Apollo 1260 help needed

DC33 · 14 February 2009, 07:21

Hi there EAB friends,

As some of you may have seen on eBay (UK) recently, an Apollo 1260 was up for grabs. I ended up being the buyer, knowing well that it was sold as defective.

In short, the previous owner tried to solder another RAM slot, and in the process damaged some tracks. I have managed to get a fairly good picture of a similar board (http://www.amiga-hardware.com) however after confirming (at least I think I have) all tracks have continuity to their destination points and therefore excluding any possibilities of broken tracks, I am still no better at being able to fire the board up.

I found 3 broken tracks and a "possible" shorted one, however I cannot 100% confirm what I assume as being a problem, is in fact a problem.

Is there anyone here at EAB who might have a schematic to the board so that I might be able to check my board and confirm that I have not missed anything?
The problem is that the de-soldering iron that was used left a bit of a mess and it is very hard to see if a track is broken or not, and in a particular case it looks like it actually shorted another track...but I am not sure..!! Also, I do not want to damage the board further as I am quite sure it can be revived.

Alternatively, if someone could send me with a high res picture of their board (I understand both 1240 & 1260 use the same board) looking at the CPU side. This might clear a few questions I have, however a schematic would be a saviour.

Thanks heaps

rkauer · 14 February 2009, 09:26

A good place to start is under the SMD TTL chip near the battery. If the batt has leaked, great chances the traces under the TTL are broken.

Look at this thread for more visual information.

Also, just soak the board with isopropanol to clean the burnt junk. No harm to the board itself.

DC33 · 14 February 2009, 09:42

Thanks rkauer,
Apparently.. and I mean apparently, the previous owner said that the board was ok "before" the attempted RAM slot addition. Nevertheless, visually, it seems ok although some areas look a bid questionable, but as I don't have anything else to compare it to, it is hard to start troubleshooting. Might have to send it to Dimlow (?) for a once-over.

Funny enough, it was Dimlow who bought my 2 1240's last year.... long story on my behalf...!!! But good to see he got it working.

Shall see how it goes, and thanks for your advice m8

Ohhh, forgot to say that the battery has had no leaks and has been replaced by a new one so no probs there.

hit · 14 February 2009, 17:33

here are some hires shots: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showha...cgi?HARDID=111

DC33 · 14 February 2009, 21:00

@hit, Thanks m8. These are the very same ones I used as a guide, and although very good, I still need something just a tad better.

hit · 14 February 2009, 21:37

oh, ok. there is a french guy who repairs/upgrades such cards. its at least an option if anything else fails. i hope you get it working again, good luck.

Edit: this one: http://www.amigacenter.com/Homer.html

AlfaRomeo · 14 February 2009, 22:02

Hi DC33,
Apollo1260 fotos uploaded to the zone.
As here is night is the best I can do with artificial lights, hope they serve your needs.
Attention because seems to me that the Apollo board has more than 2 layers of elctronic tracks.
Wish you best of luck

Zetr0 · 14 February 2009, 22:15

I am under the impression that Apollo is infact a 6 Layer board (3 on each side)

TheCorfiot · 14 February 2009, 23:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zetr0

I am under the impression that Apollo is infact a 6 Layer board (3 on each side)

I agree, which is one of the reasons I think having schmatics is the only option if you stand a chance of repairing this card

TC

DC33 · 14 February 2009, 23:51

@AlfaRomeo,
Many thanks... D/L now.

@Zetr0,
I believe you are indeed correct. nevertheless, the "damage" on this particular board appears to be only on one side and it appears not to have any deep damage, so fingers crossed.

DC33 · 14 February 2009, 23:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by hit

oh, ok. there is a french guy who repairs/upgrades such cards. its at least an option if anything else fails. i hope you get it working again, good luck.

Edit: this one: http://www.amigacenter.com/Homer.html

Thanks m8. Will keep in mind if I get desperate.

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 02:10

Rather than keeping posts on two separate threads, I shall continue here. My last post in the other thread was:
"

Almost there.........!!!!
Ok folks, the board is "working"...however !!!!!.....

Ok,
Managed to find the culprit "track" which in fact was NOT open, rather both shorted to "who knows what" and also open from the original path...

So now I have a working board, however......

