Some Mediator 4000Di questions

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by mech

I can attest to his troubles i was helping him thru the tribulations. I will likely be flamed for saying this but i think something is buggy with the new mediators 3v versions. Does anyone have one of these running solid/stable out there?
The old 5v mediators are pretty much rock stable.

You're old Mechy!

Also as you see from this thread a few (CMSJ, Spudje, and trixter) people have the same problems, but thinking back the two 5V mediators I bought were bought as "broken" and aside from some power related issues along the way that weren't the Mediators' fault they work fine.

But yes I think I might be the only one in the Sonnet thread running a 5V Mediator everyone else seems to have 3.3V Mediators, though some have/had problems they seem to work for them. At least they aren't reporting the board disappearing or RTG just crashing after initialization.

I was hoping along the way to buy CMSJ's system so I would get some closure to the issue. Mechy and I threw everything at the wall we could think of to resolve it, aside from actually being there to troubleshoot physically.

[spudje]

So, finally I returned my mediator to Poland and fingers crossed Elbox can fix it. Before that I did continue getting everything (only at power on, not after reboot) working, that is, voodoo3, pci network, bigramplus256 & Highway USB. All ran flawlessly.

After a lot of trying and cursing I even got Wipeout2097 to run. In the end tweaking the voodoomem envarc and memory setting of the game resulted in success. Man that game ran pretty smooth, ok, only tried at 640x480.

[spudje]

It's back and fully working!!!! Yay, credits to Elbox!

[trixster]

That's great news!

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by spudje

It's back and fully working!!!! Yay, credits to Elbox!

I'm glad the replacement worked. CMSJ was not so lucky with his replacement. Perhaps Elbox have discovered the design issue or production issue with those 3.3V Mediators.

[Kin Hell]

Originally Posted by spudje

It's back and fully working!!!! Yay, credits to Elbox!

Great Result fella

Originally Posted by trixster

That's great news!

Come on bud, surely this gives you some glimmer of hope with yours....

[trixster]

Mine is all working now my friend! I got running last month after tracking down the software conflict. I've now got a sonnet working on it too so it was worth the aggro.

What was the software conflict?

[trixster]

Layers.library v45 incorrectly installed, newlayers.library was still in place and there was something up with LoadModule. Effectively reinstalling layers.library stopped the insta-crash that was occurring as soon as (or rather soon after) the voodoo monitor driver was activated.

The problem was that I was completely certain that I had removed LoadModule (and hence layers.library's activation) on multiple occasions whilst trying to troubleshoot the problem. Clearly not, or maybe I did but did not hard-reboot between changing things.

It has shown me that a clean install really is the only way to go if you're having problems if you don't want to painstakingly go through disabling things and returning to stock config of patches/libraries/hacks etc.

The recent sonnet issues I've had have been largely similar in regards to having to disable stuff one by one to find out what the problem was.

Sometimes you really can have an Amiga that's patched/tweaked too far....

[trixster]

I've just added an ide splitter to my A4000 and with it installed the Mediator simply refuses to recognise the presence of the Voodoo3. Pciinfo shows the other 3 cards ok. If I remove the splitter the Voodoo3 reappears and the Mediator works fine!

Anyone encounters this anomaly? I'm using the os3.9 bb2 scsi.device 43.43

[spudje]

Sorry to revive. I have no issues with a (non buffered I believe) IDE splitter. Also a Buddha flash works fine.

In the mean time I sold my Sonnet and am only working with the CSPPC, which is powerful enough for my needs.

However I still have some stability issues (Many 80000004 "waiting for disk activity" errors, that tend to happen more often the more I install on the system) and maybe they are related to your loadmodule/layers.library Trixster as I need loadmodule to load a different scsi.device. Could you elaborate more how to identify and fix these issues?

[trixster]

The ide splitter issue inexplicably fixed itself. When I tried it again it worked fine, no Mediator issues. I don't actually use the splitter anymore!

The layers.library 'problem' was a matter of me not troubleshooting correctly and trying to 'fix' a problem piecemeal rather than starting from a clean system. I had installed layers.library before getting RTG and never read the documentation fully which meant I hadn't realised that I had to subsequently remove newlayers.library once the voodoo went in. A matter of not RTFM!

My suggestion would be to either start a new install or be sure to remove all instances of patches and LoadModule commands from your startup-sequence.

I think 8000 0004 could be related to memory or an illegal instruction, so perhaps do some research as to what in your system might be causing it - have you tested all your memory?

http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/guruguide.html

What 060 libraries are you using?

Running anything like cyberpatcher or oxypatcher? Have you tried the mmulibs 060 libraries?

If you're using a cf card have you checked max transfer?

[indigolemon]

May be unrelated, but what settings did you set for MaxTransfer in HDToolbox? (I'm assuming you're still using the onboard IDE).

[edit] Sorry Trixster, completely missed your edit when I posted Please ignore this redundant post ...

[spudje]

Yes my gut feeling, totally no based on something solid, is that someone the CFs go weird after installing more stuff on it, partly via WinUAE, partly via the Amiga (internal IDE indeed).

I use PFS3AIO on my CFs with these settings:
identifier code: 0x50465303
Max transfer rate: 0x0001FE00
Mask: 0x7FFFFFFE
Block size: 512

I don't run any patchers, nor MMU libs. Maybe I'll try with MMU libs again (tried it with the Sonnet).
Don't remember which 060 lib, but one of he most used I believe. I'll try with others.

