DCE Cyberstorm 604e/060 board repaired to 060 only by French Amiga Center

[Nlandas]

Hey guys,

    Any idea what I can get for a DCE Cyberstorm 604e/060 board that has been repaired by the French Amiga Center to be an 060 accelerator? Both of my A4000s died before I could install and use it. It's been stored since - I paid the French Amiga Center 190E to repair the board.

Unfortunately, he could only make it into an 060 accelerator without ram/scsi, etc. It should be in good repair as they have a great reputation but I can't test it at all.

I'd hate to be out the full 240E and I'm hoping that some of you will give me an idea of what you think I can list it for on Amibay and actually sell it.

Thanks,
-Nyle

AMIGACENTER wrote:
> Yes, exactly
>
> JJ B
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nyle Landas"
> To: "AMIGACENTER"
> Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:01 PM
> Subject: Re: DCE Cyberstorm 604e/060 board
>
>
>>
>> So, does the board work as an 060 card at this point without ram or SCSI?

[Kronos]

Hate to say it, but a 060 with no local RAM is pretty pointless. A good 040 WITH RAM will beat it in performance.

[tone007]

He's really grasping at straws if he calls that a repair.  I wouldn't have paid for that kind of service.

[Nlandas]

He's really grasping at straws if he calls that a repair.  I wouldn't have paid for that kind of service.

I wasn't too pleased but he had my board and I was told by many people in the community that the French Amiga Center was really reliable and trustworthy.

So even with add in fast ram like a DKB 3128 the 060 on this isn't even as fast as an 040? It must be faster than the Commodore accelerators without ram onboard at least.

[Damion]

So even with add in fast ram like a DKB 3128 the 060 on this isn't even as fast as an 040?

Unfortunately, the Zorro bus will slow down CPU access to RAM considerably. Did they have any ideas about why RAM isn't recognized?

[motrucker]

I can't imagine why they "repaired" this board to that state. It's pretty much useless.  That doesn't mean that some one handy with a soldering station and pc boards won't buy it - but for how much?

[whiteb]

I wasn't too pleased but he had my board and I was told by many people in the community that the French Amiga Center was really reliable and trustworthy.

So even with add in fast ram like a DKB 3128 the 060 on this isn't even as fast as an 040? It must be faster than the Commodore accelerators without ram onboard at least.

OOhhh no.  The whole purpose of an Accelerator having its own ram, is to dedicate Ram accesses to the card only, the Zorro Bus is going to bring the CPU to its KNEES !.

"PLEASE !!!!!!!, PLEASE !!!!!!!!!, I CANT HANDLE THE WAIT ANY MORE, HAVE MERCY !!!"

Any card that has its own Ram on board, (Yes even 040) is going to KILL the Cyberstorm in terms of performance.  This means that the CPU has to get in line and wait for Agnus to issue it with permission to access the ram, it has to take a ticket and get in line with the common people.  On the other hand, an 040 with its own Dedicated Ram the only time it has wait in line is to return data to the custom chips, the rest of the time, it has its own playing field.  That is where the BULK of the speed from an accelerator comes in, The lack of need to sit around and wait for its share of the system clock to transfer data back to the system.

Real life example:

Bugatti Veyron, Versus Ford Fiesta.

Bugatti can exceed 250Mph (400KPH), But only on a private high speed track where common rules do not apply.
Put it on the road with a ford Fiesta, and Veyron has to conform to speed limits, Traffic lights, Traffic jams, pot holes etc.

Now, while Veyron is banked back in traffic doing less than 5mph, the Ford Fiesta is screaming its little engine out on the test track, trying to break 100Mph, The Ford Fiesta is faster than the Veyron.

[pan1k]

I doubt he will even tell you what what wrong. My 060 card died.. and he couldn't give me a diagnosis, just a price.. but.. card has worked fine ever since.. but yeah, an 060 without memory is pointless..

[Nlandas]

Isn't it still going to be faster than the stock Commodore A3640 board which also has not onboard RAM?

[delshay]

this is what happens to a blizzard ppc when overclocked and mem settings set to no precharge and no cooling is added. you will get a sudden crash and you find memory and bvision has stopped working. cyberstorm has the same type of chip onboard (cypress)which can run as high as 58c (if i remember correctly) without any overclocking.

there also a chip marked MACH near the Bvision socket which is a little better which seems to run around 52-54c.

[ChaosLord]

Due to the extremely bad memory interface on the Cyberstorm boards it might end up being the same speed as an A3640 or even slower.

Please note that the bad memory interface only applies to the Cyberstorm 060->Amiga Ram or 040->Amiga Ram.  The PPC->Amiga Ram interface is much faster.

I always thought they crippled the speed of their 040/060 cpus on purpose to make the PPC seem more faster than an 060 than it really is.  Many people were fooled.

If you ask the same price as a good A3640 + 30 Euros.  That would seem like a fair price to me.

Don't think of that as to low a price.  Think of it as being a heck of a lot more than 0, which is what you would get if the card was dead.

No I will not pay that price for it.  
After my experience of owning an A3640, I refuse to buy any accellerator without onboard ram.

[Nlandas]

Fair enough - I hope others will learn from my experience with the French Amiga Repair Center. If it's a simple repair he migh handle it. If it's something more detailed with surface mount involved, especially, related to a Cyberstorm PPC board, expect to get back an 060 only with no ram or SCSI board.

[tone007]

Ha:

French Amiga Repair Center

FARCe.

[keropi]

mr JJB's services of the Amiga Repair Center France are AWESOME and has helped many amiga hardware to continue living. I have sent him much hardware and always was pleased to get it repaired.
Surelly you pay a price for that but he might be the ONLY one to actually know/care/repair amiga hardware!
I am sure he did not charge you 190e to get a 060 accelerator without scsi/ram, surelly he told you of the risks and if you are willing to pay the price...? He is not a thief, and ALL the damaged csppc's I have known returned from him had only the ppc disabled and worked like a normal MKIII card. Yours is the first I see that has no scsi/ram !

[delshay]

due to lack of parts it`s not always possible to repair every card. here my Blizzard PPC memory & bvision stop working i then found the fault to be a cracked solder joint somewhere on the card. i say somewhere as it hard to see cracked solder joints.

i don`t know about the cyberstorm but you don`t have to disable the PPC processor on a Blizzard PPC.

it either works or it does not.

here i can remove the ppc processor(project 5)and the card seems to work fine without a PPC processor memory still shows up on workbench.

when memory stops showing up it`s a **serious fault**,it will effect Bvision/PPC processor and possibly the SCSI. the 68k processor will work fine without all three working.

but it`s hard to say if cyberstorm suffers from the same problem as a Blizzard card when memory stops working.


for the Blizzard PPC card if all four chips are cooled,if it starts to overheat it will give warning signs(crash or lock-up) even when overclocking. if you overclocked and you dont have right cooling see above post.