530T troubles.

[Miggy2TheMax]

Hello All,

I purchased an old 530T.... 030/40Mhz/4mb. Under 2.04 kickstarts it seems to work ok but if I switch to 1.3 kickstarts
it Gurus. I'm wondering why it Gurus....

Note: I have removed the hard drive from the 530T, so its not bc I'm
booting WB2.04 with 1.3 roms present.

Any ideas? Suggestions? This thing has been bothering me so badly that I have given up on the 530T and boxed it For me its either 1.3 is or its nothing ok, ok .. I'm really a retro freak, I need HELP

Thanks.

[DrBong]

I can't say I have any problems with my GVP A530T with Kickstart 1.3/2.04 romswitched. Admittedly I don't boot Workbench 1.3 off the HD, but then again I don't get a guru if the HD starts booting Workbench 2.1 when Kickstart 1.3 has been activated. All I can think is that perhaps you have some other bit of hardware connected to your A500 which the A530 doesn't like or that the jumpers in the A530 are misconfigured. If you don't have the manual detailing the jumpers, then check them out here:

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/gvp530.html

I would also hazard a guess that the A500 would not like it terribly much if you don't have any fastram installed in the A530. It shouldn't guru, but things would be terribly slow (not much faster than a basic A500). Other than the jumpers, it may be worthwhile using GVPInfo (booting off the GVP disk) just to check out that the different facets of your set-up are all there and happy with each other.

To be honest though, Workbench 1.3 wasn't made to be terribly HD friendly. I understand that you want to be retro, but wouldn't romswitching Kickstart 1.3/2.x/3.x be close enough? I have to say it works beautifully here. Anyway, it's just a thought.

[jmmijo]

Hmm, I have two of these units, one is on a ROM switched A500 with ks1.3 & 2.0 ROM's and the other is straight ks1.3 ROM only. It has no problem with either. Also, since the A530T requires at least 1MB of RAM installed, make sure that this is indeed installed and jumpered properly. You could try re-seating the SIMM module(s) in the A530T. It has 2 slots for either 1/2 1MB SIMM's or 1/2 4MB SIMM's!!! of course the proprietary GVP 60 pin SIMM's

[Miggy2TheMax]

Thanks for the reply guys. The 530T has one 4mb sim in it, so I guess its not because it does not have any ram. The ram works ok, as under ks 2.04 when I boot the Workbench 2, it auto detects the 4mb of ram. I've tried the 530T on a plain 1.3 500 and their it just gurus. Then I've tried it on a 500 with a rom switcher, switching it to 1.3 makes it guru, but when switching it to 2.04 it works ok. I'm at a loss as to why it could be doing this.

I guess the next thing would be to run tests on the 530T under wb2.1. Can anyone recomend sw tools that check RAM and hardware? Another thought that came to me is, would it be possible that the 530T had its ROMs switched for wb2+ or something?

Shadowen: True 1.3 is not very HD friendly, but it can be made to work. I just wish the 530T would work under ks 1.3 when I switch to it, instead of just Guruing and then switching it self off.

[jmmijo]

The GVP install disk has some diags included, you can boot into WB2 and then insert the disk and run the diags from there.

No, there is no specific KS version for these, AFAIK that is, so the only other thing to check on is when you run the diags, see the BIOS rom version of the unit and check out GVP's web site for what the latest version is.

http://www.gvp-m.com/

[DrBong]

@Miggy2TheMaxx
IIRC the only chips that can be upgraded on the A530T is the gururom to make the SCSI controller more compatible with modern SCSI devices (possibly in combination with higher versions of Kickstart). It shouldn't affect backward compatibility with Kickstart 1.3.

Unless your problem proves to be something like the GVP memory or a chip on the A530T, I'm really at a loss as to what your next move would be. Out of curiosity what revision motherboard do you have and do you have the 2Mb chip upgrade installed or any fastram other than in the A530T?

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Shadowen
@Miggy2TheMaxx
The only chips that can be upgraded on the A530T is the gururom to make the SCSI controller more compatible with modern SCSI devices (possibly in combination with higher versions of Kickstart). It shouldn't affect backward compatibility with Kickstart 1.3.

This is true but there may be a faulty chip or two that has to be diagnosed, he should run the diags from the GVP disk which will test the ram, the scsi interface, the A530 system board etc and see what if anything fails.

