Hawk ramboard refuses 8mb ram

[Zetr0]

I have about 200 sticks of 72pin memory.... finding one is literally a needled in a hay-stack... or a simm in a simm-stack =)

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Just to help,

these devices are commonly refered to as an AmiTek HAWK reference card (in 1993), a lot of other companies licensed / branded this card to sell, including Marrpet Developments - 1207 (in 1995), Magnum and Gastiener about that same time too. I believe at one time or other I have owned a version of each of these cards.

I found that EDO memory was very hit and miss, the best response I got was from 60ns FPM memory.

I suspect in the case mentioned here that there is a flaw in one of the GAL chips since it cannot assert memory access past $6000000, I would take the opportunity to inspect the jumpers just incase there is a fault on the selection lines / signals.

I would also inspect the 72pin SIMM memory port to ensure thats not causing any problems.

Thanks Zetr0, but the board is small... I'm tired of watching it... sometimes I've taked it to the bathdroom instead of a magazine...
There's nothing wrong nowhere... but inside the GAL chips as you say? Or the most rare ram to find...

[rampartsagain]

well it could be memory speed since progamed chips could be anoying in that case by limiting transfer speeds and so i will see if my edo has anything related to nano seconds carved on it ,i put an old 4mb edo on mine tried with whdload some games and run nice and well ,the nastyer is that i have to disassembel a kickrom and correct that issue since nobody cares about me ,sending some custom kick

well i am editing again since i review your last picture retro and that edo soms has the 60ns marked on it hym322005s-(60)

[Zetr0]

@Retrofan

I have a bundle of memory that I know is good, so if you want - hit me up with you address details in PM and I will send some known working sticks in a small jiffy bag for you.

if they do not work for you then there is a problem with the logic on the card.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Retrofan

I have a bundle of memory that I know is good, so if you want - hit me up with you address details in PM and I will send some known working sticks in a small jiffy bag for you.

if they do not work for you then there is a problem with the logic on the card.

Thanks a lot, but I believe they won't work. I've tried all, including Fpm.
Why am I trying this last? Because all the ones I've seen working (three) are similar, with two smd's, 2 chips each side, and R1,R2,R3,R4 (casuality perhaps?), and a guy had this same working. I've tried rams tested to work and 100% working and from a couple of sellers. Even one of them sent me 4 more to try.
Thanks anyway.

[rampartsagain]

retro you have to go to a wich man

today in a hardware recycle store told me they send an amiga lot to spain man i whanto to go toyour house i want to grab an amiga 4000

[Retrofan]

Sadly I've never seen an A4000 for real , Edit: not even an A600.

[rampartsagain]

neither i but still hoping to get one i have a dream

[rampartsagain]

well a600 are very beautifull little bugs i love them if they could be as powerfull as an a1200 i never bought a a1200 they are compact litlle beatifull i have a a600 project but sadly stopped because i can´t find a 4way ide at a decent price

[Zetr0]

@Retrofan
Sadly indeed =(

while 4MB's is better than none, it still falls short of the feeling you get with 8MB - especially when you bought as such. Is there any chance you and the seller could work something out?


@rampartsagain

You could try AmiBay - www.amibay.com and put up a wanted add / thread - I am sure you can find one (4x buffered IDE interface) in your budget =)


@totally off topic -

Sadly my A4000 is a bit poorly at the moment, so she is resting (in bits) while I try and grab time to fix the motherboard =(

[rampartsagain]

yep zetro prices are always like 50 euros and so and if you make your own accounts with something more you can buy a cheap accelerator ,so it doesn´t benefit price ,use , cost ,and if i had a a4000 to fix i would be like mcgyver rounding it till i sucsses
maybe in the future i will pick up like 200 euros and try to find someone in a forum for now all i see is spiders coming out of my pockets

Originally Posted by roy bates

load up any fpu related program,like a render program or mandelbrot generator.

have a look on aminet,but read the notes first to see if it supports an fpu if it does then simply put it will load if no then it wont work at all/

but make sure its for an 68882 not 040 or 060 first.

In meantime i found two programs which show fpu frequency, but it seems that they are not entirely accurate or my crystal oscillator isnt at 40MHz.
Programs are "Which Amiga" and "AIBB".
Which Amiga shows cpu freq-14.2, fpu-27.9mhz
AIBB gives 14.3 for cpu and 33.9mhz for fpu instead of 40mhz.
Now I dont know whether these two programs is inaccurate or I'll have to acquire a new crystal.
Since retrofan and I have the same FPU/crystal speed, I would like to ask him for help, to test these two programs and tell me the results.
Thanks in advance.
The links are:
http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/WhichAmiga
http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/AIBB_65

Originally Posted by FOL

Doesnt it list speed after you do speed test, Im pretty sure it does.

Unfortunately, not.
At least version I use.

And about Hawk.
I spend some more time today and test this card again, this time with AmigaSYS4 AGA v1.3 with OS 3.0 installed, but results are the same.
OS boot normaly, WB and other sys programs reports 8mb of fast ram, but AMITEK test failed again at $60000 and ofc all whd games crashed with dos error.
When I change jumpers to 4Mb, everything works like a charm.
Am running out of ideas...

[Retrofan]

Really my Hawk was somekind of gift when I bought my A1200 with box, manuals, joystick, floppies, as Out of order (the miggy) for 50 pounds. Finally it was only a bad floppy drive.

Pegaz I will try it, but as soon as I'll change all the caps and if I can I will fix the problem with the Colors I've got. Unfortunately my other mb is in Germany 'cause a problem with the Indi.