When booting (from CF card and 1260 board fitted) the Ami GURU's over an over, BUT if I boot from floppy 3.1 WB disk there is no probs. When booting from 3,1 Install disk, the Ami GURU's again.????

I have re-installed WB 3.1 to see if it makes a difference, but the Ami hangs again into GURU mode.

I have downloaded the 060 drivers but have not been able to use the installer because it comes up with "no HD found".... although the CF card behaves like one..!!! WTF???

I manually copied the install files onto the different dirs without any luck as the Ami keeps on GURU'ing, so I have given up for the moment....

Funny thing is that the Ami boots up without any probs from floppy (WB 3.1) and the board is there sound as, but no joy from CF card.

Any ideas?

Cheers fellas.

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 02:11

@ Zert0 replied:
could be a memory fault,

try booting from CF WITHOUT memory installed. if it still guru's then its likely to be something more serious.

now, take a pic of the card jumpers m8 as this could be wrong, also you may need to swap out simms as well! so lots to do

remember, all hardware pr0n greatly appreciated!

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 02:17

@ Zetr0

With or without memory, I get the same result... a GURU during boot-up. I find it odd that it only happens when booting from CF card, but not from a floppy 3.1 WB disk. When booted from floppy, the board's memory is there and the speed benefit is definitely evident, so I can't think of what it could be as the board seems to be working fine otherwise.. I have tried other simms and have the same problem, so I strongly think that it isn't a simm problem.

I am at work at the mo, so will try different jumper settings etc later on tonight. Should have some prons for you by the time you get out of bed.....

Has anyone had this type of problem?
Thanks

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 08:15

Running update....
Have worked out that it is a conflict with a particular library but haven't worked out which...!!

I started off from square one by deleting all DH0 files and copying the WB3.1 floppy files across and rebooted. Worked perfectly !!
Secondly, copied C across from backed up DH0 and rebooted fine. Then copied the LIBS dir across and Mr Guru has reappeared, so I will go back to square 2.

Will get back to you soon.
Any ideas are appreciated.

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 08:19

Just as a thought, as I haven't been able to use the Apollo Installer, is there any command that needs to be added to the startup-sequence in order for the right libs etc to be loaded?

Peter · 16 February 2009, 09:26

Isn't there a line that needs to be added to start-up - something to do with CPU or something like that - I am sure I had to add something when I had an Apollo.... sorry, sounding a bit vague here... I seem to remember my system wouldn't boot until I added something...

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 09:39

All going well so far. Have copied the Apollo driver files over to DHO and has booted up ok. I did read somewhere on EAB that better driver files exist on Aminet...? Might give them a go if I can find them.
'Be in touch.

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 10:06

Hmm... I am lost..!!
I have checked the CPU and it reads as a mask of Q1F43G, making it a 50Mhz 060 chip. However under Sysinfo it gives me a readout of Mips @ 38.70 which isn't even close.

Any ideas?

Will post pr0ns soon once I have had sorted this out first.

Zetr0 · 16 February 2009, 10:37

you can add "CPU60 B" to the startup and this puts the 060 in Best mode with all the cache's / pipes on etc

Now Sysinfo (is very old) and cannot work out what an 060 is so just uses the bench of an 040 at that speed, there are some other programs from Aminet that will help, an 060@50 should reach around 60MIPS.

you can manually put the libs in that wont hurt any, another thing to invest in is HSMaths, this will give you system a good boost as well (aprx 20% in mosy caculation routines and nigh on 80% in FPU calculations)

DoogUK · 16 February 2009, 10:47

Not sure if this is relevant Alex but when i had a recent conversation with PG regarding upgrading the apollo 1240's PG said some of the mach130's took the upgrade fine and some didn't.
It was down to a bug in the 130 chips which was solved in the 131 revision.

He also said there was a better success rate with the 060 @ 80mhz on the 130 chips.

Maybe it's worth you getting an 060 socket and just trying anyway? You could easily revert back to the 040 then if unsuccessful.

zipper · 16 February 2009, 10:55

50 MHz 060 gives 38-39 Mips on SysInfo. It's about half of the right figure as SysInfo uses only one integer unit of the two existing. Sysspeed does it the in the right way giving about 80 Mips.

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Now Sysinfo (is very old) and cannot work out what an 060 is so just uses the bench of an 040 at that speed, there are some other programs from Aminet that will help, an 060@50 should reach around 60MIPS.

