Quirks of the A3000.

[Ral-Clan]

I have an A3000, which (as you might have read in my other thread "Wither Natami?") now needs to become my main Amiga as my A2000 suffered a hardware failure.

However, there have always been a couple of strange behaviour(s) with this A3000 I have never been able to determine the cause of:

1) it doesn't seem to like *certain* SCSI devices hooked to the external port at all (even when properly terminated).  I power on the external SCSI device, then the A3000.  If it likes the device, the A3000 turns on and boots up fine.  If it DOESN'T like the device, the power button does NOTHING.  The A3000 acts totally dead, as if the power button were malfunctioning.  When I remove the external device the A3000 works just fine again.   Now, if I turn the A3000 on BEFORE the culprit SCSI device, then do a warm reboot, the A3000 will recognise the device just fine and I can use it.  Very STRANGE!

2) This A3000 has a CyberVision-64 board installed.  Occassionally it boots up and the CyberVision board is not recognized or initialized (like it hasn't been plugged in).  Showconfig does not indicate the board is active either.  When this happens I just shut off the Amiga for a few minutes and a cold reboot usually works.

3) Very rarely, during boot-up, I get a RAMLIB 8000003 (or something like that) error.

This Amiga has a Mercury 040 card with 32MB RAM and 16MB on the motherboard.  It has all the latest chips on the motherboard except the one that is super hard to find (the DMAC?, can't remember.).

If anyone has experiences similar issues, or knows why they occur, I would appreciate the help.  I'd really love to know why Amiga hardware sometimes does absolutely mysterious things.

[Matt_H]

Check your chip pairing. In case you haven't seen elsewhere, DMAC and Ramsey have to be used in specific pairs. DMAC-02 can only be used with Ramsey-04, and DMAC-04 can only be used with Ramsey-07. If you're using DMAC-02 with Ramsey-07, you're in uncharted, urecommended waters.

[Ral-Clan]

Yes, you're right.  I think I am using a properly paired set of chips, but it's the older set.  When I realised it was almost impossible to get the newer DMAC (or Ramsey) I kept the older companion chip in there too, for compatiblity.

[Matt_H]

If that's the case, then I'm out of concrete ideas. Can you try another PSU?

I used to get random ramlib crashes on my 1200 when the 1260 accelerator had worked itself loose. How's the mounting of your Mercury?

[taunusand]

ral-clan wrote:
3) Very rarely, during boot-up, I get a RAMLIB 8000003 (or something like that) error.

I have this error sometimes. On my A4000.
Only on cold boot, when the machine have been turned of for a day or so.
I have been told that it is a software issue, but I have not figured it out..

Like this?

I have tried with another processor board, PSU and simm modules, another Voodoo card, unpluging netcard, soundcard and tv-card. All connections are checked.
It is only a problem with OS3.9, WB3.0 boots fine!
It seems to be the line "C:Loadmondrvs" in the startup-sequence that causes the problem, but I'm not sure, the problem goes away after a few resets. (Sometimes more than 10 resets :cry: )

If I knew what the problem was, I would gladly tell you :-)
But I hope someone can tell us both what to do :-)

[Ral-Clan]

That's the exact error I get! (the one in the screenshot you linked to).

I remember I used to get it all the time when OS3.9 tried to load Amidock.  The attempt to load Amidock would actually freeze the Amiga after the error message popped up.  Only setting the hard drive mask or maxtransfer low fixed it.  It was very wierd.  But even with the maxtransfer set, it occassionally still pops up.  

You're right though, I think it only happens with OS3.9.

[taunusand]

When it happens I newer get into workbench. And the computer freezes.
But, Loadmondrvs loads the drivers for the graphics card (I think) and has nothing to do with Amidock :-?
Now my thoughts about something with the memory on the graphics card are maybe wrong.
I'm confused..
That's probably why I newer figured it out :roll:

[rare_j]

taunusand wrote:

ral-clan wrote:
3) Very rarely, during boot-up, I get a RAMLIB 8000003 (or something like that) error.

I have this error sometimes. On my A4000.
Only on cold boot, when the machine have been turned of for a day or so.

Bad caps?

[taunusand]

rare_j wrote:

taunusand wrote:

ral-clan wrote:
3) Very rarely, during boot-up, I get a RAMLIB 8000003 (or something like that) error.

I have this error sometimes. On my A4000.
Only on cold boot, when the machine have been turned of for a day or so.

Bad caps?

Maybe bad caps, but witch ones?
And why does WB3.0 boot?

[doctorq]

@taunusand

As you mentioned yourself, it's a software error. It comes down to the 68040 or 68060 libraries being used.

The libraries might work under OS3.1 without problems, but it might be worth donloading a new set of libraries, from a few different sources and try again.

[taunusand]

@doctorq
When I used the original 040 processor board I had the same problem.
I installed the libraries from the cd that came with the Cyberstorm MkII 060 board.
68040.library
68040new.library
68040old.library
68060.library

In my head, this means that that the processor board and the libs can not be the problem.

But, I know one thing, you know much more about Amiga than I do, so I will give it a try :-)
Now I'll have a look at aminet ;-)

[doctorq]

www.phase5.a1k.org might be a better place to start :-)

If everything fails, I guess you just have to start over again; it could be some patches that are causing the problems. Maybe you should come and visit sometime soon, so we can get the scsi controller going.

[taunusand]

The libs in 68060-V44_3.lha from aminet gives me a white screem when I reboot, no WB :-?

Okay, now I'll try phase5!

BTW.. Patches? Please, tell me more :-)

I'll be happy to come and visit you, It's always nice to meet another Amiga person, especially when I know that I will learn something new :-)

EDIT:
I downloaded 040_060libs.lha and 68060-19101999.lha from phase5's support page. If/when the problem comes again, I'll try the other libs set.