CyberStormPPC refuses to work

[patrik]

Hi everyone!

I have bought myself a CyberStormPPC with a 68060@50MHz and a 604@200MHz. The card used to be fitted in an A4000T before and worked without problems as far as I know.

The sad thing is that it doesnt seem work in my A4000D, no signs of life at all. The caps-led on the keyboard flashes one time and then nothing.

- I have stripped my A4000 from all expansions leaving the CSPPC alone.

- I have double-checked that the jumpers are in EXT position.

- I have double-checked that the A4000 itself works with another cpu-card.

- I have made sure the cpu-connector is thoroughly pressed together, I have also readjusted the pins in the cpuslot on the A4k motherboard so they should give better contact and everything looks fine (not that that is of much significance, but anyhow).

- I also tried populating the card with four simms, instead of the just two supplied (fitted in bank 0).

I dont know what more to try. The only thing I can come up with is that I only have OS3.0 in ROM, but the manual doesnt state that OS3.1 is required.

If anyone have any tips I would really appreciate it!


/Patrik

[Castellen]

Seems you've gone though most of the typical things.
You might want to measure you're getting a stable +3.3V out of the regulator as well.
Check it's actually sitting in the CPU slot correctly, it has to be pressed down quite hard along the length of the 200 pin connector to seat it properly.

You should check that the card definately can run with OS 3.0, I seem to recall that they needed OS 3.1 in ROM???

Sounds like it could be faulty though :-(
Someone (Hyperion?) are doing fixed price repairs on CyberstormPPC for 135 Euro, no charge if not repaired.  I'm about to send 3 units away this week for repair.

Assuming you want to see the card again, probably not a good idea to send to DCE for repair :-P

[x56h34]

In the CSPPC manual under REQUIREMENTS it says that kickstart roms 3.x are required but RECOMMENDED are 3.1.

I suggest you try this.

#1. Remove the memory from the motherboard. All but the 2MB chip ram. Does it work now?

#2. Install 3.1 roms and see if it works now (last ditch effort)

When you installed the card into your A4000D CPU slot, did you press down by pusing the heatsink? If you did, it is very likely that you damaged the PPC chip underneath. It is very sensitive.

[patrik]

@Castellen:

The card is sitting 100% perfect in the slot, if I look at the slot from the side, the space between the cards connector and the motherboards connector is almost non-existant all the way along the connector.

(edit): I have measured the voltage from the 3.3V regulator and it measured 3.29V so the voltage-level seems to be ok. I dont have any equipment to measure the ripple though.

@x56h34:

I have removed all expansions, including memory, except the chip ram . But to no avail, as dead as before.

I knew that the PPC processor was very delicate (like an athlon or similar), so I paid extra attention to avoid the heatsink.

You made me curious about the condition of the PPC cpu so I removed the heatsink and all four corners are damaged, not much but it might be enough for the cpu to malfunction. I will take a photo of it so you can see it later.

Do you know if it will work if the PPC is broken?

(edit): I cant try OS3.1 without buying a new set of ROMs, so can anyone confirm or deny this requirement?


/Patrik

[patrik]

Here are some pictures of the PPC on the CyberStormPPC:

PPC from above
PPC from sw corner
PPC from northwest corner
PPC from northeast corner
PPC from southeast corner

If you want to see the original hires photos just remove the '_small' part of the link.

The chip looks quite chopped unfortunately. Though I have no experience in how chopped a PPC chip can look before it stops working. Does anyone have any experience of these kind of damages?


/Patrik

[x56h34]

The website seems to be down so I can't look at the pics at the moment, however I can tell you that this type of CSPPC damage is fixable, but...only by DCE.

I've had a similar problem with my CSPPC. Cold-soldering underneath the PPC chip. The 68k side worked perfectly, but anything PPC related didn't. If I were to install WarpUP the system would immediately crash upon boot. I've contacted Hyperion and Amiga.fr and both directed me to DCE as the 604e soldering/replacement was only doable there, and Hyperion and Amiga.fr couldn't do anything about it without the sophisticated equipment required for the job, which is only available at DCE. The card is at DCE right now and I pray that Ron will see the fixing process through and get it back to me. :-) I've been waiting for about 4 months now before I sent the card there. There is one PRO for sending it to DCE in my case, which is warranty issue, as my card is still under it. If I had went to Hyperion or Amiga.fr I would have had to pay up to 200EUR for repair, so at least this is some sort of releif, however knowing DCE and all the stories I may not receive the card back at all. We'll see. :-)

[patrik]

@x56h34:

Try the links now.