Thanks Zetr0

I have noticed that I have V3.22 as opposed to Dimlow's his post where sysinfo says he has a Mips @ 62.49. Maybe this is what the problem is after all.

In any case, as it is a 060 and I do not have a manual to use as reference (and the fact the oscillator doesn't have any writing on it), do I need to have the jumper to 40 or 60 (clock speed) ? I have tried all options and find that the board will not boot id jumper is set to 60 !! I figure that it should be set to this as it is a 060 "however" if the oscillator is not of the right frequency then I am wasting my time.

My question.... If the jumper is set to 60, what oscillator speed can I use? I have tried a 80 MHz one but with no luck (set to 40 & 60).. so I guess it could be stuffed, or it just can't be used (questionable) !

Thanks again..

zipper · 16 February 2009, 11:34

You get figures like that using RTG screen with SysInfo as it takes the reference from VBL.

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 11:43

@zipper

Thanks for the info. Will keep that in mind

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 11:55

Here you go m8.

Please note that the repairs are only temporary and will be fixed properly once I am 100% happy with the result.

One more question....

Was 92 quid worth it?

DoogUK · 16 February 2009, 12:01

Good result for 92 quid i'd say, looks like you've had some battery leakage round that chip near the battery pad...i'd get cleaned as well.

Good job mate

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 12:16

No battery leakage... It's just a bit of leftover flux from a previous transplant..!! IPA should take care of that very soon !!

Zetr0 · 16 February 2009, 12:52

@DC33

I have the Apollo 040/060 manual, I am still fighting with my scanner to get it to install on vista, when i do i will scan that manual

JuvUK · 16 February 2009, 14:50

use the 040 jumper setting m8 as the apollo's jumpers are mis labelled

cheers, JuvUK

DC33 · 16 February 2009, 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by JuvUK

use the 040 jumper setting m8 as the apollo's jumpers are mis labelled

cheers, JuvUK

Thanks for clearing that up JuvUK....

It makes a lot more sense now.

@Zetr0
Thanks again m8

JuvUK · 16 February 2009, 19:14

no worries m8, i went through the same thing a few months ago, and it's good to share the knowledge

JuvUK

14 February 2009, 07:21	#1
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	Apollo 1260 help needed Hi there EAB friends, As some of you may have seen on eBay (UK) recently, an Apollo 1260 was up for grabs. I ended up being the buyer, knowing well that it was sold as defective. In short, the previous owner tried to solder another RAM slot, and in the process damaged some tracks. I have managed to get a fairly good picture of a similar board (http://www.amiga-hardware.com) however after confirming (at least I think I have) all tracks have continuity to their destination points and therefore excluding any possibilities of broken tracks, I am still no better at being able to fire the board up. I found 3 broken tracks and a "possible" shorted one, however I cannot 100% confirm what I assume as being a problem, is in fact a problem. Is there anyone here at EAB who might have a schematic to the board so that I might be able to check my board and confirm that I have not missed anything? The problem is that the de-soldering iron that was used left a bit of a mess and it is very hard to see if a track is broken or not, and in a particular case it looks like it actually shorted another track...but I am not sure..!! Also, I do not want to damage the board further as I am quite sure it can be revived. Alternatively, if someone could send me with a high res picture of their board (I understand both 1240 & 1260 use the same board) looking at the CPU side. This might clear a few questions I have, however a schematic would be a saviour. Thanks heaps Attached Thumbnails

14 February 2009, 09:26	#2
rkauer I hate potatos and shirts Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sao Leopoldo / Brazil Age: 47 Posts: 3,477	A good place to start is under the SMD TTL chip near the battery. If the batt has leaked, great chances the traces under the TTL are broken. Look at this thread for more visual information. Also, just soak the board with isopropanol to clean the burnt junk. No harm to the board itself. __________________ Amigan since 1989 Known drunk since 1982 (don't know quite well, I was drunk) 13 Amigas at home Finally a Z3 one! I'll stick with 'Cachaça do Inter' for this week: Chivas gives headaches! :D

14 February 2009, 22:15	#8
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 38 Posts: 9,185	I am under the impression that Apollo is infact a 6 Layer board (3 on each side) __________________ Luscious Linkie Time:- www.AmiBay.com Old Skooler