Forget about changing the Os. I've tried all the CWB ones. An easy way to see it doesn't matter is booting from the 3.1 install floppy and then install the Amitek floppy. You'll see the same error at $6000000.

I'm waiting for my last ram. Or that's the problem or we can say it's a faulty (and common) problem with the GAL or PEEL chips, it seems they used both.


EDIT: Ok, I've tried it. With WhichAmiga I get that it's got CPU 14.2 and an FPU 68882 (nothing else). With AIBB the same as you, CPU 14.3, FPU 33.9


BUT... When I've first tried it it was showing with AIBB an Fpu of 14.3Mhz, the same of the CPU. I've changed the jumpers to "INT" and then is when it was showing 33.9. If you read the manual it says: "Set the jumper LK4 to either INT to use the machine's clock of 14.3Mhz or to CPU to use the speed of the crystal that you have fitted."

So the instructions are WRONG. ... What happens?

Originally Posted by Retrofan

EDIT: Ok, I've tried it. With WhichAmiga I get that it's got CPU 14.2 and an FPU 68882 (nothing else). With AIBB the same as you, CPU 14.3, FPU 33.9


BUT... When I've first tried it it was showing with AIBB an Fpu of 14.3Mhz, the same of the CPU. I've changed the jumpers to "INT" and then is when it was showing 33.9. If you read the manual it says: "Set the jumper LK4 to either INT to use the machine's clock of 14.3Mhz or to CPU to use the speed of the crystal that you have fitted."

So the instructions are WRONG. ... What happens?

Thanks for the test Retrofan and yes, exactly the same thing happens with me.
I immediately assumed that the instructions are wrong.
Look at the front picture of Hawk board (with FPU), from original card box and you'll see that the jumpers are set on INT, not on the CPU as manual says.
But, if you look at some pictures from net, jumpers are in opposite position at CPU
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/downlo...hawk_4_big.jpg

I am litle confused now, is it possible that the jumpers are factory set incorrectly in some specimens of the card?
Maybe AIBB not quite accurate, but I doubt that he can make such a mistake and slower FPU frequency declare for faster and vice versa.
To be absolutely sure, we should test the card with some demanding FPU program.
Does anyone can suggest good FPU related program for speed testing?
We must measure speed difference between fpu at 14.3 and 40 mhz and thats isnt a easy task.
Most of the games (99.9%), doesnt use fpu at all, so we need some utility program for this purposes.
AIBB has several math tests, but i am not sure whether it utilised the FPU or not?

Edit: I do some tests through AIBB and results are the same, both with CPU and INT jumper position.
Obviously AIBB doesnt use fpu for these tests.

[rampartsagain]

Originally Posted by Pegaz

Thanks for the test Retrofan and yes, exactly the same thing happens with me.
I immediately assumed that the instructions are wrong.
Look at the front picture of Hawk board (with FPU), from original card box and you'll see that the jumpers are set on INT, not on the CPU as manual says.
But, if you look at some pictures from net, jumpers are in opposite position at CPU
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/downlo...hawk_4_big.jpg

I am litle confused now, is it possible that the jumpers are factory set incorrectly in some specimens of the card?
Maybe AIBB not quite accurate, but I doubt that he can make such a mistake and slower FPU frequency declare for faster and vice versa.
To be absolutely sure, we should test the card with some demanding FPU program.
Does anyone can suggest good FPU related program for speed testing?
We must measure speed difference between fpu at 14.3 and 40 mhz and thats isnt a easy task.
Most of the games (99.9%), doesnt use fpu at all, so we need some utility program for this purposes.
AIBB has several math tests, but i am not sure whether it utilised the FPU or not?

Edit: I do some tests through AIBB and results are the same, both with CPU and INT jumper position.
Obviously AIBB doesnt use fpu for these tests.

don´t sysinfo test fpu ,and cpu speeds ????

[Retrofan]

I've just received 4 8mb rams. 2 of each kind, a kind the Siemens one. None works but with 4 mb.

So it's clear: It isn't the ram. It is the PEEL chip that is wrong

[A1200]

I had an issue with stability with a 4MB stick that came with my Amitek Hawk, so I tried a HP EDO module - still didn't work then I saw some 4MB simms with Motorola chips on and they work fine - figured the RAM would probably be designed for or tested with the M68K CPUs.

[Hanzu]

Sorry I didn't want to read the whole long thread, just few of the first pages, so I don't know what the situation is now, since this is an old thread, but what's the hurry with retro, so I still offer my help.

I can use a PEEL programmer connected to old Pentium 90MHz or similar system and also tens of unused empty 18CV8P peels. I can try to read that PEEL to see if it is faulty or protected (I have never seen a protected PEEL, maybe protection fuse does not exist) or read another from someone's working card, make .JED of its contents and hopefully program new one for you.

[Retrofan]

Thanks a lot Hanzu, but if my chip is bad as it seems, you couldn't program anything new from it. I think that you should have to find a working Hawk ramboard and then you could share the file so everyone with a not working one could use those 8Mb again.

[Sandancer]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

Thanks a lot Hanzu, but if my chip is bad as it seems, you couldn't program anything new from it. I think that you should have to find a working Hawk ramboard and then you could share the file so everyone with a not working one could use those 8Mb again.

Has there been anybody who has getting a 8mb chip to work, I have bought several off ebay, and none work. Don't wanna keep buying them to find out they wont work.

Got it working with the 8mb, but if you have a PCMCIA card in unplug and it will work, unless there is a fix somewhere