Are these a590's dead or just sleeping..

I got hold of 2 a590's a few months back and just recently decided to test them out. One is XT (Western Digital WD93028-X), and the other SCSI (Quantum ProDrive). Both are 20MB drives I assume..
Both a590's have the same problem; try to boot, HD LED comes on for a while then stops so I boot the setup disk. Load up HDToolbox and get "no drives attached to system".
I have the jumper set to autoboot on both and evrything seems to be plugged up correctly..
Any ideas?

Oh.. I'm using KS1.3 btw, and both units are maxed out at 2meg (memory is working fine)

[Jope]

Do you have the PSU connected to the A590?

yep sure have


also I tried using 3 other scsi HD's in the a590's that I pulled from someone's old 3000T.. although I'm not sure the size of drives. One was totally dead, and the other two just sat there trying to autoboot with the HD light contantly on..

the a590's have v6.6 ROMS btw so I doubt these HD's are too big.

[coze]

boot with workbench disk and check if you can see the ram, and if scsi.device is available. enter version scsi.device. Also check hdtoolbox tooltypes if it's properly set to scsi.device and unit (scsi id of your drive). check if you have termination enable on your scsi drives.

[Jope]

Does the relay in the PSU click when you power up the Amiga?

Originally Posted by coze

boot with workbench disk and check if you can see the ram, and if scsi.device is available. enter version scsi.device. Also check hdtoolbox tooltypes if it's properly set to scsi.device and unit (scsi id of your drive). check if you have termination enable on your scsi drives.

by workbench I presume you mean the a590 setup disk.. hmm well it seems scsi.device is not on the disk.. no idea why - I'm using the download from 'amiga hardware database' which is identical to the tosec version.
Where there seperate setup disks for XT and SCSI or something?

Also it seems that HDToolbox doesnt have any tooltypes set at all.. which I guess is because scsi.device is missing.
lastly the drive doesnt appear to have a termination jumper..

Originally Posted by Jope

Does the relay in the PSU click when you power up the Amiga?

Well i'm not really hearing any click, but it seems to power up fine. The a590 doesnt even come alive unless it's on.

[Jope]

scsi.device is on rom in the A590, not on disk..

Do you have showconfig or sysinfo? Is the A590 even detected?

[ganralf]

The HDToolbox on the A590 Setup-Disk is really old. It even doesn't have a version number, nor does it support setting the device via Tool Types. This version is hardcoded to scsi.device and xt.device. When it finds none of these devices you'll get the message "Driver not installed".

Originally Posted by VermillioN

Load up HDToolbox and get "no drives attached to system".

That sounds like the devices are found but they don't report a drive attached. So the A590s are properly autoconfigured into the system.

I guess Jope is on the right route in saying that the PSU is the source of the problem.

The A590 prefers to DMA into its own memory. Maybe we have a problem there. For a quick check set the memory size jumper to Amnesia.

Also check the BBOAH for the correct jumper and DIP switch settings.

The worst case is, that either the WD (SCSI) chip or the DMAC chip are broken. These are the same ones as on a A2091 or A3000(T) with the same problems, which I suppose were often discussed here.

Thanks for trying to help it's much appreciated.

Okies, well sysinfo is correctly detecting the a590 yep.
I tried setting the mem jumper to amnesia, which disables the ram but I still get "no drives attached..".

I have two a590 psu's and they both act exactly the same.
Also the a590's jumper settings are definately correct.
Looks like it could be these WD and DMAC chips you speak of - I could try swapping these with the other a590.. Where are these chips on the board?

also I noticed that the chip socket right next to the XT connector wasn't occupied (U30).. so I grabbed one from the other a590 and whacked it in - but it still wont detect any drives. (I have no idea what this chip is btw )

another thing that may or may not help:
The HD I'm trying to get running is an old Quantum ProDrive which tries to boot, fails, then looks for a disk..
I'm also trying 2 other HD's - a Quantum Trailblazer, and a Fujitsu M2682SAU.. on startup both of these drives try to boot but the HD light stays constantly on, so it never looks for a disk.. maybe this helps to diagnose the problem *shrug*

[ganralf]

I have no clue what U30 is good for.

