A1200 BvisonPPC problem?

Hi all,

I am currently in the process of resurrecting a few of my Amigas.

Currently the A2000 with Apollo 2030+scsi is working fine apart from needing the usual battery. That's on order, oh and the floppies have given up the ghost as well but I can wortk round that.

The 1200 with 030 works nicely but floppy is doubtful, again not a serious problem.

Now to the big problem. I have a PPc160/040 with a bvision card and although the PPC works fine I have never, ever since buying the thing, been able to get any output on the bvision.

It was originally installed in one of the old Eyetech EZTower DIY kits, the one where you had to keep your 1200 in its original bottom case and as I say worked fine with just the PPC even though the Bvision was attached.

Well I recently decided I was fed up with the Heath Robinson way things were done on the Eyetech especially the way of getting power in. I used to use an Amiga psu plugged into the original power socket and the internal psu onto the floppy power connector.

So I have bought an Infinitv (plastic) system off ebay., This came with another A1200 board. Bought mainly for the properpower connector on the Z2i riser.

The infinitiv works well with the 030 and again the PPC is working fine (although I will say its a real pita to get it in and out of this tower) but even in this system I am seeing no display out of the BVision card.

I currently have 2 monitors connected, a Multiscan to the Amiga video ports and another VGA to the Bvision port.

What I do see now is the display on the VGA monitor connected to the BVision flicker when screen modes change and the CGX install reports the BVision as being present and I can see BVision shown in the CGX mode prefs thingy.

I have tried this on a Rev1B, 1D4 and 2B a1200 boards. The 1B did nothing and the 1D4 and 2B behave as above.

I believe the BVision card is working ok as I can see the screen flicker and 'autoset' comes up sometimes as does 'out of range' if I go too far but I have no idea why the BVision screen is blank.

AS I said I am using 2 monitiors but can I even do this? Does the software recognise there is also something connected to the Amiga video port and turn off the CGX screens or something?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm tearing my hair out and I can't afford to lose any more of that!

Many thanks


Chris

[Vairn]

What screen mode do you have set for workbench? you normally have to choose one of the Cybergraphics ones in screenmode to use it from what I recall.
I ran my A1200 off a ATX psu 600W or so.
You will only see output from one of the outputs at a time from Memory.
http://amiga.resource.cx/manual/BVisionPPC.pdf
is the manual for the BVision.
I sold my PPC/BVision years ago, so this is all the help I can give sorry.

[idrougge]

Just run CGXMode and test all screen modes until you find one that is recognised by your monitor.

[UberFreak]

I would measure the voltage on the BVision (measure the input of the voltage regulator).
Mine required a direct 5V feed or it wouldn't play nice.
Using the floppy connector wasn't enough, voltage on the card was ~4.75V, too low.

[Mad-Matt]

Before worrying about cgx, is the early boot menu even appearing on the vga screen? (Either the ppc menu or kickstart early boot menu should be fine(may need to press space)) This is just a really basic mode which all monitors should support.

If you can find the specs of your monitor screen, you can tell cgxmode the limits of the screen so that it wont allow way out of range monitor modes. When installing the cgx driver selecting the basic 31k generic monitor driver should be enough to get going with some basic modes. Then use the Vesa compatible modes when choosing what other modes you want.

[Chucky]

Do you use the CORRECT VGA adapter/cable? so wiring is correct?

Thanks for the help so far guys.

Can't try anything out at the moment as I managed to break something in the startup and it just loops at the moment but I'll let you all know how I get on.

@ Chucky - Well the VGA cable is a standard one that came with the monitor so I assume that it is correct.

@ Mad-Matt - No nothing appears on the VGA screen at all. The early boot menus appears on the monitor attached to the Amiga video port.

@ UberFreak - Power should (hopefully) not be a problem. It's why I bought the Infinitiv tower. The power is now going in via the power on the Z2i busboard. Not that it made any difference even when I did also put power in through the Amiga power port. However measuring the power in the Infinitiv tower is going to be a bit of a problem as I can't easily get to the card.

@idrougge - I have run this and tested them all and all I get is the blank screen thought the screen does flash and as I said sometimes I get out of range messages from the monitor.

@vairn - This is the problem. It does not matter what screenmode I set both screens are always blank. Luckily pressing the ESC key gets out of the test mode unless I am stupid enough to press use instead when I have to reset the Miggy. And yes I have done this too many times to mention

Chris

[Chucky]

no the cable from the BVision to the VGA connector.. is that the correct one?

Hi Chucky,

Sorry for the late reply, been busy.

Yes the BVision to vga cable is correct. Well I am assuming it is as it is the standard one that came with the card.

Chris

[Chucky]

the original cable have a VGA connector and a round connector (for 3D glasses I think.. that never was released)