16 February 2009, 09:26	#17
Peter Unemployed & Lovin' it Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Garden of England Age: 44 Posts: 2,493	Isn't there a line that needs to be added to start-up - something to do with CPU or something like that - I am sure I had to add something when I had an Apollo.... sorry, sounding a bit vague here... I seem to remember my system wouldn't boot until I added something... __________________ Help me find the Amiga game called "Scavenge"

16 February 2009, 10:06	#19
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	Hmm... I am lost..!! I have checked the CPU and it reads as a mask of Q1F43G, making it a 50Mhz 060 chip. However under Sysinfo it gives me a readout of Mips @ 38.70 which isn't even close. Any ideas? Will post pr0ns soon once I have had sorted this out first. Last edited by DC33; 16 February 2009 at 10:19.

14 February 2009, 09:42	#3
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	Thanks rkauer, Apparently.. and I mean apparently, the previous owner said that the board was ok "before" the attempted RAM slot addition. Nevertheless, visually, it seems ok although some areas look a bid questionable, but as I don't have anything else to compare it to, it is hard to start troubleshooting. Might have to send it to Dimlow (?) for a once-over. Funny enough, it was Dimlow who bought my 2 1240's last year.... long story on my behalf...!!! But good to see he got it working. Shall see how it goes, and thanks for your advice m8 Ohhh, forgot to say that the battery has had no leaks and has been replaced by a new one so no probs there.

14 February 2009, 17:33	#4
hit Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: planet earth Posts: 1,116	here are some hires shots: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showha...cgi?HARDID=111

14 February 2009, 21:00	#5
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	@hit, Thanks m8. These are the very same ones I used as a guide, and although very good, I still need something just a tad better.

14 February 2009, 21:37	#6
hit Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: planet earth Posts: 1,116	oh, ok. there is a french guy who repairs/upgrades such cards. its at least an option if anything else fails. i hope you get it working again, good luck. Edit: this one: http://www.amigacenter.com/Homer.html

14 February 2009, 22:02	#7
AlfaRomeo A1200 040 SAM440EP 667 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Lisbon / Portugal Posts: 716	Hi DC33, Apollo1260 fotos uploaded to the zone. As here is night is the best I can do with artificial lights, hope they serve your needs. Attention because seems to me that the Apollo board has more than 2 layers of elctronic tracks. Wish you best of luck

14 February 2009, 23:51	#10
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	@AlfaRomeo, Many thanks... D/L now. @Zetr0, I believe you are indeed correct. nevertheless, the "damage" on this particular board appears to be only on one side and it appears not to have any deep damage, so fingers crossed.

16 February 2009, 02:10	#12
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	Rather than keeping posts on two separate threads, I shall continue here. My last post in the other thread was: " Almost there.........!!!! Ok folks, the board is "working"...however !!!!!..... Ok, Managed to find the culprit "track" which in fact was NOT open, rather both shorted to "who knows what" and also open from the original path... So now I have a working board, however...... When booting (from CF card and 1260 board fitted) the Ami GURU's over an over, BUT if I boot from floppy 3.1 WB disk there is no probs. When booting from 3,1 Install disk, the Ami GURU's again.???? I have re-installed WB 3.1 to see if it makes a difference, but the Ami hangs again into GURU mode. I have downloaded the 060 drivers but have not been able to use the installer because it comes up with "no HD found".... although the CF card behaves like one..!!! WTF??? I manually copied the install files onto the different dirs without any luck as the Ami keeps on GURU'ing, so I have given up for the moment.... Funny thing is that the Ami boots up without any probs from floppy (WB 3.1) and the board is there sound as, but no joy from CF card. Any ideas? Cheers fellas.

16 February 2009, 02:11	#13
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	@ Zert0 replied: could be a memory fault, try booting from CF WITHOUT memory installed. if it still guru's then its likely to be something more serious. now, take a pic of the card jumpers m8 as this could be wrong, also you may need to swap out simms as well! so lots to do remember, all hardware pr0n greatly appreciated!