At the moment I feel more like using the CSPPC as an expensive wall-decoration considering the prices of repair. Though I think there ought to be some other electronics company out there qualified to replace the PPC. DCE sounds quite risky, havent we all read/seen the "CyberStorm sent to DCE for repair" thread :-/.

(edit): Wasnt there some guy who replaced the 603e on his BPPC with a faster one? I dont suppose he hired DCE for that PPC replacement...


/Patrik

[x56h34]

Patrik, the chip looks fine from the top views. That's pretty much how they all look after the heatsink is removed. The tricky part it figuring out if the pins of it which are soldered to the board have been damaged. Naturally, you can only see the front rows of all 4 sides, however the ones that are closer to the middle are invisible to the eye and thus it is hard to determine if they make good contacts anymore.

Slight pressure to the PPC chip and it's very likely to get damaged. It's that sensitive,.especially on DCE made CSPPC cards.

edit:

I think that the reason why Amiga.fr and Hyperion can't fix these 604e related failures is the fact that unlike the 68060, the PPC chip's pins don't stick out on the other end of the card since this particular spot on the CSPPC card uses double-printed (or more?) board heavily. :-(

[AJS]

Hi Patrik, these might seem stupid but
You did get the 2 software disks when you brought the cyberstorm? and installed them before fitting the card?

Also what size  is the ram are they all the same size?
eg 2*8MByte in ram-bank 0  2*32MByte in ram-bank 1
they can't be mixed between banks eg 1*8Mbyte and 1* 32Mbyte in ram-bank 0

are you getting power to the board, is the small CPU fan running when the computer power is turned on.

Andy

[patrik]

@x56h34:

Have you checked the "from the corners" pictures? The southwest corner picture shows the most damaged corner of the core. Athlons atleast can be rendered very unhappy with corners like this one.

Evidently this CPU has been subject to some pressure, though being a Phase5 card it doesnt seem to have liked it.

I hope someone will answer to the question wether or not it works with Kickstart 3.0 as I am not that interested in putting more money in the A4000 at the moment.


@AJS:

I didnt get the two disks with the card, but I installed the Phase5 68060 libraries before fitting this card. Though that does not matter as it doesnt even begin too boot as it is right now, the only thing the computer does is flash the caps-led of the keyboard one time.

I have tried using the two supplied 16MB SIMMs fitted in bank 0. I have also tried populating the card with four 4MB SIMMs.

(edit): The fan is running. The 68060 also seems to get its power as I measured the output from the regulator feeding it to 3.29V.

/Patrik

[Neo]

I've noticed that the memories on the CybPPC board are grouped as 1,3 and 2,4. (May be worth to consider)

Check that SCSI cable is attached and terminated correctly. If not the boot process sometimes takes (almost) forever.

Try to access the PPC boot menu. (I think it was the ESC key) Turn of all SCSI units that are not used. That will speed up booting considerable.

I would also check if there is some metalic grains stuck somewhere at the PPC board. (short circuits makes HW to behave strange) Had that problem on my PC, after finding that it worked fine afterwards.

[x56h34]

Patrik, something else just came to my attention.

Your 060 CPU is a "XC68EC060RC50". These come without FPU and MMU as per this link. Could this be possibly it? CyberstormPPC needs MMU for the MapRom function and it could be confused by this. Total speculation on my part.

Has anyone removed the original 060 and placed this one instead?

[patrik]

@Neo:

The memories are fitted in 1,3 (bank 0) right now, have also tried fitting 4 4MB simms on it. Do you know if the computer is supposed to show any signs of life if the memory is missing/installed wrong? My Blizzard1260 does some funky flashing each boot for example. As it is now I just get a black screen and a flash with the caps-led, then nothing more.

I dont have anything connected to the SCSI-connector at all. I waited several minutes for it to boot, but still nothing.

I will check the card again to make sure no metallic grains are on it, though I havent spotted anything when looking closely at it earlier.

(edit):

@x56h34:

As it is of the 01F43G mask it should still be a full one even if it is marked as an EC. See this document regarding the early masks of the 68060 processor. Anyhow the card worked in the former owners A4000T, so that should be the problem. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but doesnt all Phase5 accelerators have a builtin hardware feature to support MapROM without using the MMU?


/Patrik

[Neo]

@Patrik

Just checked. Removed all Simms but one on my PPC. It still booted! :-) No memory though.

[x56h34]

@Patrik

I am not sure on the built-in hardware MapRom feature which you are reffering to.

Anyways, are you sure that the original owner is telling the truth about the card working?