Blizzard 1220 4mb

[Snoozy]

Hi yep got it, thanks for clearing that up paul.
 
So i look at my card i have an fpu m888.. 33, so i suppose that's 33mhz. If i can get hold of an oscillator it needs to be between 33-40mhz and it will have 4 legs to fit in that socket ? The crystal is within the oscillator? (does more crystals mean more time in the crystal dome :roflmao:)
 
I am asking jacks legacy to see if they can source me one, as all they have is 50mhz, i suppose my next option would be farnell?

[paul1981]

Hi yep got it, thanks for clearing that up paul.
 
So i look at my card i have an fpu m888.. 33, so i suppose that's 33mhz. If i can get hold of an oscillator it needs to be between 33-40mhz and it will have 4 legs to fit in that socket ? The crystal is within the oscillator? (does more crystals mean more time in the crystal dome :roflmao:)
 
I am asking jacks legacy to see if they can source me one, as all they have is 50mhz, i suppose my next option would be farnell?

Just checked and amigakit stock the oscillator you need:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=906

The crystal and the oscillator are the same thing, I suppose the correct name for them is Crystal Oscillator, but people tend to call them one or the other. If you do buy an oscillator, make sure you fit it the correct way, because fitting it the wrong way could easily destroy your card and the oscillator.  Same goes for the FPU.

But if you have an FPU installed already, it should still work despite their being no oscillator, PROVIDING you have the jumper set to the correct position (JUMPER D for 28MHz, or JUMPER C for 14MHz) (those frequencies are derived from the A1200 motherboard).
So set the jumper to the "D" position and see if it works.  If it doesn't work, I would try removing the FPU and see if you can get the card working without it (it's not required anyway, and used in few applications).

[Snoozy]

Hi paul, yep thanks I ordered an 8 dimm 33mhz crystal and socket from amigakit couple of days ago, when fitting the writing on the crystal needs to be upright? Is it plug and play or will it need soldering in?

[Daedalus]

Just for clarity: Without the crystal, and with the jumper set to take the clock signal from the motherboard, the CPU should still work on the Blizzard. Fitting the crystal and using it instead will make the CPU (and FPU) run at the crystal's frequency instead. As Paul pointed out, be very careful of fitting it around the correct way. The FPU should only fit one way, but the oscillator can fit 4 ways, and only one is right. It should just plug into the socket though, you won't need to solder it.

Edit: The orientation should be marked on the board, you can't assume it's just upright. There will be one corner on the crystal that's different to the other 3 - sometimes it has a dot printed on the case, sometimes a different shape of the metal container on that corner. This corner should be marked on the board some way or another. If it's not, I would say that the marked corner goes with the notched corner of the socket (pin 1) which can be seen to the lower left of the socket in the photo further up in this thread. Hope that makes sense!

Also, just for pedantics, the crystal oscillator is actually a small circuit, containing the crystal itself and some other components needed to make a clean, square-wave clock signal.

[Snoozy]

Hey thanks daedalus, so the oscillator is fitted into its 8 dimm socket that will come with it. Does it matter which way it is fitted in this socket?

And then this socket/crystal combo is critically orientated into the empty socket as shown above. And then the card is running at 33mhz (and with the add4 modulle) at pretty much its full potential?

[Daedalus]

Sorry, I think there's still a little bit of confusion here... The oscillator/crystal combo is all-in-one, so you just have to get that module and put it in the socket on the board. There aren't any other sockets involved. It'll look something like this:



You can see the dot printed on the top at the bottom left corner - this is the "pin 1" which tells you what way around to put it. Just plug it into the socket on your board (the right way around!) and you're done. Sorry if I made things a bit more confusing there

[zipper]

Hey thanks daedalus, so the oscillator is fitted into its 8 dimm socket that will come with it.

That's called DIL8; the longer ones are DIL14.

[Snoozy]

Ok so what is the point of the 8 dil crystal sockets that amigakit sell?

Do you think the crystal upgrade is worthwhile?

[Daedalus]

The sockets they sell are for adding to a board which doesn't already have one... Most accelerators use their own crystal oscillator instead of the motherboard one, and so have the crystal permanently soldered in place. If you have the skill and tools, you can desolder the crystal and solder one of those sockets in its place, thus allowing you to change crystals more easily. This means you can overclock your CPU simply by swapping out the crystal.

Your board is a little different, in that the crystal is optional, and therefore came with a socket from the factory instead. I don't know how much it's worth upgrading, but the crystals are relatively cheap so no harm in trying it out. To max out the RAM you need the custom memory add-on - I've never seen one and I'd imagine they're fairly rare (and therefore expensive). Unless you find you need it, I wouldn't worry about it. You could probably do just fine without it.

[Snoozy]

ok thanks ,
 
so i'm waiting for the 33mhz crystal to arrive....
 
in the mean time these crystals are available:
 
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=19827
 
do you think i should get one of these 40mhz crystals as i think the blizzard 1220 can take upto 40mhz crystal oscillators.
 
