MTec AT-500 Megabody problem - White screen / reboot

[paul1981]

I have an MTec AT-500 Megabody that presents nothing more than a white screen to me upon power on whether there is a hard drive connected or not, and no matter how I have the jumpers set. Further details and original thread here:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=72008

I think I've checked everything I can already, but perhaps someone here may know something more.

Thanks.

[McTrinsic]

Jumper it to work under KS1.2. THW system Should boot. Then use the boot disk to access the MTec.

If the system doesn't work with the 1.2 switch then you have an issue.

Harddrives with 1.x in the 68k are a PIA as the KS didn't provide the scsi.device like KS2+ did.

Cheers,
McT

[Toni Wilen]

If ROM is socketed (27C256), you can try removing it and booting without ROM to see if behavior changes but most likely it won't really help due to lack of autoconfig data.

M-Tec A500 (external IDE, probably very similar to internal one) has autoconfig data in ROM which means bad rom can easily hang the whole system (by making the autoconfig board wrong size or wrong type etc..)

Harddrives with 1.x in the 68k are a PIA as the KS didn't provide the scsi.device like KS2+ did.

ROM scsi.device has other issues. I don't think it does not make it any less PIA when things go wrong.

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by McTrinsic

Jumper it to work under KS1.2. THW system Should boot. Then use the boot disk to access the MTec.

If the system doesn't work with the 1.2 switch then you have an issue.

Harddrives with 1.x in the 68k are a PIA as the KS didn't provide the scsi.device like KS2+ did.

Cheers,
McT

That's what I thought the Kick 1.2 jumper would do, but it makes no difference unfortunately.

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

If ROM is socketed (27C256), you can try removing it and booting without ROM to see if behavior changes but most likely it won't really help due to lack of autoconfig data.

M-Tec A500 (external IDE, probably very similar to internal one) has autoconfig data in ROM which means bad rom can easily hang the whole system (by making the autoconfig board wrong size or wrong type etc..)



ROM scsi.device has other issues. I don't think it does not make it any less PIA when things go wrong.

When looking for information on MTec AT-500's on the internet, it seems like most of them have died (the external ones). There's very little online about the internal 'Megabody' edition, but like you say they'll mostly share the same parts/design so reliability will be the same also.
I looked up the datasheets on the ROM and GAL's and the programming lasts 200 years and 20 years respectively for those particular parts on my Megabody. It makes me concerned about other Amiga hardware, especially expensive old acellerators.

[paul1981]

Hello again!

I found a problem solder joint on the bottom right leg of IC9 (hidden under the CPU when it was installed in its socket). I suppose the first time I checked it I assumed it was a trick of the light or something, hence I missed it. Closer inspection revealed bits of cosmetic damage to the front corner of this IC where the person who removed the CPU in the past was not careful at all and must have levered a flat blade screwdriver on that corner of IC9 casing the cracked joint and also damage to the corner of the chip and also the cosmetic marks on the board (all in the same area). Infact, if you look at the photo you'll see the IC slanting gently down towards the right due to the pressure it received. Very sad.

I repaired the joint and now the Amiga comes ready (purple tick screen on 37.299 ROM). The hard drive I prepared was a Hitachi 1.8GB 2.5" HDD (DK213A-18) with pfs-aio. The problem I have now is that the system doesn't see the drive (nothing in bootmenu). There doesn't appear to be any device driver loaded either and I've checked this with SysInfo and ARTM. I was expecting to find mtec-at500.device listed... yet nothing. Doing a version check of this device in a shell reveals nothing (device not found).

According to ShowConfig, SysInfo and ARTM the card is present (see photo) and I believe those to be the correct autoconfig details (product 2192/1). What isn't helping me is the fact that the dms archive of the driver disk at the link below is for the external AT-500 and NOT the internal 'Megabody' AT-500. I think it's from Installers Heaven.

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/at500

There is a file on that disk called 'mtec-at500.device' which has its default tool as BindDrivers and in the tooltypes has the product ID as 1282/1 which is the external AT-500 hard drive product ID, NOT the Megabody. Well, guess what - that file doesn't work even if changing to the correct product ID in the tooltypes. I have loaded it with LoadModule too and after the reboot the device still is not resident in the device list in SysInfo etc. And, if I try to version check mtec-at500.device i get a recoverable alert (the same as I would get even if it was not loaded via loadmodule and just version checking the file). If I use HDToolbox with that device I get another alert error as it accesses the device. If I run the ATInst tool from the driver disk (used to prep the drive etc.) it says 'hard disk not found'. I have tried this with the Megabody jumper on the Kick1.2 position too (to stop it loading the driver) but of course it makes no odds as it never loads a driver anyway even when that jumper is off. Can anyone confirm that the device that is supposed to be loaded for the Megabody is mtec-at500.device? Also, does anyone have the Megabody install/driver disk? I can't find it anywhere online.

I reluctantly swapped around the Kickstarts again - it is now a 1.3 machine and it behaves the same - no driver/device loaded. ATInst does not detect a hard drive and quits, the mtec-at500.device doesn't do anything either via binddrivers, and LoadModule (or my version of it) doesn't work in this case under 1.3, and HDToolbox doesn't detect the drive either (or device for that matter).

Anyone? Thanks...

[zipper]

Wonder why the device name in text is MTec-AT500.device and that device on the floppy is with small letters. It makes a difference, is the floppy one named incorrectly?

