Amiga 3000D 3640 and guru's with cybergraphx

[matt3k]

I just put a 3640.1 in one of my 3000D and it appears to work just fine.  But when I use RTG software I get strange issues.

Here is the box:
3000D Rev9/3
3.1
16mb static column zips (60ns)
ramsey-7 dmac-4 buster-11
Retina Z3
Ariandne

With Picasso 96 drivers it would work with only one resolution 1024x768 and the drivers were out of range in the others (the ranges worked fine for the Spectrum I used in it last.)

So I punted and tried cybergraphx 4 and it crashes when ever I try to setup a mode with cgxmode, right after you select a resolution in newmode.  It gives a 80000004 error.

Forced all ramsey settings off, just in case and tried turning off all the caches.

Any ideas?

[matt3k]

Fixed this issue and thought I would share to save someone the same headache:

After I went through:
- Reseating and Testing Memory extensively.
- Fixed all my improper Mask and Maxtransfers.
- Trying various 68040.librarys. (Still trying the best one for WHDLoad, will let you know what one works best)
- Reinstalling OS 3.9 and playing with different Startup-Sequences.

I was able to get everything working by using Picasso 96 Drivers for the Retina.  For some very unknown reason to me, only the base install of Cybergraphx 4 from the cd would work, but once I upgraded version to any of the Release Candidates (RC4,RC5,RC66), it would give 80000004 errors as soon as the card was accessed.  Shame I'm more familiar with Cybergraphx and I can get a bit more resolution and speed from it as well.

Strange since this card worked fine in another 3000 with the identical chipset and motherboard version.  The only difference between them is that one was made in the USA and the other in Hong Kong.

Oh, well hope this helps someone down the road save some time!

It now runs perfect, the 3640 with the newer ramsey/dmac works just fine with all static column zips.

Now I have to get to installing patches for speed up and improved stability.  Any suggestions?

[Ral-Clan]

I know this is no help, but I owned an A3000 for a little while, and while I loved the design of the thing, it often gave me strange 800004 GURUS for no apparent reason.  It also did other strange things like not recognize certain hard drives my A2000 would recognize, and when some devices were plugged into the external SCSI port it would not turn on at ALL (pressing the power switch did nothing (not even a power LED) until the device was removed (this, despite careful termination).

I remembered the A3000 would GURU when AmiDock in OS3.9 was launched at startup, for instance.

So while I loved the A3000's design, it just did too many wierd things for me to want to use it over my A2000 (plus it was damn tight to fit anything inside and it ran hotter than an A2000).

[matt3k]

I know this is no help, but I owned an A3000 for a little while, and while I loved the design of the thing, it often gave me strange 800004 GURUS for no apparent reason.  It also did other strange things like not recognize certain hard drives my A2000 would recognize, and when some devices were plugged into the external SCSI port it would not turn on at ALL (pressing the power switch did nothing (not even a power LED) until the device was removed (this, despite careful termination).

I remembered the A3000 would GURU when AmiDock in OS3.9 was launched at startup, for instance.

So while I loved the A3000's design, it just did too many wierd things for me to want to use it over my A2000 (plus it was damn tight to fit anything inside and it ran hotter than an A2000).

The 2000 is a great box, rugged tanks that are reliable.

I think the same of the 3000's as well.  I have a venerable 3000 that has worked perfectly well from the factory and hasn't missed a beat.

The real tragedy with the 3000's (an really any Amiga) is that they aren't maintained and start to fail and act up.  The 3000D that gave me grief I picked up from an old amiga club member had battery damage, I had to solder jumper wires to get the battery to the clock and remember time.

Amiga's simply like to be treated well, if you never let a battery leak and use it occasionally.  Any Amiga will work consistently in my experience.

To me the 3000 is the perfect size.  I never haven't been able to expand one to the level I wanted.  It does run hotter that most other models, but it isn't an issue if you know what and how to properly expand a 3000.

Sorry you had so much trouble with the 3k you had...

[Ral-Clan]

The 2000 is a great box, rugged tanks that are reliable.

I think the same of the 3000's as well.  I have a venerable 3000 that has worked perfectly well from the factory and hasn't missed a beat.

The real tragedy with the 3000's (an really any Amiga) is that they aren't maintained and start to fail and act up.  The 3000D that gave me grief I picked up from an old amiga club member had battery damage, I had to solder jumper wires to get the battery to the clock and remember time.

Yeah, my Amiga 3000 had no battery problems.  I removed the battery as soon as I came into possession of it, and it had not leaked.

I do think it's a great machine - and probably the best design.  My particular one was just always a little "wierd" - another thing I remember is that it would sometimes recognise the Picasso card I had installed in it, then other times it would start up as if the Picasso card was missing.

While I LOVE all Amigas, and am huge fan of big box Amigas, I find they still run the most stable when you are running them in factory configuration. Add a processor card or one or two Zorro cards and things are still almost always good (not 100% of the time, but mostly).  Start adding three or four Zorro cards, hang multiple SCSI devices off the internal and external ports, etc. etc. and you start getting into stability issues.  You start having to cross your fingers at boot time.

At least that's the experience I've had with all big box Amigas.

[danbeaver]

Back to your original question:  getting the RetinaZ3 to work.
The default settings in P96 are wrong and they must be adjusted to the proper ones (at least for those settings that work); Johnim who borrowed my posts put together a "P96 Res[olution] Guide" that shows where to get the correct numbers to put into P96 for any compatible resolution (provided both the monitor and RTG card support it).  I have done it about 6 times with no problem. I have tried CyberG V4 (from official CD) without success in the past. But now use only Picasso96 2.1c (google it).  

You will find Johnim's guide in Amibay's AmiOracle in the stickies section.

[matt3k]

Back to your original question:  getting the RetinaZ3 to work.
The default settings in P96 are wrong and they must be adjusted to the proper ones (at least for those settings that work); Johnim who borrowed my posts put together a "P96 Res[olution] Guide" that shows where to get the correct numbers to put into P96 for any compatible resolution (provided both the monitor and RTG card support it).  I have done it about 6 times with no problem. I have tried CyberG V4 (from official CD) without success in the past. But now use only Picasso96 2.1c (google it).  

You will find Johnim's guide in Amibay's AmiOracle in the stickies section.

Thanks.  I installed the 2.1c version.

The only issue is I can't drag my new resolution over once I create it.  Has this happened to you?