ACA620 locking up when full memory is addressed

[demolition]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

Last night I let a600 run for a while. The aca620 runs really hot. Is that normal?

How hot is 'really hot'? Can you hold your finger on it for several seconds without burning yourself? If you can, I don't think it is too hot.

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by demolition

How hot is 'really hot'? Can you hold your finger on it for several seconds without burning yourself? If you can, I don't think it is too hot.

Ok. In that scale I think it is still "normal"

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by demolition

Anyway, it seems the problem follows the adapter/CF card, so I would first try with another card.
ACA.

The IDE-CF adapter (from amigakit) is the trouble maker here. If that is hooked up even without the CF card the ACA620 locks up after a while (actually, at any point of time).

Without IDE-CF adapter I can run this setup with ACA620 on for hours.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

The IDE-CF adapter (from amigakit) is the trouble maker here. If that is hooked up even without the CF card the ACA620 locks up after a while (actually, at any point of time).

Without IDE-CF adapter I can run this setup with ACA620 on for hours.

Whats installed on the drive?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by FOL

Whats installed on the drive?

Since it crashes without the CF card, the contents are probably not the issue. And since it will even crash on the KS screen, any software issue can probably be ruled out.

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by demolition

Since it crashes without the CF card, the contents are probably not the issue. And since it will even crash on the KS screen, any software issue can probably be ruled out.

I am getting a replacement CF adapter.. lets see what happens then.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by demolition

Since it crashes without the CF card, the contents are probably not the issue. And since it will even crash on the KS screen, any software issue can probably be ruled out.

Very odd, if it crashes like you say it does. That would have been picked during testing.

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

I am getting a replacement CF adapter.. lets see what happens then.

Got a new CF adapter (V.H0 whatever). When the CF card is plugged in I cannot get past early stages of boot. Without CF card A600 runs for a while. With no CF adapter at all.. rock solid. The new CF adapter + CF card and ACA620 turned off.. rock solid.

Hi all,

I have an A600 rev1.5 + ACA620 rev2 + unbranded 1MB chip expansion from 93/94. My problem is that the Amiga freezes randomly after a while, for example when playing a mod in HippoPlayer.

It appears to only happen when I use -maxmem and have a 2GB CF inserted in the PCMCIA port (and mounted). I tested without -maxmem and that didn't crash. I also tested without using the PCMCIA port and that also didn't crash (inserting the PCMCIA card in this stage causes the Amiga the freeze within a couple of minutes).

This is acatune command line I use: -maxmem -maprom SYS:kick31.rom

I also ran a couple of memtesters but everything was fine.

Any ideas? Sounds like an address range conflict to me.

[TjLaZer]

ok my issue seems to be my A600 is in poor health! Needs caps changed. I do indeed have a Rev 2 board...

I did some more tests today. The test consisted of playing four modules in HippoPlayer using the Normal replayer.

PCMCIA: PASS
CHIPEXP: PASS
MAXMEM: PASS
MAXMEM + PCMCIA: HANG
CHIPEXP + PCMCIA: PASS
CHIPEXP + MAXMEM: PASS
CHIPEXP + MAXMEM + PCMCIA: HANG

MAXMEM = -maxmem in Startup-sequence
CHIPEXP = 1 MB chipram expansion enabled
PCMCIA = 2 GB FAT formatted CF in the PCMCIA port


ACA620 should be compatible with PCMCIA, right? What gives, faulty ACA620 or faulty A600?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Sunray

ACA620 should be compatible with PCMCIA, right? What gives, faulty ACA620 or faulty A600?

From your tests, it does seem like there is a conflict. I have used the ACA620 along with a 2GB CF card (Sandisk Ultra II) in the PCMCIA port without any issues to transfer some stuff, so I know it can work.
There are some options on acatune to slow down the pcmcia port, have you tried those?

I have not, but I just did. It didn't help unfortunately. I'll ask my reseller.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Sunray

I have not, but I just did. It didn't help unfortunately. I'll ask my reseller.

How did you format card? I find formatting it in anything other than the Amiga can cause issues.

I formatted it in Windows. I can try to format it on the Amiga, but I will be away for a few days now so maybe layer this week.

Thanks

[demolition]

Originally Posted by FOL

How did you format card? I find formatting it in anything other than the Amiga can cause issues.