The only other thing I can think of is possible data corruption in the Rigid Disk Block causing some strange behavior under KS1.3 and not 2.x

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by Shadowen
@Miggy2TheMaxx
IIRC the only chips that can be upgraded on the A530T is the gururom to make the SCSI controller more compatible with modern SCSI devices (possibly in combination with higher versions of Kickstart). It shouldn't affect backward compatibility with Kickstart 1.3.

Unless your problem proves to be something like the GVP memory or a chip on the A530T, I'm really at a loss as to what your next move would be. Out of curiosity what revision motherboard do you have and do you have the 2Mb chip upgrade installed or any fastram other than in the A530T?

The 500 I'm using the 530T with has got 512chip 512slow ram (trap door). Rev 6a Motherboard. Maybe I should do the 1mb chip hack on the motherboard? I will look at the diagnostic tools that came with the 530T and see what results I get with that, but from memory when running them a while back everything came up ok.

jmmijo: hard drive data (rigid disk block) is not an issue as I have tried the 530T with no harddrive plugged in and it behaves in the same manor.

In the end I gave up and just assumed bad chip/hw on the 530T. Therefore I'm wondering if there is any s/w out there that does 'in-depth' testing of the hw.

thank-you all for your suggestions, keep them coming, I'd be delighted to atleast get to base one and pin-point what the problem is with the h/w.

[jmmijo]

Here's something to try Miggy, place the A530 on a nice flat surface working area, a dining room table for instance, then look at all the socketed chips. Note that you need to be careful here as I'm going to suggest re-seating each socketed chip, one at a time!!! Also note that the chips should be what are called DIP or Dual Inline Packages, meaning the pins are in two rows across from each other.

Get either a chip puller and/or a small bladed pocket knife. I use both myself. Note the little indent and/or a dot that desgnates pin 1, this should match the socket too! Carefully remove the first chip in a socket by placing the blade in between the socket and the bottom of the chip. You should be able to twist the blade slightly and this should act like a lever and you should see the one side of the chip come up a little. After doing this on one side, move to the opposite side and repeat, do this until the entire chip can be removed by hand. Of course be very careful about bending and/or breaking pins, this is where a chip puller tool comes in handy

Now inspect the chip for any bent or broken pins as well as corrosion, meaning some foreign substance that may cause no continuity with that pin! Also check the socket for any debris or possibly corrosion or bent/broken contacts, this means again a continuity problem which could lead to the problem.

Carefully re-install the same chip, orienting the little notch or dot in the same direction as the socket. Make sure to not bend any pins when re-inserting!

Now repeat for any other chips that are also socketed, I think there are two or three chips, they should be PALS/GALS which are custom gate arrays programmed from the factory.

Of course if you feel uncomfortable doing any of this then that's okay. I do this for a living so I don't have any problems getting right into it

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by jmmijo
Here's something to try Miggy, place the A530 on a nice flat surface working area, a dining room table for instance, then look at all the socketed chips. Note that you need to be careful here as I'm going to suggest re-seating each socketed chip, one at a time!!! Also note that the chips should be what are called DIP or Dual Inline Packages, meaning the pins are in two rows across from each other.

Get either a chip puller and/or a small bladed pocket knife. I use both myself. Note the little indent and/or a dot that desgnates pin 1, this should match the socket too! Carefully remove the first chip in a socket by placing the blade in between the socket and the bottom of the chip. You should be able to twist the blade slightly and this should act like a lever and you should see the one side of the chip come up a little. After doing this on one side, move to the opposite side and repeat, do this until the entire chip can be removed by hand. Of course be very careful about bending and/or breaking pins, this is where a chip puller tool comes in handy

Now inspect the chip for any bent or broken pins as well as corrosion, meaning some foreign substance that may cause no continuity with that pin! Also check the socket for any debris or possibly corrosion or bent/broken contacts, this means again a continuity problem which could lead to the problem.

Carefully re-install the same chip, orienting the little notch or dot in the same direction as the socket. Make sure to not bend any pins when re-inserting!

Now repeat for any other chips that are also socketed, I think there are two or three chips, they should be PALS/GALS which are custom gate arrays programmed from the factory.

