Argh.. Major 3000 upgrade, now rebooting on its own..

[98PaceCar]

I spent the evening tearing down my 3000 desktop and doing a major upgrade to it. Brought it up to 16mb static zip ram, latest dmac, latest buster, latest ramsey, latest scsi, kickstart 3.1, os 3.9 on a fresh partition, picasso II, and cybergraphx 4.1. Everything seems to be running ok, but if I leave the system idle for more than a few minutes, the screen goes to a low res black screen with a blank title bar. It sits there for a minute or so and then reboots. Not getting a guru when this happens, but I was getting a few random gurus while I was playing with the screen modes. Is there something obvious I should look for before I start backing out what I did?

TIA,
98PaceCar

[iamaboringperson]

Reboots on its own! That's handy, next there will be computers that type in programs and stuff on their own(broken keyboards do that, but not very well). ;-)
:-)

Sounds like a short, or an overheating problem.
Have you tried using it without the graphics card, since it sounds as though the display goes funny first, unplug that(after changing+saving the screenmode settings), and let it sit and run for a while.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Hi,

When you installed 3.9 on the fresh partition, this was before or after you made all the hardware changes?  I'm sure you already have, but you've gone back inside the machine & pressed down firmly on all the chips, right?  Have you tried running any other graphics software besides Cybergraphx?  (And as a final thought, does anybody with more experience than myself know if the A3000 power supply might not be able to support all of these items?)

Good luck,
Mike

[iamaboringperson]

Perhaps you didn't use enough WD40 ;-)
You should spray that #### on like hell... ;-)


(NOTE: I AM ONLY JOKING ABOUT THE WD40 - DO NOT USE IT ON YOUR SOLID STATE ELECTRONICS)

[Brian]

I'd try things in this orded... pushing down firmly on all chips, testing other gfxdrivers for the gfxcard, test machine without gfx drivers att all, removing the gfx card, remove the new ZIP RAM just installed.

If nothing of above does anything then while the machine is as above I'd install OS3.1 and see if that works with and without gfxcard and different drivers, if not I'd clean the system from the gfx drivers and card and change back an old chip one at a time (with the rom last) and check if it works untill I find the new chip that is faulty or have gone through em all without any change in witch case I would probably give up and send it for repairs. :/

[iamaboringperson]

I don't think it's a software issue. :-)

[MrZammler]

The solution would either be in those RAM chips, or in the power supply.

You could try and switch to the original on-board chips.

[iamaboringperson]

I still think it's a short.

Try checking the motherboard real close up. Look for burnt areas.
And feel the cables, see if anything gets too hot during operation.

[csirac_]

I'd say it could be a PSU problem...

- Paul

[starbird80]

I know it's a bit late now, but you might have been better off replacing one chip at a time and letting the machine run for a while to test.

You may have a bad chip, but more likely one didn't seat right.  If one is inserted making marginal contact, heat expansion and/or vibration will make it lose contact after a while, and letting the machine cool will appear to solve the problem temporarily.  

What worked for me when I had a similar problem...pull EVERY socketed chip and re-insert.  (One at a time so you don't lose track!)  Not a bad idea to blow out the socket with compressed air before reseating.  This solved a spontaneous reboot problem with my A3000T, it'll now run for weeks at a time.

Even if this doesn't solve your problem, you might consider doing it as preventive maintenance as long as you have it open anyway.  Not EVERY time you open the case, maybe more like once every couple years.

[Crumb]

@iamaboringperson
oh man your signature with those rolling smilies... :-D is funnily annoying ;-D

[98PaceCar]

Yea, I probably should have staged my changes. But I got caught up in swapping stuff out and you know how it goes!

I'll have to check to make sure everything is seated, but I'm kinda leaning towards it being a software problem. I didn't get to use the system much, but it seemed like it would only reboot if it was sitting idle. Kind of a screen saver type of thing!

I did remember one thing I probably messed up.. I installed the original Picasso driver before I installed the Cybergraphx. I tried to remove the Picasso like the Cybergraphx requires, but I may have missed something (very likely). Maybe I'll just re-install 3.9 and Cybergraphx and see what that gets me. At least it's not like windows where it takes a couple hours to install!

Thx,
98PaceCar

[Stew]

  Could it be a screen saver crashing the system? Maybe it changes to a screen res not supported by the monitor and you are not seeing the GURU alert before it reboots.

Stew

[98PaceCar]

That's kinda what I'm thinking, but I don't remember how to set one up! That's another of tonight's projects!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

98PaceCar wrote:
That's kinda what I'm thinking, but I don't remember how to set one up! That's another of tonight's projects!

Say, good idea!  I recall having the same problem with a screen blanker many years back...  Try checking for running commodities, in your Workbench Startup directory, S:Startup-Sequence, and S:User-Startup.  AFAIR 3.9 didn't install one by default, but your system might be different...

(Also:  You don't have any invalidated DC-FFS partitions on your hard drive, do you?  What a killer that is...)

Good luck,
Mike