Amiga 3000 acting up.

[matt3k]

I have a testy Amiga 3000D that hasn't been stable and behaving itself.  I thought originally it was BB4 but I'm not sure it is it.  I tested for viruses, pulled it all apart and cleaned it and reseated.

It still will not run well with Abackup and SMBFS.  I get 80000008, 80000003 when path is in the Startup-Sequence, and 8000000B.  

Now I'm beginning to think it is either my CS MK III 060 on the way out or software/hacks.

I decided to try the wonderful MMU library and utils!  Now I have an interesting occurance:

When I turned it off and on with the MMU.Library and 68060.library it give me messages about not being able to load certain items and it halts to a prompt.  If I try running anything from the prompt it says that the DHO: PFS3 partition is invalid.  If I replace the  68060.library and reboot all is back to normal.

Any ideas?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Since it's an A3000, can you try removing the CS MK III and using just the built-in CPU?  I know that's a PITA, but it would rule out a whole bunch of components real fast, if they are the issue.

[matt3k]

Since it's an A3000, can you try removing the CS MK III and using just the built-in CPU?  I know that's a PITA, but it would rule out a whole bunch of components real fast, if they are the issue.

Good point Mike, I will give it a go.

[magnetic]

Sounds to me like you have a system patched to hell so hard to diagnose on a forum man

[Pat the Cat]

Getting Gurus / Software Failure messages like that on a 32 bit Amiga can be a symptom of a fast RAM problem, sometimes an individual chip that needs replacing.

Certainly had that on an A3000, it takes a bunch of ZIPs in the motherboard, lots more to go wrong over time.

Thing is, if one goes bad and its mapped low in the memory map, the Amiga is so screwed it won't even boot.

One way to diagnose is to try moving the chips around, then startup the machine again to see if it can boot to Workbench or fails even earlier. But be very careful to earth yourself, these chips are very static sensitive - probably most static sensitive components you run into on the Amiga scene.

32 bit SIMMS are so much less work, and you can build a convertor to push into the sockets and plug inline memory modules instead. A very good upgrade on the A3000, in the long term. I'll dig out the details and post them if you are interested.

Edit: Memory on the A3000 is a very complex area. Sometimes the motherboard has DIP ICs rather than ZIP ICs. Sometimes it is wiser to just use fast RAM on an accelerator card instead, and only plug chip RAM into the motherboard, not fast RAM. Ho hum. This link guides you through the permutations, as obviously I don't know for sure exactly how your A3000 is rigged for memory.

http://www.amiga.serveftp.net/A3000_HardwareGuide/memory.html

Other possibilities are that ABackup and / or the file system just hates MMUs, 68060s, and life in general. Software intolerance to 32 bit hardware is part of the Amiga software scene, sadly. If you have NEVER got it to work, that could be why. Some software loves using hard disk space as virtual memory, and some doesn't, and I don't know of an online resource to actually inform people as to performance expectations of Amiga software in particular.