A500 GVP Series II HD8+ questions

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Just won one of these off ebay, am super-excited because I've wanted one for, quite literally, 20 years, now just need to wait for it to arrive from the UK.  A few questions before it arrives:

(1) - I'll need a North American power supply.  Does anyone have one for sale?

(2) - Alternatively, is there a hack that can be done to this unit to allow it to pull power off the A500 bus?  (I'm aware that I'd have to run at most a CF or SSD this way, don't want to strain my bus too much)

(3) - Is there a good SCSI->CF adapter anyone could recommend?  I see mention of a few online, but they seem pretty rare.  Is the Mechware one the best option?  I'd rather avoid the nasty daisy-chain mess of SCSI->IDE->CF adapters.  :p  Alternatively I may just go SCSI->SATA, and throw my spare 32GB SSD drive in there.  

(4) - I understand there is an upgraded "Guru ROM" available for these devices.  Is there any good source for them these days?

Any other tips about this device anyone would like to share?

Thanks!!!!  

[giZmo350]

(2) - Alternatively, is there a hack that can be done to this unit to allow it to pull power off the A500 bus?  (I'm aware that I'd have to run at most a CF or SSD this way, don't want to strain my bus too much)

This is the pic from the old A590 power hack on the A500 motherboard...  (you might find some detailed text of the hack by doing a google search) but of course this may be totally different for the GVP power source.

[k4lmp]

I have the MechWare reader on mine, and it works great.  I think he said he would be getting another shipment in soon.  You could email him and see.  I have 6 of them.  Not sure on the power supply from the A500, as I got lucky, and mine came with a good power supply.

[danbeaver]

If you use Mech's reader or an SSD, you won't need much power at all. I guess you could jump a couple of lines from the PSU in on the A500 to the SCSI controller, but put in a quick connect-disconnect junction so you can move or work on it. The GVP Guru ROM is a download from Ralph Babel's website, but the adapter is the bitch to locate without getting the whole GVP Impact Series II card; except they are hard to find cheap (being rare).  If the SCSI controller is a WD 33C93 DIP series and not a rev 8, then get an AMD from Mech for 15 bucks. They are more stable with CDROMS and other devices. The Guru ROM adds no more than 0.5 MB/s to the transfer speed over the stock ROM and even that is only on certain transfers -- not worth the money to find and buy one. Now you do have the option on an internal HDD and hooking up the SCSI card reader in an external SCSI box (I got all of mine searching for Mac's external SCSI drives).  I've done this with good results but it will need termination. The transfer rate for SCSI/2 is rate limiting on most drives much less SSD. to stay in budget I'd avoid the 100 buck SCSI->IDE/SATA and stick with CF cards, CDROMS, and hard drive from decommissioned servers.

The $60 SCSI card reader will give you a lot of use; I plug in a 4 GB card filled full of WHDLoads and it is retro play time, or use another one with bootable OS or backup.

[danbeaver]

Looking at Gizmo's post, that hack is ON the GVP unit and draws power from the expansion connector. I guess as long as the caps hold up to the extra power crossing the connection that is a good solution.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It finally came.  Have wanted one for 20 years, so am pretty excited.    May order one of the Mechware readers to go in it, but first... I still need a power supply.  Anyone have one for sale, or know how to wire a PC PSU to this thing?  That hack that's posted above is for the A590, not the GVP.

Alternatively, what would happen if I just plugged it in and turned it on with no external PSU?  I do have the "heavy duty" A500 PSU (LOL).

[k4lmp]

You can't go wrong with Mechy, he is great to buy from, participates in the forum, and offers tech support as well.  I have bought from him several times, and only had great experiences.  I highly recommend the SCSI reader he has.  Very easy to change to different OSes, just pop out the CF and put another one in.  If you have a USB reader for your PC, or a built in reader, you can do it all in WinUAE, then just plug it in the real Amiga.  Makes it very easy.  Also, with the GVP, it has excellent LUN support, unlike the A2091, which takes a while to boot, if you use the CF slot instead of the PCMCIA slot with the adapter.  With the GVP, you can use the CF slot, and it scans them in less than a second, and starts booting.  Good luck.

[curtis]

I THINK the GVP will pull power from the A500 power supply with no problems.

If it doesn't, there are a couple of jumpers towards the back of the unit that can be switched to allow it to draw power from the buss.

Someone around here is bound to know what they are.

Curtis

It finally came.  Have wanted one for 20 years, so am pretty excited.    May order one of the Mechware readers to go in it, but first... I still need a power supply.  Anyone have one for sale, or know how to wire a PC PSU to this thing?  That hack that's posted above is for the A590, not the GVP.

Alternatively, what would happen if I just plugged it in and turned it on with no external PSU?  I do have the "heavy duty" A500 PSU (LOL).