How do you format the card the on the Amiga? I have always formatted my cards with FAT32 on Windows and never had a problem.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by demolition

How do you format the card the on the Amiga? I have always formatted my cards with FAT32 on Windows and never had a problem.

System/Format command, then select CF0 and format quick.

I've now tested with another A600 board and my hang/freeze problem went away. So something is wrong with the first board. It does seem to be related to heat though; the first time you start the machine it actually stable for around 10 - 15 min and after a reboot/restart it hangs after only 1 - 3 min.

I was actually planning to sell one of the A600 boards but I don't feel like selling something that isn't 100% working. I don't feel like recapping the entire board either.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

You should try to strengthen the card's ground connection by connecting the small holes to the motherboard. drive small screws though the two holes into the holes for the original harddisk bracket.

This fixes stability issues with some boards.

Edit: Don't use too much force while tightening the screws.

Thanks! This seem to have fixed my issues! I had problems in both rev 1.5 and a 2D boards. Games would not load (Crash/freeze/black screen) when my ACA 620 rev.2 got hot after a short while (about 5 - 10 minutes). A small fan on top of the ACA 620 or chassi open would make it almost stable. However, I did not want to use a fan or have my Amiga 600 open so today when I tried the ACA 620 Rev.2 on my A600 Rev. 2D only to realise I had the excact same problems I had in my Rev. 1.5 A600 I stumbled across this thread and I tried your tips. I took a wire and connected it to one of the grounding holes on the ACA 620 Rev. 2 and then connected the other end to the motherboard screw in the front of the A600 mother board (below where space key is). I have my chassi on and no fan. It has been running for an hour now and loading WHDload games with no problems. I can feel it's hot but it is rock stable!

Edit: And yes, I'm using -maxmem in startup to have over 10MB available

Edit 2: I'm so happy now, this thing almost drove me crazy! They should start to send a small grounding wire with the ACA 620 Rev.2 because at least in my case it made everything rock stable! Oh, and I'm using Classic workbench Full and WHDLoad 17.1 (the one that's built into classic OS).

Edit 3: Just don't expect Beneath a steel sky to work. this will work sometimes, but will often hang up or crash (gotten it to work pretty good by just using the regular games launcher). The ACA 620 just don't have enough memory to preload this game properly. All other big games like Monkey Island 2 or Fate Of Atlantis works fine with preload (at least as long as you use the full memory available on the ACA 620). And btw, it still works rock solid after I added that grounding wire. It has been several hours now. Before the grounding wire it would crash when loading WHDLoad games after about 5 - 10 minutes with the chassi on. I may have forgotten to mention that I'm not using any chipmem upgrade. I find the standard 1MB to be enough for me. So I cannot comment if I would get any problems or not with a chipmem upgrade related to the ACA 620 Rev. 2.

Thanks again! Great tips!

[turrican9]

A little update. I'm back with my Rev 1.5 Amiga 600. Have installed the ACA 620 Rev.2 + the grounding wire. Been loading games for an hour now and it's just as stable as my Amiga 600 Rev. 2D. Without the grounding wire it would have started locking up when loading WHDLoad games after about 10 minutes or so. I have also noticed that it's best to use the regular games loader from Classic Workbench Full instead of iGames when testing. Since iGame takes up alot of mem some of the bigger games can crash on loading making the testing confusing. However, I also tried the regular games loader without the grounding wire before all this and they would still crash. So I'm now rock stable with both my Rev 1.5 and Rev 2D Amiga 600's as long as I'm using the grounding wire. Amigakit states that the 2D has problems with the ACA 620 Rev.2. However, from all my searching people have the excact same problems with other revisions of the Amiga 600's too. Grounding wire was the fix for my two revisions at least.

Oh, and another thing. When installing the ACA 620 I have many times thought it was properly installed. Sometimes one needs to push it extra hard in each corner. A nice test to see if it sits right (if you've managed to boot the OS) is to try and lift the Amiga on the side one cm from the table and drop it. If it sits good it will not crash.

Edit: I'm using the grounding hole on the lower right. If you have your ACA 620 installed and stand infront of your Amiga looking down on it, it will be the right hole closest to you, in the corner. The biggest hole near the middle of the card did not have connection with the other grounding points on the ACA 620, so stay away from that one.