A1200 Freezing problems...

[mfilos]

Hi guys,

I have an A1200 revision 1B mobo with an Apollo 1260@66mhz accelerator with 64MB RAM.
After I had my 1240 upgraded by PG succesfully and running great I discovered that from time to time my Amiga freezes and I have to reset. This happens EVERYTIME I run WhichAmiga and sometimes on MUI programs, MagicMenu etc.
Despite SysInfo and SysSpeed didn't give me any problems, I tried MemTest and saw that I got some errors in my Memory modules. I decided then to change my SIMMS to new ones. I got a set of 4x32MB SIMMS that I used and everything worked just fine with the same freezes though.
I then realised that it could have been the PSU that I was using from an A500. I guessed that maybe FastATA+ScanMagic+Subway could cause this instability due to lack of power.
Yesterday I received at last my DBox, Mediator, Voodoo3, SB128, NIC so I guessed it was the only way to find out!
Everything worked just fine and run without problems with Picasso96, USB works just fine, accelerator just fine but guess what?... Same freezes in WhichAmiga or sometimes on WB screen on Boot.

I haven't made a post all this time since I didn't knew about whether is was a Memory problem or PSU...
Now though... I'm kinda out of ideas except one!
The only thing I can imagine would be a mobo revision thing as timing issues. The fact that it's neither a 2B or 1D.4 (in order for me to perform the timing fixing hacks) doesn't leave me with options of what to do.
Since 1B is a really old mobo revision, does it require BOTH timing fixing hacks? Does it requires something else, or it's a general issue?
Does anyone having an Apollo 1260 with a revision 1B mobo had the same issues or is it another problem?

I find it extremely irritating not being able to use my Amiga after investing so much money
I don't have a problem searching for another mobo (1D.4) but I wanna know for sure that I won't have a problem or in the best case... If I can make my current mobo to work flawlesly with my current setup

Cheers and thanks in advance

[Shoonay]

Well, Apollo's are like that, that's why I'm keeping my Blizz 030 50Mhz
Cool the beast maybe, or search the Aminet for some hardware hacks - IIRC, there is one just for you.

[mfilos]

The Amiga is pretty cool alright. Never had problems with heat.
I also tried with Oscillator of 50Mhz native in case it created the problem. Still the continues to freeze either in 50 or 66Mhz (running WhichAmiga or in Boot sometimes).
It must be the mobo imho... but I don't know if I can mod it or replace it :S

[Calgor]

Two of my Amigas were always unstable after running WhichAmiga even though it executed fine. A reboot was required or else there was a good chance of a crash. It may be a problem of some hardware/softwares combo with that program.

They were A4000T/CSPPC and A1200/Blizzard IV 030 as accelerators, and were booted off a floppy (WhichAmiga is on my new machine "test" floppy). Not sure if I had SetPatch running on the KS3.1.

But normal programs operated fine.

[rkauer]

Apollo's accelerators are (in)famous for those kinds of problems.

But you can surely do the "timing fixes" on your board. Just remove E123C & E125C (careful: don't remove the resistors, named E12xR!).

I had to make the very same mod on a 1D1 board to use... guess what? An Apollo 1240/40MHz!

BTW: memory problems are related with the clock! Don't remember quite now if Apollo have some program to set the memory speed. If so, try set the memory to 70ns (assuming you have 60ns SIMM), or to 80ns (if 70ns SIMM).

[mfilos]

That fix was meant to be for 1D.4 but since yours was 1D.1 it could also be ok. Should it be ok with my 1B also? :S

[rkauer]

Originally Posted by mfilos

That fix was meant to be for 1D.4 but since yours was 1D.1 it could also be ok. Should it be ok with my 1B also? :S

Sure! This little modification just gives the A1200 more time to synchronize the lines among the board and the accelerator.

[adonay]

Whichamiga on apollo 1260

Evaluating system...
Central Processing Unit: MC68060 80.0 MHz (rev 6)
Floating Point Unit: 68060fpu 80.0 MHz
Memory Management Unit: 68060mmu running
Custom graphics chip: AGA Lisa 4203 (rev 0)
Custom animation chip: AGA PAL Alice 8374 2M (rev 3-4)
Other custom chip(s): Paula 8364 (rev 0), Gayle (rev 13)
Graphics system: Picasso96
Hardware Clock: clock found, tuesday 18-mar-2008 22:52:36
Max. Chipmem available: 2048 K
Max. Fastmem available: 65536 K
ROM chip version: 39.106 (Kickstart 3.0)
Workbench version: 39.29 (Workbench 3.0)
SetPatch version: 43.6
Expansion board(s):
8738/35: Apollo A xx30-60 Turbo (@$00EA0000 128k)
2206/40: ELBOX-Computer Unknown Prod.ID #40 (@$00EC0000 128k)
2206/168: ELBOX-Computer Unknown Prod.ID #168 (@$00200000 8M)

Your computer is an Amiga 1200.

I have a Apollo 060 too and i did have problems starting WhichAmiga too although this problem stopped after a while and generally i do not have that many stability issues with my apollo only drawback is that it does not have the blizzzard SCSI. Make sure the cpu connector is really clean and the pins are not worn out as i had problems with this , had to put the acc board in a correct position to get it to boot at times and it did lock up fairly often. I bought a "electronics clean spray" to clean the edge connector and used a can of air to go over the card and connector after . It did wonders...