Of course if you feel uncomfortable doing any of this then that's okay. I do this for a living so I don't have any problems getting right into it

hehe, I'm confortable with doing that no problem. I'll try it out and post how I go. I'm suprised you did not reccomend me to do the "Atari Twist" Atari's were known to have problems with their seated chips after a while, so the solution to the problem was to grab the keyboard at each end and twist it in opposing ways. Doing that a couple of times would re-seat all the chips .. I never did this procedure, just read about it and had a good laugh

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Miggy2TheMax
hehe, I'm confortable with doing that no problem. I'll try it out and post how I go. I'm suprised you did not reccomend me to do the "Atari Twist" Atari's were known to have problems with their seated chips after a while, so the solution to the problem was to grab the keyboard at each end and twist it in opposing ways. Doing that a couple of times would re-seat all the chips .. I never did this procedure, just read about it and had a good laugh

This reminds me of the smack fix for some older IDE hard drives. Sometimes the spindle motor would get stuck, must've been the bearings, and if you smacked the bejuses out of the top cover it would sometimes get the spindle motor to start up

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by jmmijo


This reminds me of the smack fix for some older IDE hard drives. Sometimes the spindle motor would get stuck, must've been the bearings, and if you smacked the bejuses out of the top cover it would sometimes get the spindle motor to start up

Now thats a good one , luckily I kept my old busted IDE hard drive. Its time to try out your smack IDE fix theory, nothing to loose anyway

[jmmijo]

This is one of those where it's okay to connect the power to the drive and try this trick out, if you don't have power to the spindle motor then it may never be un-stuck

Again, let us know how the A530 trick turns out. I've had no problems with mine since day one, in fact one of the units was in Florida for about a year or so then shipped back home in Oregon. It's suffered thru the trials and tribulations of UPS

[Paul]

Originally posted by jmmijo


This reminds me of the smack fix for some older IDE hard drives. Sometimes the spindle motor would get stuck, must've been the bearings, and if you smacked the bejuses out of the top cover it would sometimes get the spindle motor to start up

This is how I got my 20MB Internal hard disk working again in my A600 and it's been fine ever since.:laugh

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by jmmijo
This is one of those where it's okay to connect the power to the drive and try this trick out, if you don't have power to the spindle motor then it may never be un-stuck

Again, let us know how the A530 trick turns out. I've had no problems with mine since day one, in fact one of the units was in Florida for about a year or so then shipped back home in Oregon. It's suffered thru the trials and tribulations of UPS

Well all these suggestion got me all motivated to "de-box" my 530T and set it all up again. My what a great looking piece of hardware, sure beats the 590 "brick" look

I re-seated the chips you suggest, their just behind the those GVP sims. It did not fix the problem. So out of frustration I go to the original manual and start reading up about all the jumper switches and what they mean. So I decided to make J9 open so that its NOT auto boot. And the machine works without guru under 1.3 .... excellent.

jmmijo, if you have your 530T on hand could you try to disconnect the HD and leave autoboot ON. I'm wondering if you will get a guru message.

My next step will be to dump in a blank SCSI HD, and set it up with Workbench 1.3 and then switch AutoBoot back on and see if it just works. That would be soooo kewl..

Again, many thanks for all suggestion made.

btw, I tried the ide HD smack fix and that worked... very nice trick

[jmmijo]

I'll give that a shot and see what happens. Since the one 500 has only KS1.3 installed it should behave like yours did.

[DrBong]

Originally posted by Miggy2TheMax
So out of frustration I go to the original manual and start reading up about all the jumper switches and what they mean. So I decided to make J9 open so that its NOT auto boot. And the machine works without guru under 1.3 .... excellent.

Always a damn jumper problem with GVP boards (whether it makes sense or not!!) ;-)

jjimjo if you have your 530T on hand could you try to disconnect the HD and leave autoboot ON. I'm wondering if you will get a guru message.

I think last time I did that a guru occurred, but I'll give jjimjo the pleasure of testing that one since I'm too lazy to unscrew everything ;-)

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by jmmijo
I'll give that a shot and see what happens. Since the one 500 has only KS1.3 installed it should behave like yours did.

jmmijo: did you get a chance to test it out ? Cheers.

[jmmijo]

Unfortunately no I'll have to try to get it done today however, I'll beat myself senseless to remind me :laugh

[jmmijo]

Ok, I've tested it out, seems to have a problem with no hard drive attached and jumper block J9 closed, this is for the auto-booting control for the SCSI controller itself. I'm gonna pull the jumper and try it again.

Miggy, it did not guru, it just hung with the hard drive busy light on forever because the SCSI controller was caught in a loop looking for a non-exhistant hard drive

I'll test this out some more with the auto-boot jumper removed!

EDIT:

@Miggy, that worked, just pull jumper block J9 on the A530 board and it will not look for a hard drive forever

There are also the jumper blocks at locations J11 and J13. These control the on-board 32-bit RAM configs.

J11 Open = RAM installed
J11 Closed = no RAM installed
J13 Open = 1MB SIMM(s) installed
J13 Closed - 4MB SIMM(s) installed