Problem with KS3.1 and Amiga 3000

[madgrizzle]

I recently purchased KS3.1 roms to upgrade my A3000 that came with KS2.04.  For the KS2.04 ROMS, ROM0 is in U181 and ROM1 is in U180 (marking of ROM0 and ROM1 on the motheboard is wrong.. or markings on the ROMs are wrong.. many hours wasted trying to figure out why my computer wasn't booting).

When I install the new 3.1 roms, I get black screen.  One was marked U180 and the other U181.  I tried switching them but I got the same result.  With them back in their respective spots, I tried setting the ROM speed to 16 MHz (J151 and J152) and still got black screen.  Pin 1 is facing the daughterboard and there are no bent/unseated pins.

The motherboard is v8.9 with no ROM tower.

Any suggestions?  The vendor said they were tested in an A3000 before they were shipped and offered to send me another set if needed.

[wlemonds]

Was the system booting with the 2.04 roms before changing to 3.1? Did you reinstall the 2.04 rom after the 3.1 didn't work?

[kirk_m]

Does the notch on the ROM line up with the notch on the ROM socket?  That's the only way to verify that pins are aligned properly. Maybe you have them properly inserted, but I can't tell you yes or no based on orientation with respect to the daughter card.  If the ROMs are inserted in reverse, you can get the black screen.

Did you reinsert the 2.04 as wlemonds asked and get it to boot.

Also, how did you remove the ROMS?  Did you pry them out with a screwdriver?  If the machine doesn't boot with the original ROMS reinserted, you might have damaged a trace or socket with a the screwdriver if you weren't careful.

Finally, is the daughter card in when you try to boot?  If you removed it, it won't boot without it present and properly inserted.

[madgrizzle]

Notches line up.. notch pointing toward the installed daughter board.  Yes, I can remove the 3.1 ROMs., reinsert the 2.04 ROMs and boot.

Are there only two jumpers that need to change your drop the room speed to 16 MHz?  The vendor is sending new ROMs anyway.. I hope it's just the ROMs rather than something else strange.

[wlemonds]

You shouldn't have to mess with any jumpers. I have those at 25 Mhz.

[QuikSanz]

@madgrizzle,

I seem to remember a thread where someone found that the ROM labels were swapped, He switched them and success!

[madgrizzle]

Switching them didn't work.. first thing I tried.  I found this while googling:

"I purchased a pair of 3.1 ROM's which were in fact 27C400s. I also have the rev. 8.9 mobo which leaves pin 1 of the ROMs floating. I Never had a bit of trouble with them even when the mobo was over-clocked and ROM timing was set for the fastest speed. They had a mirror image burned into the upper and lower 256KB of each ROM so they would have worked with pin 1 to GND or VCC although left floating is usually resolved as a logical high by the internal address buffers.

I also have a pair of TC574200 which I burned a 512KB 3.9 ROM image into using the mirror method which worked fine with pin 1 floating also. It wasn't until I did the 1MB ROM hack that I finally got around to connecting pin 1 to A19! But that's just my personal experience. :razz:"

But then I found this:

"Still i did not have my KS3.1 at work and i also found out why: The Adresslines of A4000 and i guess also newer models of A3000 (Rev 8.x an higher) decode also A19 (from amiga) to A17 (on rom chip) which makes for a total of 1024K of rom space (18 adress lines, 16 data lines, 2 chips = 2^18x2(bytes)x2(chips)=1024Kbytes). On older Rev. (6.x, 7.x) A3000 A19 is not connected and that leaves room for max 512Kb. So since KS3.1 is (only) 512kb it should work great right? But my KS3.1 did not work. Looking a bit closer at my KS3.1 (they are eproms and not roms in my case) i found out that my chips are 4mbit (512kb) each so that totals to 1024K so that means only half of it it filled with the KS3.1 code and the other half is not used. Now how does the amiga select the 'right' part of the chip and not the part which is not used? It uses the extra adresline (Amiga A19, Rom A17) to do so! I think this extra line was intended for future kickstarts which might be bigger than 512K (Older KS1.2/1.3 was only 256K and grew to 512 starting with KS2.0). The A17(rom) line on the sockets on the ROM-Tower was not connected to A19 (amiga) but was connected to ground(0V) and with that it selected the unused part of my Eproms and that is why my KS3.1 did not work in my Amiga3000. Until now because after i reconnected the A17 lines from my eproms to +5V (which makes the amiga use the other half of my eproms) it finaly worked :-D :-D :-D"


I don't know what the chips are, but they are from Amiga on the Lake and are labeled as Amiga Forever 3.1 ROMs.  Anyone know if 8.9 has a floating pin 1?  I looked at the back side of the mb and there appears to be something coming off pin one of U181..  nothing on backside of U180 and was too obscured to see if something connected from the topside.

[wlemonds]

I have rev. 9/03 and got my roms from Software Hut in the 90's and didn't have to do any of that, it was just replace and install WB 3.1.

[kirk_m]

I highly doubt vendors actually test ROMs in a real Amiga before mailing them.  I say this because every kickstart ROM I have ever purchased has never fit into the amiga I am trying to install them into without first bending the pins inward towards the center of the chip, else they legs don't line up with the socket holes.  Every single one for every single Amiga I own has had the chip legs splayed outwards (no bent pins, the whole pin pattern is divergent from the chip).  This leads me to think they come right from the eprom burner and get placed into the shipping tubes.

[madgrizzle]

I had to bend the pins a little as well.

[midway]

I have some original 3.1 roms for the 3000 but think a pin broke off. Let me know if that is something u might be interested. Softhut provided them

[QuikSanz]

I recently purchased KS3.1 roms to upgrade my A3000 that came with KS2.04.  For the KS2.04 ROMS, ROM0 is in U181 and ROM1 is in U180 (marking of ROM0 and ROM1 on the motheboard is wrong.. or markings on the ROMs are wrong.. many hours wasted trying to figure out why my computer wasn't booting).

When I install the new 3.1 roms, I get black screen.  One was marked U180 and the other U181.  I tried switching them but I got the same result.  With them back in their respective spots, I tried setting the ROM speed to 16 MHz (J151 and J152) and still got black screen.  Pin 1 is facing the daughterboard and there are no bent/unseated pins.

The motherboard is v8.9 with no ROM tower.

Any suggestions?  The vendor said they were tested in an A3000 before they were shipped and offered to send me another set if needed.

Are the ROM's 3.X ROM's? if so you must have workbench.library on disk.

[dalek]

A long short but have you actually waited >30 seconds at the black screen?  Maybe you were sent A4000 3.1 ROMs and it's timing out on the 30s IDE wait?

[madgrizzle]

Got a response from the vendor and they found a problem with their prom burner and complete stash of previously burnt 3.1 roms (they got black screens when they plugged them in).  They are sending me a new freshly burned set that they tested on two different A3000 and offered to throw in something extra for my troubles.

All's good, I hope.

[Acill]

Got a response from the vendor and they found a problem with their prom burner and complete stash of previously burnt 3.1 roms (they got black screens when they plugged them in).  They are sending me a new freshly burned set that they tested on two different A3000 and offered to throw in something extra for my troubles.

All's good, I hope.

so much for them being tested before sending eh?