Did you check termination? The A590 takes care of the termination at the controller's end. But do the drives terminate the cable on their end.

U1 is the DMAC (390563)
U4 is the WD (33c93)

[jimbo100]

[quote=VermillioN]

Where abouts in WA are you? I have used a A590 for years and wil be getting another shortly. Maybe I can try and get these working for you if you arent sure about them. I am also in WA.

In the hills Jimbo100!.. Glen Forrest
Hey don't spose you can code or do gfx? (PC / ami / c64)
Our demo group affinity is lookin for more local members

Originally Posted by ganralf

I have no clue what U30 is good for.

Did you check termination? The A590 takes care of the termination at the controller's end. But do the drives terminate the cable on their end.

U1 is the DMAC (390563)
U4 is the WD (33c93)

Does anyone know what U30 does I'm curious

Only a few of the HD's actually had a termination jumper, and I made sure they were enabled.
I'll have a muck around with U1 and U4 and see what happens.. cheers!

[jimbo100]

Originally Posted by VermillioN

Does anyone know what U30 does I'm curious

This pic shows two A590's, one with a chip in U30 and one without.

http://amiga.resource.cx/photos/a590

Appears that some A590's don't use this chip, the one I am getting doesn't have a chip in U30! Wondering what it does I did a little search!

Having a look at the marking's on the chip in the pic it looks like 390398-01 (Is that what is written on the you have?) A search reveals that this is a Ramsey chip responsible for addressing RAM and producing DMA addressing, particularly with regards to the motherboard SCSI controller.

Wonder why some A590's don't have one? Anyone know?

[EmuChicken]

Hmn, on a PC / Amiga with a cabled unit, usually if you put the IDE cable in the wrong way round it doesnt start up but manages to power up.... is there a way to put it in differently?

Well I ended up giving up on this - I tried swapping chips but to no avail.. I find it hard to believe that all 5 scsi HD's I have are dead but I guess it's possible.. *shrug*
I'll keep an eye out for one on ebay methinks..

thanks emuchicken btw, but I already tried every possible cable position

[coze]

If you can sort a cheap scsi card for the pc, you can try them on your pc. Usually they're available for nothing (I can find them here for less than 1$). Also, if I were you, I would get a three way scsi cable, plug one end to the A590, middle to the hd, and put an active terminator to the other end. That's how I got a stubborn hd to work with my gvpA500+8. I don't think all your hd's dead is likely. Old scsi controllers need active termination, and usually terminations on the drives won't cut it. Just my five yens.

Looks like some damn good advice there.. cheers coze

[gonk23]

I know this is a really old thread, but I came across it in a google search of a related topic. A question was asked which I also wanted to understand.

Originally Posted by jimbo100

This pic shows two A590's, one with a chip in U30 and one without.

http://amiga.resource.cx/photos/a590

Appears that some A590's don't use this chip, the one I am getting doesn't have a chip in U30! Wondering what it does I did a little search!

Having a look at the marking's on the chip in the pic it looks like 390398-01 (Is that what is written on the you have?) A search reveals that this is a Ramsey chip responsible for addressing RAM and producing DMA addressing, particularly with regards to the motherboard SCSI controller.

Wonder why some A590's don't have one? Anyone know?

The A590 Service Manual, which is available on the web, doesn't actually refer to a U30, but it does refer to U101 which appears to be the same thing. Looking closer at the component parts list, there appears to be 2 configurations:

(1) The main chip U1 is 390563-01. The chip U101 (aka U30) is 390398-01 and installed. The jumper JP8 is left open.

(2) The main chip U1 is an enhanced version 390563-02, which probably includes the logic contained in U101. Therefore the chip U101 (aka U30) is not needed and not installed. The jumper JP8 is closed.

So this explains why some A590 units have the U30 chip, and some don't. For some reason they needed to initially ship the original U1, but later on they could ship the enhanced U1 with combined logic. The A590 PCB was designed to take either version of U1.