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Author Topic: Strange A590 mod  (Read 5677 times)

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Offline LurchTopic starter

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Strange A590 mod
« on: March 17, 2011, 06:03:08 AM »
Trying to work out the mod that's been done to an A590 PCB before I go connecting power to it ;-)

Photo attached, seems to run from the memory jumper to a a chip I can't quite make out. Will be probably remove it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60671882@N06/5530782057/
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Offline Jiffy

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2011, 07:10:09 AM »
Quote from: Lurch;622391
Will be probably remove it.

Why?
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Offline alexh

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2011, 09:10:00 AM »
Your photo is terrible, you cannot deduce anything from it.

Are you sure it is a home-made mod?

If you look at this photo of an A590 motherboard (Ignore the two power mod wires.)



There is a similar wire on this A590 motherboard (blue wire)

It looks like it could be a factory mod (i.e. to fix a PCB flaw)?

Leave it alone?
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 09:15:46 AM by alexh »
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Offline a1200

Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2011, 10:01:45 AM »
Agreed, they used to put traces on boards after they had done a run and subsequently found a bug - cheaper than doing 1000's more boards and throwing the rest away! You notice on most Amiga PCB's there is a revision number - the later revisions fix problems they have found in the previous versions, so the next run of those boards might not have that on. It was common practice back then.
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Offline Matt_H

Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2011, 11:36:23 AM »
Indeed. That looks like a factory-installed patch wire. Most A1200s have one of these, too (took them several revisions to incorporate it into the PCB).
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Offline LurchTopic starter

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2011, 05:43:36 PM »
First A590 I've seen with it, plus it doesn't look like the blue wire and has a lot of glue stuck all over it which you can see in my crappy photo.

Ah well will have a play on the weekend.
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Offline Matt_H

Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2011, 09:26:57 PM »
Most factory patches are glued like that. Strongly suggest not playing with it. (Does the 590 work?)
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Offline LurchTopic starter

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2011, 10:53:18 PM »
Not sure if it's working, was marked as bad. Trying to get a working A590 from this PCB and my old one which decided to melt one of the memory chips.

Will find out today when I get home, if all is good I have some V7 ROM's and some new RAM on it's way.

If not it's back to hunting for a working A590, was offered one for 75 euro's but that's more than I really want to spend on it.
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Offline alexh

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2011, 08:52:58 AM »
For less than €75 you could get the superior GVP Impact II HD8+
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Offline cv643d

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2011, 10:09:37 AM »
Quote from: alexh;622732
For less than €75 you could get the superior GVP Impact II HD8+


And for e7.5 you could get the superior A600 with the built in IDE-interface (just ask Alexh where that famous flee market full of second hand cheap A600 is located) :)
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Offline alexh

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2011, 10:24:01 AM »
Sit on eBay UK for 2-3 weeks and you'll get a (yellowed) working A600 for under €30

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300531567214

If you're willing to take a gamble... much much less.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280642802748
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Offline LurchTopic starter

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2011, 04:34:10 AM »
Quote from: alexh;622732
For less than €75 you could get the superior GVP Impact II HD8+


LOL Cheapest one I've seen is $110 euros + shipping on that :)

Anyway the RAM works on the "new" A590 PCB, just need to suss out a scsi HDD and the new PCB has a different power connector for the HDD so will need to sort out what to try there.
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Offline LurchTopic starter

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2011, 05:39:13 AM »
After looking at it closer the new PCB is using a standard molex connector were the old PCB was using a weird Commodore connection.  The power connector has the strange connection at one end then the molex connector at the other, so will just swap the strange connector over to a molex connector and see what happens ;)

On another note if I put in a larger than 4GB HDD and partition it as 4GB would there be any issues?
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Offline Jiffy

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2011, 07:18:52 AM »
Quote from: Lurch;623405
On another note if I put in a larger than 4GB HDD and partition it as 4GB would there be any issues?

Nope. There's a chance it will be recognised by HDtools as something entirely different, but just correct those figures until they represent the correct values.

For example: I have had an 20 GB drive I used for testing showing up as 60 MB. After partitioning (which took a while to figure out), it worked without problems.
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Offline LurchTopic starter

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Re: Strange A590 mod
« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2011, 07:24:27 AM »
Quote from: Jiffy;623416
Nope. There's a chance it will be recognised by HDtools as something entirely different, but just correct those figures until they represent the correct values.

For example: I have had an 20 GB drive I used for testing showing up as 60 MB. After partitioning (which took a while to figure out), it worked without problems.


Nice, that's good news as I can get my hands on some cheap drives but they're all 37GB. Have to purchase a 50pin to 68pin adapter though but they're pretty cheap :)

Thanks for the NFO Jiffy, just worried about the power adapter but will find out tomorrow when I give it a shot :-)
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