ACA500 tested

[Schoenfeld]

No idea where that white residue comes from - definitely not from production. After wave-soldering, the pins of the connector are cut-down to "just longer than the board" with a specially-built tool so the pins don't conflict with the plastic case of the A500.

During QA, the card is inserted into two different machines, because there's so many different things to test. Should there be any trouble with the connector, it would have shown. Also, AmigaKit does another test - it's just their routine.

We've had a case with a journalist for a huge German magazine who was really unlucky with his A500s - both had trouble with the side-connector. For one of them, there was an obvious cut in a trace that goes to the side-connector.

With all the test-steps that the ACA500 goes through, it's very unlikely that it's faulty. If it is, you have your warranty. Please turn to AmigaKit to find out where the true cause of your problem is - this is not a support forum.

Jens

[FOL]

It would need to be returned to us for full check / inspection.
However you will have to go through proper channels and get an RMA number.

There is also one other thing you could try.
Reseat all socketed chips. I have never seen a faulty A500 before. Its always been reseating chips solves problems.

[lantus360]

i will try that. i did a reseat a few chips last night but certainly not all of them, ill give the mobo a good once over also check for broken traces as well

edit: reseating didnt help. Also got out a multimeter to make sure all connections were making it to the main board, they are. Going to test it out with another A500 mobo

[elpiloto]

My a500 is a rev 6 one, aca500, megachip, trap door expansion mapped as chipram, boot selector, hxc2001, indivision, im using a good atx psu, and all works perfect !

[fitzsteve]

Hey I was just messing round with my A500 playing some games and stuff, I was testing a new CF card install.

The card in question is a Transcend 133x which previously gave 2.3mb/sec with my ACA1220 attached, now with my ACA1232 attached I'm hitting 3.5mb/sec

[Jacques]

@Jens

Any chance of resolving "Early startup menu" BOOT problem (either with or without S-S button)? The same crash happens with software reboot (from WB when it wants to reboot e.g. due to HDToolBox changes or simply using reboot program (part of ClassicWB)).
It happens with mapped Kickstart 3.1 (written on ACA500) on both A500 and A500+ with CF cards inserted in any of slots (which otherwise boot correctly, just not from Early Menu).

[ Show youtube player ]

I tested all the options and CHIP RAM setting is not the reason, it happens even when trapdoor RAM is used as slow or with NO TRAPDOOR RAM at all.

I'll appreciate fixing it as ASAP, since it's essential functionality to be able to reboot Amiga from software or to boot from Early Startup Menu (to choose boot partition, etc.).

BTW. I know of the other ACA500 user who has same problem as me, although it doesn't happen with every ACA500, is this a hardware issue, or can be fixed (hopefully) by new firmware coming?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Hey I was just messing round with my A500 playing some games and stuff, I was testing a new CF card install.

The card in question is a Transcend 133x which previously gave 2.3mb/sec with my ACA1220 attached, now with my ACA1232 attached I'm hitting 3.5mb/sec

Thats the speed I have always got with Accelerator attached.

[lantus360]

just an update, im back in business. Got a new A500 mobo from AmigaKit and all is working great.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by lantus360

just an update, im back in business. Got a new A500 mobo from AmigaKit and all is working great.

That's great to hear, now enjoy it

@FOL I never checked the IDE speed originally with the 030 so it's a pleasant surprise

(Faster then my A1200 + IDEFix Express by the way!)

[Schoenfeld]

Quick update:

ACA500 flash version 0.96: Fixed a number of issues with early startup menu and ChipMap feature. Added possibility to use DF1: for recovery disk writing (press shift+R). ClassicWB freeze fixed, together with lots of other Soft-Reset problems. Fixed Config Writing to Flash. Introduced autoconfig ID for ACAC500. Fixed 68030 MMU issues/68030.library/enforcer/muforce crash. Fixed end-of-line marker in error message output.

http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/File:Menu500V096.zip

Jens

[fitzsteve]

Thanks for the update Jens

[Photon]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

That's great to hear, now enjoy it

@FOL I never checked the IDE speed originally with the 030 so it's a pleasant surprise

(Faster then my A1200 + IDEFix Express by the way!)

BWAHAHA pwned :P

It's interesting though that we're hitting speeds where > 80x might actually matter.

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Quick update:

Awesome

And smart move with the DF1 - even though you get the 10s+ boot gain without removing DF0: with the ACA500, some may have removed it already (or put a floppy emulator there which is unavailable pre bootmenu).

[Jacques]

Thank you for an update Jens, however in my case, the boot problem is still present:
[ Show youtube player ]

Computer just freezes with grey screen, only reset helps then.

[BarryB]

Still not remembering profile settings, seems to ignore whatever I set for 1 - ROM in F10 and sets it back to either Keep current or KS3.1?

So if I set in profile #1 on-board for ROM (as I have KS1.3 in my A500) and save, in profile #2 set Kickstart 3.1 and save, then go back to the main menu and boot with F7 (profile 2) it boots with KS3.1. If I reboot and press the MB to get to the main menu, press F10 and press P to look at the profiles, both have the ROM option as Keep current or KS3.1? so my 68000 profile is now using KS3.1 which I don't want, therefore it's not saving the profile or it's getting overwritten?

I am looking into getting an aca 500 but have a few questions. I have a rev5 mb
with a baseboard trap door ram expansion wich is 2 parts. It has a gary board with rtc and the trapdoor board with 2 megs of ram. I read that the aca will work with trapdoor expansions up to 1.8 meg will I have to remove some ram or will it be ok with 2 megs onboard? I have to start a program called "cram" in the startup sequence to configure the last portion of memory. The manual states that 1.8 meg is fast ram auto/exec. Can any one advise on this ? thanks

[TjLaZer]

You should be ok with the Baseboard.

thanks for the reply Tj iwas thinking that myself just wanted another opinion. I should just not use the program cram to configure the rest of the memory so it wont conflict with the
aca memory mapping?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Bflatter

thanks for the reply Tj iwas thinking that myself just wanted another opinion. I should just not use the program cram to configure the rest of the memory so it wont conflict with the aca memory mapping?

That depends on where the last little block of 256k is located - there's a small chance that it all works together.

If you can do a "showconfig" after running that program and post the list of memory blocks here, I can tell you if it works. Would be interesting to see where the additional RAM is located, as I have never seen a full 2M expansion of the trapdoor/Gary type for the A500. The most popular ones all wasted 256k.

Jens

jens

The board I have can have up to 4 megs installed on it. I just have 2 megs on it
I'm not sure how to do a "showconfig" my 500 is rev 5 board 1.3 roms fat agnus only with a modified 1.3 workbench.
when booting up "cram" adds 262136 bytes of ram for a total of 2418200 bytes of ram. ATM i cannot connect it to my pc or I would send you a copy of it the "cram" program that is. Would a scan of the board manual be helpful?

[Photon]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

That depends on where the last little block of 256k is located - there's a small chance that it all works together.

If you can do a "showconfig" after running that program and post the list of memory blocks here, I can tell you if it works. Would be interesting to see where the additional RAM is located, as I have never seen a full 2M expansion of the trapdoor/Gary type for the A500. The most popular ones all wasted 256k.

Jens

I've tried one 1.8MB trapdoor board with a Rev 6A A500, and I got gurus if the second half of the board was connected (with and without the Gary Adapter). I'm running it temporarily now with just the 512K board until I find out if it's usable with the latest firmware. IIRC it only worked with the onboard 1.2 ROM so then of course I lose the CF cards. The manual wasn't in the box so I haven't identified the expansion name for sure yet. If you have no board to test with Jens I'll try to find time for testing, if you email instructions (if needed).