Can you use a 40mhz crystal with a 33mhz fpu? Is this overclocking?
 
(incidentally i managed to track down the add4 for £29 last week so will fit that when it arrives - probably knocking out my pcmcia at the same time, ah well)

[paul1981]

ok thanks ,
 
so i'm waiting for the 33mhz crystal to arrive....
 
in the mean time these crystals are available:
 
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=19827
 
do you think i should get one of these 40mhz crystals as i think the blizzard 1220 can take upto 40mhz crystal oscillators.
 
Can you use a 40mhz crystal with a 33mhz fpu? Is this overclocking?
 
(incidentally i managed to track down the add4 for £29 last week so will fit that when it arrives - probably knocking out my pcmcia at the same time, ah well)

Surely the oscillator if fitted is just for use by the FPU and not the CPU?  That's how it works on standard ram expansion cards with FPU's.  In that case all you would be doing is overclocking the FPU, so once you fit your 33MHz oscillator the FPU will be clocked at 33MHz whilst the CPU always remains at 28MHz.

Yes, 40MHz would also work for the FPU, but nothing higher. I couldn't find a 40MHz oscillator anywhere so that's why I directed you to the 33MHz one.

Please do make sure that you fit the oscillator correctly though or you are likely to see blue smoke.  Also make sure that you set the jumper correctly so that the FPU will use your new oscillator.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, it'll most likely make the PCMCIA unusable alright, but no harm to have for that price really - it's not as expensive as I thought it'd be. Yes, using a faster crystal than that which the chip is designed for is overclocking. Be careful with that, too much overclocking can shorten the lifespan of the chips or result in an unstable computer. Since the CPU on that board is rated for 28MHz, I'd imagine 33 would be fine, but 40MHz is probably pushing it a bit. By all means give it a try, chances are you wouldn't do any permanent damage with a short test, but be aware of the risks and keep an eye on the chips to make sure they don't get too hot.

[Daedalus]

Surely the oscillator if fitted is just for use by the FPU and not the CPU?  That's how it works on standard ram expansion cards with FPU's.  In that case all you would be doing is overclocking the FPU, so once you fit your 33MHz oscillator the FPU will be clocked at 33MHz whilst the CPU always remains at 28MHz.

But then why won't the card run when there's no oscillator installed? If the CPU ran off the motherboard clock then surely it wouldn't matter which way the FPU was set when there's no FPU installed? The memory's gonna run off the CPU's clock anyway - it doesn't need it's own clock...

[Snoozy]

Thank you Daedalus and Paul1981 for your help, blue smoke and burnt chips are best left in the mistakes of the kitchen
 
So i will keep with the 33mhz, if it goes wrong and i get blue smoke i may record it on my digi-cam and place it on youtube as i'm sure it would give some of you ppl a laugh :roflmao:
 
I will don my surgeons mask and attempt the transplant of the oscillator later in the week

[paul1981]

But then why won't the card run when there's no oscillator installed? If the CPU ran off the motherboard clock then surely it wouldn't matter which way the FPU was set when there's no FPU installed? The memory's gonna run off the CPU's clock anyway - it doesn't need it's own clock...

Absolutely, I'm still not entirely sure whether Snoozy got the card working without the jumpers and FPU and oscillator, he mentioned it earlier in the thread but was very vague about it.  But yes, the card should work without those parts regardless.

As for the oscillator, I've found the instruction manual for the 1220/4:
http://phase5.a1k.org/filearchive/blizzard1220_4_de_en.pdf

I've found the relevant section and quoted from the manual:

"The coprocessor can either be operated with a 14 or 28 MHz clock rate or up to 40 MHz if you use an additional oscillator. If you want to operate a coprocessor with 14 or 28 MHz then either the 14M or 28M jumper must be set (see Diagram 4).
If you want to operate a coprocessor with an asynchronous clock you must also fit a suitable quartz oscillator in a DIL-8 housing in the empty socket below the coprocessor (sec Diagrams 3 and 4). The marking on pin 1 of the oscillator must be in the bottom left comer. The EXTCLK jumper must also be set.
ATTENTION!
Only one of the jumpers 14M, 28M or EXTCLK may be set at anyone time! If two of these jumpers are set simultaneously this will cause damage to the hardware. Never set two of these three jumpers at the same time!"

So the oscillator socket is definitely for the FPU alone.  You can overclock the FPU on this card but not the CPU.

Hope this clears things up Snoozy.

[Snoozy]

So I do need the 8 dil housing after all :roflmao: So does it matter which way the crystal is placed in the 8 dil socket?
 
The 1220 (without crystal but with fpu) will not work on my 1200 unless i have the jumper cover over B. Jumpers C and D i can't really get to as they look semi-blocked off?!
 
So i am thinking when i install the crystal oscillator i will leave jumpers A and B open (or jumper cover over A?) and the card should work with fpu at 33mhz and cpu 28mhz, i don't think i can change jumpers C and D, if you look at the photo earlier in the thread are jumpers C and D also look partially blocked off?