Advice on Upgrading A4000

[hamtronix]

My setup is my sig.

I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on what would be the most cost effective and least expensive upgrade I could do for the A4000. Or let me know that Im at the limit without expending a ton more money. I have GVP scsi controller with 4MB of RAM, Im pretty sure I could add more to that. Also maybe a CD drive. Does the CD drive in the A4000 use IDE or SCSI?

Thanks and as always Amiga.org is a great resource and has wonderful members!

[alexh]

You have ethernet, but I would still recommend buying an IDE to CF adapter in the form of a blanking plate / back panel, a CF card and a USB CF card reader. It will connect to the internal IDE connector instead of a Hard drive and allows for very rapid transfer of files to and from the PC. Cost = $20

I recommend a registration of WHDload. Cost = $25

SFS file system, it will seriously improve your hard disk performance. Cost = $0

Install some OS patches to speed up a few things, perhaps try SystemPatch all in one? Cost = $0

What's the IV64 card like? No Picasso96 support and No CGX support. i.e. nothing works!! Is it worth upgrading to a Picasso IV with scandoubler? Cost = $300

Which 040 card do you have? A3640? Any of the 060 accelerators with FAST RAM would be a good step up. Cyberstorm MKIII is the best but the most expensive. Cost = $400+ :-(

OS3.9 with BB2 and patches. Cost = $50

A CD drive in the A4000 will use IDE, but take note that IDE CD drives must be 3/4 length drives to fit well and you will need some CD software, either AmigaOS 3.5+, IDEFix97, ASimware etc. I do not recommend getting an optical drive. Using the CF card is much easier.

[wlemonds]

I use a Deneb and 4 GB Jumpdrive or Maxtor 500GB External USB/Firewire drive.

[alexh]

wlemonds wrote:
Maxtor 500GB External USB/Firewire drive.

I was a member of the team that designed the chip in that drive ;-)

[Tumbleweed]

The Deneb is a great addition as you can also use most modern USB addons - printers, flashdrives, card readers, mice, keyboards, and USB ethernet dongles, which will get your A4000 on the web without the need for an X-surf or another other card.

The other upgrades are going to set you back a bundle, but depends on your definition of expensive.

When I blew the dust out of my A4000/030, which I bought in 92, the first thing I added was a DVD drive. From then on I've added:

1. CS MKII 060 128 MB Ram (bought on eBay almost 2 years ago)
2. Cybervision 3D (eBay)
3. Cybervision 3D scan doubler (eBay)
4. Upgraded the kickstart roms (Amigakit)
5. X-Surf 3cc (Amigakit)
6. 80GB Hard Drive on the X-surf IDE Header.
7. OS3.9 BB1 & BB2 (Vesalia)
8. Deneb USB (Amigakit)
9. Internal flash memory reader (ripped from my PC and fitted in the second 3 1/2 floppy bay - modified the front facia to get it to fit).

And now I'm pretty happy with what I've got. The only upgrade I'd look at could be to repalce the MKII with CSPPC, and move to OS4.0 Classic. But the CSPPC cards are way too expensive - would rather buy a SAM440 and run OS4.1, if I'm forking out for a CSPPC off eBay.

[doctorq]

You have ethernet, but I would still recommend buying an IDE to CF adapter in the form of a blanking plate / back panel, a CF card and a USB CF card reader. It will connect to the internal IDE connector instead of a Hard drive and allows for very rapid transfer of files to and from the PC. Cost = $20

Someone forgot to mention that you have to mess around with WinUAE on the PC in order to copy files to and from the CF card. You can't just insert the CF card into the card reader, and use your typical Windows application to copy the files.

[cv643d]

If your 040 board is the C=, save up to a CyberStorm 060, its going to cost a bit but is well worth it if you are serious about classics, ~250-350 euro.

CSPPC is IMHO not worth it (if you cant find one for a steal  ;-) ).

Its not worth it to expand an A4000 if your CPU-board is a crappy one IMHO.

[Tumbleweed]

I agree with cv643d, you really need a decent processor to get the best out of the other cards you can add, and also OS3.9. Hence why I added the MKII first, got it for about £170 at the time. It also came with the cyberscsi module. They are a bit more pricey these day's though but not by alot. If you can get hold of a MKIII (have a look on amibay) at a decent price it'd be worth it.

[alexh]

doctorq wrote:
Someone forgot to mention that you have to mess around with WinUAE on the PC in order to copy files to and from the CF card.

I didn't mention it cos it's not true. It is just one option.

doctorq wrote:
You can't just insert the CF card into the card reader, and use your typical Windows application to copy the files.