[indigolemon]

Max Transfer looks bang on (Last check here - was it always set like this? Or did you change it after you started using the card?).

I definitely recommend the MMU libs, they bring their own 68060 library along for the ride and it all integrates beautifully

[spudje]

OK, great, yes always used these settings since I started using PFS3AIO. I'll try the MMUlibs soon. However it feels like it started to happen since I upgraded to WinUAE 3.5 and in there I also have some weird crashes, so somehow I wonder whether that thing is somehow corrupting my CFs (or the card reader fell one too many times). On one CF I got block ID errors in WinUAE.

[Kin Hell]

It's funny coming back in here after spudje's pleas for help and only trying to "fer-narr" things in a nice way.....

Originally Posted by trixster

Wow, Elbox replied to you!?

Originally Posted by spudje

Yes, should I feel privileged

Originally Posted by Kin Hell

Yes, absolutely.

Anything ZORRO based should configure OK with any Amiga/Elbox incarnation, but....

The issues setting up any Amiga/Elbox rig is all down to DMA.... Which Elbox Fudged in their drivers.....

Like Trixter mentions, Libs are everything with the Amiga when you go 040 and on..... it gets a bit more wobbly the faster you go....& becomes another can of worms depending on which Accelerator board you have installed....

....There are certain A1200 Apollo cards that REFUSE to work, ....unless their Specific "Driver Floppy" Libs are not installed..... & that depends on which Revision of A1200 Motherboard you have....

....An awful lot of Late but wonderfull Hardware Ideas without the Support of C= & Mr. Dave Haynie.

It all can work but there is an awful lot of trial & error with these girls but wow, when she works & it's priceless....

and please spudje....

Forget WinUAE & stay hardcore..... You can not run old fudged hardware configs like Amiga/Elbox off an Emulat0r.....

Be more 0ld-School & install it from scratch. It's Classic hardware & needs Classic preparation to function correctly. Only back it up in an Emulat0r if you have to....
I always found "copy the Workbench Partition" via Directory Opus, to another media worked quite well & I don't want to come over sounding condescending either.... Just don't rely on an Emulat0r to set this up right.

[drluking]

Hello,

few days (I hope) and I'll have my first Elbox product; a mediator PCI 4000Di 3v mk-III, I hope will not be a nightmare

Mine is an A4000 rev. B, super buster 11, with 060 (128Mb + 16Mb), with OS 3.9 boing bags 4, with Indivision AGA MK2cr, mainboard full working and full recapped, with new ATX powersupply 520W (with correct Voltage range and correct Ampere), and new coin battery (no damage in mainboard).

I want add three PCI cards: a Voodoo3 2000 PCI (16Mb), a SB 128 PCI (or FM801, or SB live not supported at the moment I think), an ethernet RTL8139 PCI (I have also to test, not interested to use at the moment an Adaptec AHA-2940UW).
I hope to find a Sonnet PCI for the fourth PCI slot.

I have also to add eventually a BigRamPlus 256Mb Zorro3 to test in the Elbox mediator (at the moment I use in this A4000 a Cybervision64 3d CGX4 but with Warp3d unusable and a X-surf 100 ethernet); my idea is to put these Zorro cards in an other my A4000 that has no Zorro card at the moment.

well, first of all few questions:

- my idea is to put in this way the PCI cards, what do you think about ? :
ethernet RTL8139 PCI in the lower slot PCI (first slot PCI down of four slots)
SB 128 PCI in the second slot
Voodoo3 2000 PCI in the third slot
fourth slot PCI (at the top) free at the moment--> where add eventually add Sonnet card later

- OS 3.9 boing bags 4 used at the moment has inside Unofficial Picasso96 2.1e (alpha)
http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/Picasso96.htm
Do I need to remove It and install Picasso96 2.1b ? http://amiga.serveftp.net/downloads.html
Or use other version ? (P96 2.1c , P96 2.1d)

- After update the MMCD UP2.5, Do I need to use pci.library 12.0 (30/05/2017) or test version pci.library 13.1 (11/01/2018) ?
http://www.elbox.com/downloads_mediator.html

[grelbfarlk]

You might want to look at the Unreliable Mediator Guide that some guy maintains:
https://mediators.github.io/

I use Picasso unofficial 2.1e.

The Adaptec PCI cards are terribly slow, you must have some very weird reason to use one... like you really want a slow external SCSI port for external CDROM maybe?

I can't really advise you on the card order since it seems all over the place. One configuration works for one person and a different for another. Here are some examples of how I have them:
A4000D
--Top Slot--
4) Rapture G4
3) 100MB NIC
2) Voodoo 3
1) SB128
--Bottom Slot--

Old configuration was:
--Top Slot--
4) 100MB NIC (is not blocked by Sonnet RAM)
3) Sonnet G3
2) Voodoo 3
1) SB128
--Bottom Slot--

A4000D-Towerized
--Top Slot--
5) 10MB NIC (for OS4)
4) Rapture G4 (Or Sonnet)
3) Voodoo 3
2) FM801
1) Spider USB
--Bottom Slot--

[Hedeon]

I use an adaptec card in my A1200T and it's faster than native IDE. Around 2.5 MB/s