Amiga 500 Wicher 508i problems

[Tony Gunk]

Hello, once again

I have an Amiga 500 rev 5 that I have been making upgrades to recently, including a modern Boobip 2MB chip ram expansion, kickstart 3.X, and most crucially, a Wicher 508i accelerator fitted with an MC68CH000 CPU. This is my current setup.



Now the problem I'm having is with the Wicher: the X2 jumper, that has controls for turning on/off the turbo card itself, the additional RAM, and the IDE controller. The problem is that whenever I have the jumpers in the "on" position, which has all the points shorted, the machine refuses to boot properly, giving me either a grey, green, or yellow screen. Opening all the jumpers allows the machine to boot properly and reach the kickstart screen, but obviously all the features I want are disabled. This is the X2 jumper.



What am I doing wrong here? There was nothing damaged with my Wicher or my Amiga when installing it, so I'm not certain what the problem is. Any help with this issue will be greatly appreciated.

[Tony Gunk]

Can someone please help me with this? I reached out to the Lemon Amiga forums for help, and I also sent an email to 7-bit's contact on their website, all with no response so far...

I really wouldn't want to have to spend another couple hundred on a terrible fire or something like that, so any help on this issues would be greatly appreciated.

[musashi5150]

Probably not particularly helpful but is it possible to test it with a different kickstart? I've heard that 3.X is a right mess and can have some problems.

[Tony Gunk]

I was unaware of that, unfortunately I don't have any other kickstarts to test it with besides the original 1.3 that came with my Amiga, and the Wicher requires at least 2.05. and unfortunately, I live in the U.S. and this kind of stuff is hard to come by over here without ordering from overseas.

But thanks for the tip, it's something for me to consider as far as getting this stuff working.

What's a good, and relatively up to date version you would recommend?

[musashi5150]

I'd try the 1.3 ROM to test... I'd assume Wicher only needs that to actually boot from IDE. The RAM & turbo will still work fine.

As a test, if you enable everything on the jumpers and it gets to the 1.3 boot screen (which it should) then you know it's a problem with 3.X.

The other thing I'd try is removing your chipram expansion and see if that helps when trying to boot your 3.X config.

Basically just belt & braces troubleshooting - go back to the bare machine and try things one at a time until more information presents itself

[Tony Gunk]

I'll definitely try with my 1.3 ROM, and I'm positive I have done it without the chip ram expansion once already although I can definitely give it another go. I was also told that it may or may not be a power supply issue, but there's no telling at this point without further testing.

Hopefully it's just a bad ROM chip, would hate to have to look for a different accelerator card...

Also, is Kickstart 3.1 the best option if I need to have mine replaced? I know it's the last official commodore ROM, or is 3.1.4 also a better option?

[Tony Gunk]

Originally Posted by musashi5150

I'd try the 1.3 ROM to test... I'd assume Wicher only needs that to actually boot from IDE. The RAM & turbo will still work fine.

As a test, if you enable everything on the jumpers and it gets to the 1.3 boot screen (which it should) then you know it's a problem with 3.X.

The other thing I'd try is removing your chipram expansion and see if that helps when trying to boot your 3.X config.

Basically just belt & braces troubleshooting - go back to the bare machine and try things one at a time until more information presents itself

Quick update, I can't seem to test my 1.3 ROM anymore, probably due to a modification I performed on the underside of the board allowing my 3.x ROM to work...

[Tony Gunk]

I purchased a 3.1 ROM and it should be here in the next week or two, hopefully this will solve things... If not I really don't know what to do.

[Tony Gunk]

UPDATE:

I tested the board without my RAM expansion installed once again with no change in behavior, so I think that narrows it down to the Wicher itself being busted, the ROM, or my power supply.

My bets are on it being the ROM so hopefully it won't have to spend too much on replacing the others...