16 February 2009, 02:17	#14
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	@ Zetr0 With or without memory, I get the same result... a GURU during boot-up. I find it odd that it only happens when booting from CF card, but not from a floppy 3.1 WB disk. When booted from floppy, the board's memory is there and the speed benefit is definitely evident, so I can't think of what it could be as the board seems to be working fine otherwise.. I have tried other simms and have the same problem, so I strongly think that it isn't a simm problem. I am at work at the mo, so will try different jumper settings etc later on tonight. Should have some prons for you by the time you get out of bed..... Has anyone had this type of problem? Thanks

16 February 2009, 08:15	#15
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	Running update.... Have worked out that it is a conflict with a particular library but haven't worked out which...!! I started off from square one by deleting all DH0 files and copying the WB3.1 floppy files across and rebooted. Worked perfectly !! Secondly, copied C across from backed up DH0 and rebooted fine. Then copied the LIBS dir across and Mr Guru has reappeared, so I will go back to square 2. Will get back to you soon. Any ideas are appreciated.

16 February 2009, 08:19	#16
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	Just as a thought, as I haven't been able to use the Apollo Installer, is there any command that needs to be added to the startup-sequence in order for the right libs etc to be loaded?

16 February 2009, 09:39	#18
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	All going well so far. Have copied the Apollo driver files over to DHO and has booted up ok. I did read somewhere on EAB that better driver files exist on Aminet...? Might give them a go if I can find them. 'Be in touch.

16 February 2009, 10:37	#20
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 38 Posts: 9,185	you can add "CPU60 B" to the startup and this puts the 060 in Best mode with all the cache's / pipes on etc Now Sysinfo (is very old) and cannot work out what an 060 is so just uses the bench of an 040 at that speed, there are some other programs from Aminet that will help, an 060@50 should reach around 60MIPS. you can manually put the libs in that wont hurt any, another thing to invest in is HSMaths, this will give you system a good boost as well (aprx 20% in mosy caculation routines and nigh on 80% in FPU calculations) __________________ Luscious Linkie Time:- www.AmiBay.com Old Skooler

16 February 2009, 10:47	#21
DoogUK Doogster Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,069	Not sure if this is relevant Alex but when i had a recent conversation with PG regarding upgrading the apollo 1240's PG said some of the mach130's took the upgrade fine and some didn't. It was down to a bug in the 130 chips which was solved in the 131 revision. He also said there was a better success rate with the 060 @ 80mhz on the 130 chips. Maybe it's worth you getting an 060 socket and just trying anyway? You could easily revert back to the 040 then if unsuccessful. __________________ A1200 PowerTower/Apollo 1260-80mhz/64mb/Voodoo3/SB128/20gb IDE/ClassicWB 3.9 Beta

16 February 2009, 10:55	#22
zipper Registered User Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: finland Posts: 867	50 MHz 060 gives 38-39 Mips on SysInfo. It's about half of the right figure as SysInfo uses only one integer unit of the two existing. Sysspeed does it the in the right way giving about 80 Mips.

16 February 2009, 11:34	#24
zipper Registered User Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: finland Posts: 867	You get figures like that using RTG screen with SysInfo as it takes the reference from VBL.

16 February 2009, 11:43	#25
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	@zipper Thanks for the info. Will keep that in mind

16 February 2009, 11:55	#26
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	pr0ns for Zetr0 Here you go m8. Please note that the repairs are only temporary and will be fixed properly once I am 100% happy with the result. One more question.... Was 92 quid worth it? Attached Thumbnails

16 February 2009, 12:01	#27
DoogUK Doogster Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Dorset Posts: 1,069	Good result for 92 quid i'd say, looks like you've had some battery leakage round that chip near the battery pad...i'd get cleaned as well. Good job mate __________________ A1200 PowerTower/Apollo 1260-80mhz/64mb/Voodoo3/SB128/20gb IDE/ClassicWB 3.9 Beta

16 February 2009, 12:16	#28
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 269	No battery leakage... It's just a bit of leftover flux from a previous transplant..!! IPA should take care of that very soon !!

16 February 2009, 12:52	#29
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 38 Posts: 9,185	@DC33 I have the Apollo 040/060 manual, I am still fighting with my scanner to get it to install on vista, when i do i will scan that manual __________________ Luscious Linkie Time:- www.AmiBay.com Old Skooler

16 February 2009, 14:50	#30
JuvUK Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Cheltenham/UK Age: 41 Posts: 302	use the 040 jumper setting m8 as the apollo's jumpers are mis labelled cheers, JuvUK

16 February 2009, 19:14	#32
JuvUK Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Cheltenham/UK Age: 41 Posts: 302	no worries m8, i went through the same thing a few months ago, and it's good to share the knowledge JuvUK

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