Yes you can. You just need to install a filesystem driver on one of the two systems.

ADFView to use FFS formatted disks under Windows

or

FAT95 to use FAT32 formatted disks on the Amiga.

[alexh]

Tumbleweed wrote:
The Deneb is a great addition as you can also use most modern USB addons - printers, flashdrives, card readers, mice, keyboards, and USB ethernet dongles

However be warned, USB mice and keyboards do not work in games or anything else which "bangs the hardware" direct to detect keyboard/mouse input.

Native Amiga USB is IMHO something to buy once you've bought absolutely everything else.

As hamtronix already has an ethernet card, USB is even less appealing.

[Dr_Righteous]

I'm guessing that GVP SCSI controller is an A2/4000 HC+8, so you should be able to put 8MB of RAM on it.

Be warned, if you do an IDE-CF adapter on that machine, it will use your entire IDE channel (ie no other drive will be usable). Get a SCSI CDROM, it's safer all around as the IDE interface in the A4000 is not intended for ATAPI devices. Old Macs are a good place to salvage SCSI drives.

These are an inexpensive S-Video solution I've been really happy with... http://www.neobitz.com/

This mod works great too http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/overclock/a3640.html

[alexh]

Dr_Righteous wrote:
Be warned, if you do an IDE-CF adapter on that machine, it will use your entire IDE channel (ie no other drive will be usable).

Not true.

You can use an IDE CD-ROM, hard drive or a second IDE->CF adapter at the same time.

Dr_Righteous wrote:
it's safer all around as the IDE interface in the A4000 is not intended for ATAPI devices

Safer? "not intended"? ATAPI devices work just fine.

Dr_Righteous wrote:
This mod works great too http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/overclock/a3640.html

This is a good cheap mod, at first I overclocked my A3640 but I do not recommend it. At least not without first replacing the 040 chip that came with it. These boards use VERY VERY old 040 chips which run dangerously hot even at 25MHz. If you can get your hands on an MC68040RC40A with mask L88M you'd be laughing. They run almost cold even without heatsink at 40MHz

Do not dismiss getting a different type of 040 accelerator. The A3640 is nowhere near as fast as even the closest 040 board because it does not support burst mode.

[davideo]

Be warned, if you do an IDE-CF adapter on that machine, it will use your entire IDE channel (ie no other drive will be usable).

That's not true in my case at least anyway.

I've got a backplate IDE CF that works quite happily alongside my IDE drive on my 4000D.

Dave G  8-)

[Dr_Righteous]

alexh wrote:
Not true.

You can use an IDE CD-ROM, hard drive or a second IDE->CF adapter at the same time.

If you got one to work, I'd love to know where you got it and what makes it different. There've been plenty of complaints about it shutting down any additional drives on IDE channel. I know I haven't been able to get it to work.

Safer? "not intended"? ATAPI devices work just fine.

If you don't mind using software that can't be registered and times out, then it works great.

This is a good cheap mod, at first I overclocked my A3640 but I do not recommend it. At least not without first replacing the 040 chip that came with it. These boards use VERY VERY old 040 chips which run dangerously hot even at 25MHz. If you can get your hands on an MC68040RC40A with mask L88M you'd be laughing. They run almost cold even without heatsink at 40MHz

Do not dismiss getting a different type of 040 accelerator. The A3640 is nowhere near as fast as even the closest 040 board because it does not support burst mode.

Yes, a heatsink is required and you'll have to try several oscillators to find one that produces stable results. But as long as you socket the oscillator, this isn't a problem. The existing chip will run just fine as long as it's properly cooled.

The goal here is cheap upgrades, not going out and blowing a wad of cash on expensive accelerators.

[alexh]

Dr_Righteous wrote:
If you got one to work, I'd love to know where you got it and what makes it different. There've been plenty of complaints about it shutting down any additional drives on IDE channel. I know I haven't been able to get it to work.

I've tried two, one internal. One back panel "external", both work.

Of course you cannot remove the card while hot but that is normal.

Where are these threads?

Dr_Righteous wrote:
If you don't mind using software that can't be registered and times out, then it works great.

There are lots of alternatives which do not require registering or timeout, and the one you are referring to can still be registered or easily coerced not to time out with only 30 seconds worth of Googling ;-)

But requiring software still doesn't explain your words "safer" and "not intended"?

Dr_Righteous wrote:
The goal here is cheap upgrades, not going out and blowing a wad of cash on expensive accelerators.

I understand, but IMHO having performed this operation the difference in speed between a 25MHz A3640 and a 31MHz one is almost imperceptible. Operating System software speedups such as SystemPatch give a better sense of a more speedier system.