hardware problem with whdload

[breech]

I have an A500 modified to plus and A590 with 2m fast / scsi CF which has been very stable for the older (2012) set of slaves that I have.

I added a 1.5m ram/gary adapter and most games i've tried so far lock up. The adapter is a bit funky in that it connects to the middle pin of JP2, and the ram card has no extra wire needed with a 1mb agnus. It is wired and jumpered correctly.

http://i68.tinypic.com/24wxb9g.png

Does anyone know what might be going on here?

[MigaTech]

Can you be a little more specific? You stated A500 modified to Plus? Does this mean it used to be OCS and now it is ECS?

You tried a game and it locked up, which game? Also what size is the CF?

If you are referring to the Amiga listing the 1.5MB as slow ram, this is what all early 500's did. You can hack the computer so that it puts the slow ram into chip ram. This would then give you 1MB chip ram.

You need to have an Angus 8372A installed and make slight alterations to the JP2 and cut the XRAM line at the trapdoor. This works with Rev 5.

Not sure about the other Revisions and thought maybe you could add 8375 and try the same mod, might offer 2MB Chip, like on A500 Plus.

[breech]

Sure, note that without the addon card, its a suprisingly solid machine, and out of the hundreds of slaves ive tried, only one or two have locked up the computer. I'll run through and try my frequently played games list in tinylauncher and report.

A500 rev 6a
full ECS chipset
fat agnus (8372a with correct motherboard mods for rev 6a)
1mb chipram (added to motherboard)
A590 with 2mb fastram
68010
4gb CF running PFS3AIO and WB2.1 (rock solid)

I then added a hardital insider 2 which has 1.5 mb slowram, results are in the screenshot http://i68.tinypic.com/24wxb9g.png

Im interested in how i can add the slowram to chipram, do you have any further info for that? Yep I plan on getting another 8375, as I accidentally bought the NTSC version - and it also seems to be faulty.

[demolition]

You need a MegAChip to get more than 1MB chip mem in a rev. 6 board:
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/megachip

8375 is not pin compatible with 8372A so do not try to swap those.

If you only have a few slaves crashing the machine, then perhaps those slaves simply do not support your specific setup? Most slaves were originally designed for 030+ machines since those with 68000 CPUs would normally use the normal floppy-version. Many slaves were later reworked to work better with 020 and 000 systems but there are surely still some incompatible ones out there.

There is also the option of finding a 2MB 8372B Agnus from a A2000:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/...-2MB-chip.html
Those chips are quite rare though so it is probably easier and cheaper to finding a MegAChip.

[breech]

I think iv'e figured it out, the ram board is 2mb, and the manual states that it will provide 1.5 slow and 0.5 chip. the 0.5 chip is conflicting with my extra 0.5 on board - either that or there is a faulty chip. Unfortunately the expansion mem always reports 1.5mb slow - even after i've pulled all of the ram off :/

I guess whdload was managing to find this conflict/bad mem immediately.

[demolition]

I think the RAM board can only remap space to chip mem if it includes a board that connects to the CPU socket. But yes, it cannot work in addition to the 0.5MB chip that you soldered on to the MB since it will occupy the same addresses. With the 8372A Agnus, you cannot exceed 1MB chip in total.

[MigaTech]

Originally Posted by demolition

You need a MegAChip to get more than 1MB chip mem in a rev. 6 board

Yes I read about these a while back and forgot about them. They do the job on Revision 6 OK.

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/megachip

Since you have now been more specific and listed your specifications, I suspect your games freezing problem to be cause by the CPU.

68010 CPU's are not that much of an improvement in speed and can cause incompatibility issues with certain software.

If you have a standard 68000, remove the 010 and replace with the 000, then try the games again.

[jotd]

I'm sure whdload supports 68010 (actually I've tested it on winuae). Too bad not to use it, since it's probably faster, and there's a VBR, which means that quitkey works on all slaves, even the ones not specially adapted to 68000 (also whdload is more able to intercept illegal instructions and such thanks to the VBR)

[breech]

Yep, the 010 is rock solid, more so than 000. Quit option works every time, and that is the only reason I switched a few years ago. Only a couple of my floppy games refuse to run on it, many more have issues with rom 1.3 or 2.04.

Its definitely ram related, ive done some 'checkram' testing and it hangs on the chipram test, and wb's available jumps to 0 free. it gets weirder, because when i remove the extra 512k on the mobo, the expansion stops working. I suspect there is a cable that is supposed to go from the gary adapter to the mem board after all.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by breech

Its definitely ram related, ive done some 'checkram' testing and it hangs on the chipram test, and wb's available jumps to 0 free. it gets weirder, because when i remove the extra 512k on the mobo, the expansion stops working. I suspect there is a cable that is supposed to go from the gary adapter to the mem board after all.

Yes if the kit includes a Gary adapter, there is usually a cable connecting it to the trapdoor expansion board. If you do not have this cable, you might be able to use the expansion as a plain 512k board if you just remove the Gary board.