[Toni Wilen]

Could you dump the boot ROM? I'd like to compare if it is same as external m-tec with only ID changed.

Any monitor program works, for example http://aminet.net/dev/moni/mon165.lha. Make sure showconfig lists the board (like in your previous post at address $e90000), then run mon, type "] e90000 8000 df0:rom.bin" (without quotes, result is 32k file. I assumed it has same rom structure as external mtec.)

Yes, exec device names are case-sensitive.

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by zipper

Wonder why the device name in text is MTec-AT500.device and that device on the floppy is with small letters. It makes a difference, is the floppy one named incorrectly?

The device on disk is lowercase. I'm guessing it would be a different story given the correct Megabody disk.

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Could you dump the boot ROM? I'd like to compare if it is same as external m-tec with only ID changed.

Any monitor program works, for example http://aminet.net/dev/moni/mon165.lha. Make sure showconfig lists the board (like in your previous post at address $e90000), then run mon, type "] e90000 8000 df0:rom.bin" (without quotes, result is 32k file. I assumed it has same rom structure as external mtec.)

Yes, exec device names are case-sensitive.

I'll do this next...

[paul1981]

It's not zipped, but it wouldn't let me upload it otherwise. It looks like it's corrupted to me. I did this under 1.3, and the mon165 docs says it works but there could be problems or something along those lines. It would make sense though that the ROM is indeed corrupted as no device appears.

Thanks.

[Toni Wilen]

Thanks. ROM seems to be fine. (Every other byte needs to be stripped because ROM is 8-bit).

Could you dump it again (use same method) but this time disable autoboot (it should have jumper). External mtec maps different ROM "bank" when autoboot is off.

ROM image works in emulation when using existing external mtec-at500 emulation. (boots normally). Note that this does not guarantee there are no hardware differences that in real world makes roms incompatible.

Interestingly external mtec ROM has same version but they are not identical. For example version string is slightly different and main driver has other differences:

"mtec-at500.device mtec-at500 1.33w (08 July 1993) (c) Hardware Design Udo Neuroth, Bottrop, Dieter Niewerth, 1992 1993"
vs
"mtec-at500.device mtec-at500 1.33 (08 July 1993) (c) Hardware Design Udo Neuroth, Bottrop, Dieter Niewerth, 1992 1993"

Autoconfig IDs are same.

EDIT: Driver is not added if drive is not detected.

EDIT2: Main difference in hardware seems to be data port width, internal version uses unrolled move.l loop but external uses move.w loop. IO addresses seem to be identical.

[paul1981]

This is great Toni! I shall make another rom grab but this time with the 1.2 jumper installed as requested.
It is interesting that you say that the mtec driver is not installed if there is no hard drive detected. It's a fairly old drive that I have connected (1996), I do have an older drive (20MB I think) and newer ones (up to 80GB) and some CF drives (256MB, 512MB, 4GB) - is one drive more likely to be detected than another? I'd have thought that all of those drives should be detected right? Especially the non-CF ones.

[paul1981]

Okay, I now have some excellent news!!!

IT'S WORKING!!!!!!

Your comment about the device only appearing when a hard disk was present made me try a different IDE cable... well I did and SUCCESS! It booted 1.3 via pfs-aio. I don't know what had happened to the cable I was using but I know it was working on a spare A1200 recently. How odd.

Anyway, I have done the rom grabs as requested and put them into a proper amiga lha archive - one with the Kick1.2 jumper off (normal use) and one with it on. On this card there are MEM and DTK jumpers too which according to the manual need to be removed if the memory expansion is installed as well. I don't have that expansion so I can't do any further rom grabs (I tried removing the jumpers and all I get is a black screen - no video). Incidentally, a version check of 'mtec-at500.device' reveals 'mtec-at500.device version 1.33'. This is with the Workbench1.3 Version command of course.

HDToolbox Version 2.22 is working fine with Workbench/Kickstart 1.3 but if I go into 'Define new drive type' and try to read the configuration from the drive I get a message saying 'Drive does not support the SCSI Inquiry command!' yet I know it read it fine via WinUAE on my OS3.9 setup.

The ATInst program (v2.0) now works and detects the hard disk attached (1718MB) and the BadBlock program loads too, and DPU as well, so they all work. I will use HDToolbox anyway as I doubt that software is any good for larger drives.

As for speed I'm quite impressed! I'm getting 929,588 bytes/sec according to SysInfo, which isn't bad going at all for a 7 MHz 68000 chipram only machine.

[Toni Wilen]

Great

INQUIRY error means driver does not emulate SCSI INQUIRY command, fortunately it does not matter in normal use. Only programs designed for SCSI controllers use it. Most IDE drivers do support it but I guess M-Tec didn't bother with it and/or wanted users to use their custom partitioning program. Or something..

ROM dumps are fine. Oddly enough autoboot off rom "bank" is identical to external mtec. (not even "1.33w" vs "1.33" difference).

[paul1981]

Thanks for your help Toni.

I didn't know ShowConfig had extra info available with the debug option. Pretty nifty!

[paul1981]

I was wondering... has anyone ever seen the 8MB RAM card which is supposed to attach to the Megabody 60 pin connector? I'm assuming this would be real FastRAM.

The pin connections are in the manual (.png attached). Would it be difficult to make a card that works with it? Even better, does anyone have one for sale? Again, I'm not sure whether these ram cards even exist.