pennies for an accellerator board that will allow me to use more traditional ram?

TIA,
98PaceCar

[N7VQM]

smerf wrote:
Remember that the Amiga's rom is powered from battery on startup,

You'll have to show me where you get this from because it doesn't make sense.  There is no reason I can see for this to be true.

[MrZammler]

@98PaceCar

Your best choice is to grab a cyberstorm from ebay. Not only it'll solve your locating-thos-rare-zips problem, it'll also give you a nice speed up ;-)

When I first installed my Cyberstorm, my NetBSD installation refused to boot. It crashed during startup (seg faults), until I removed my mobo memory (which actually was an AmiFAST board with 2x8 Simms.)

Strange things....

[Framiga]

by N7VQM on 2003/8/16 7:23:14

Quote:

smerf wrote:
Remember that the Amiga's rom is powered from battery on startup,

You'll have to show me where you get this from because it doesn't make sense. There is no reason I can see for this to be true.

Never heard before too!! it should be a "nonsense" and unusefull behaviour!

Ciao