Blizzard PPC Crisis

[CU_AMiGA]

Hello :-(

Tragedy struck for me yesterday, BIG TIME. I was planning on listening to a bit of REM on the Amiga, i switched the machine on and waited for it to boot up, but nothing happened apart from a blank screen. I then noticed that the green LED was flashing like a mad thing. I switched the machine off (for about 30 seconds) and switched back on. But no luck, i just got the same problem as before (blank screen and flashing LED). I reapeated that step many times and even tried it this morning, but still no luck.

I opened up the tower, to see if anything came loose, etc. I also made sure all the chips, ROMS were seated properly. I switched the machine back on, but the same as before. I then disconnected the CD/CDRW ROM Drives and the HD and tried again, but still kept persisting. So then i took out the Blizzard PPC and Blizzardvision, and this time i got the Workbench disk screen, it was okay like that, it was working.

I then realised that there maybe a problem with the BPPC, so i took out the meg simms and took off the Blizzardvision and reinserted the BPPC on its own, and to my horror it confirmed the nightmare that i had been dreading. I have also cleaned the  connector on the Amiga 1200 expansion slot and the BPPC, via cleaning fluid but still no luck, i get the same error as before.

I think that it could be a BPPC problem, but i am going to try the BPPC on another Amiga 1200 tonight. I am not to sure if it is an over heating issue or not, i looked at both 060 and 603e chips, and there were no signs of over heating whatsoever. Can anyone else think of what the problem could be and what i could do about it, and put me out of my misery!

Thank you in advance,

[Karlos]

Well if your BlizzardPPC is anything like mine, it may occasionally 'forget' the rather important startup code and settings in its flashrom.

When this happens for me, the ppc, memory, scsi and gfx card just bomb out. However, the 680x0 side still operates (albeit like a snail without the old fast ram). The machine just gets stuck in a crash loop when the startup sequence starts doing stuff without all the hardware initialised.

Try booting without a startup sequence and see if the card is listed in the expansion list.

If it isnt, but you can boot to a shell ok, you should find you have your 680x0 and thats it. Failing all else, I usually reflash at this point and everything works.

Other BPPC hints

1) Once a month *at least*, clean out all the crud that builds up under the heatsink. The thing is a dust trap. Get a tube of good thermal paste for putting the thing back on with (a *small* dollop on the PPC die, having cleaned the cooler underside completely).

2) Install a heatsink on the permedia2 chip. It knows how to get hot :-)

3) If you are powering your 1200T motherboard via the original power connector only, consider adding a 2nd power feed via the original floppy power header. The BlizzardPPC+BVision+Big wedge of RAM tends to draw a lot of current. I have the 040 version which is even more of a hog, and my system is unreliable without this extra feed.

If you use some sort of powered busboard that feeds the whole system, like a mediator, you might not want to do this, or seek advice first.

[Ryu]

will it not boot at all with the BPPC in place, just the BPPC? If you can get to the early boot menu you could try to reflash the BPPC, it could be the flash has gone haywire... If you cant even boot with the card then id say the cards dead... either that or the A1200 mobo has died somewhere...

[Ryu]

@Karlos

Your PPC does that too? I posted about that here a few weeks back quite worried about it... Mines done it a few times in the few weeks ive had it (my 2nd BPPC machine that is)... the last couple of times its gone its even forgotten what crystal speed it is so I have to use the MHZ switch in the flash command line to set it to 240 otherwise the flash doesnt work....

[Karlos]

@Ryu

Indeed it does. God knows what the problem is. In my case, the entire settings have been forgotton sometimes, other times it remembers some and not others.

[CU_AMiGA]

Thanks very much for the replies,

I was going to reflash the card (as a last ditch effort). I haven't tried the startup sequence yet, the green LED literally flashes after 2-3 seconds when i switch the machine on. It's funny cos i was listening to mp3s before, then i took a 30 minute break went back on, and then i get all this trouble.

I have a power tower and a 240 watt PSU, so i think i am okay there. I also cleaned the BPPC out at the beginning of January, although when i looked at it yesterday, it was a little grubby. Well, anyway, i will try what you two said and:

1) Rook at startup and see if the card itself is recognised.

2) Reflash card

3) Try new A1200 mobo

Again, your tips are much appreciated.

Cheers,

[Karlos]

@CU

Youd be unlucky for the 1200 mobo to have a real fault. In my experience they are robust as hell (contrary to various 2000 fanatics views of old).

Does your card have SCSI? if not, it probably has a shorter boot delay than mine, which normally idles for 10 seconds waiting for scsi hardware to spin up.

When the flashrom brainfarts, even this delay goes and it starts trying to boot almost immediately then slips up in just a few seconds.

[CU_AMiGA]

@Karlos,

No, my BPPC has no SCSI on it. What happens is i switch the machine on, it attempts to bootup, the green LED lights up and then the machine seems to try and bootup (after around 3 seconds) and then resets and the LED will keep flashing. I think the machine does attempt to reboot, cos the CD/CDRW drives were going crazy, their LEDs kept flashing (like they would when you first switch a computer on).

Cheers,

[Karlos]

@CU

That really does sound like the flashrom foible. The fact that it actually starts to boot indicates the 680x0 side is probably still working, but all the other hardware has failed to initialise. This causes a headache as soon as setpatch gets to work.

-edit-

Incidentally, regarding the reflash process, you may find the newer flash updates fail with "sector 0 is write protected", and giving you a dire warning about the end of the world :nervous:

If this happens, try to get an earlier version of the flash. I found the earlier ones flash no problem, and you can then update it (another flash) straight to the latest one ;-)

[FrankBrana]

Hi

Sometime ago my bro had the very same problem.The PPC settings gone sometimes during the powerup the machine. He solved it flashing the PPC no with the latest update but the previous at DCE page.

Another question. I have noticed that there is an option in the PPC settings to boot from CD.
I have tried with a backup of the WorkBench partition with no luck at all.

Do you know whats the way to do that?

Regards

-FrankB

[Ryu]

id like to know what causes the card to loose its flash... none of the other BPPC cards ive had have ever done it except my recent addition, my BPPC 240mhz 040 with scsi

[amigamad]

I would also try another power supply it could be at fault i have a patriot mini  sized pc that had a dodgy psu and it would power up but not enough to power the machine properly if you were lucky it would work once out of so many times it was switched on .In this case thwe psu,s are known to be rubbish and capacitors in it have have bulged out a bit. :-)

[lempkee]

frankB: when my ide died i booted a backed up os3.9 cd of my system right of my scsi on the bppc , but i had to overide all savings to Ram:

but it worked and its one of the reasons why i am still here .

anyway i know it didnt work well before but the flashrom i use now works on my setup atleast (with boot from cd).



--

about the flash rom getting wiped, first time i heard about this was when ryu told me some time ago and seriously i have no ideas what it can be but it makes me considering to have a floppy disk with the flashrom always at hand, not done it so far but hell if it happens then i would panic without one i guess..

[Karlos]

Ryu wrote:
id like to know what causes the card to loose its flash... none of the other BPPC cards ive had have ever done it except my recent addition, my BPPC 240mhz 040 with scsi

Blimey. The exact same model as me! As it goes, mine only developed this problem after quite some time. There seems to be no pattern to the failure, it can be fine for months, then require several flashes in a matter of a week. Go figure :-?

[Ryu]

Ive had the card now for about a month and ive had to do it about 6 times so far... the previous owner didnt tell me about the problem and I assume he didnt have the problem with it going on what he said in the emails we exchanged about it..