Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[phl22]

Yeee aca and amiga working timefix made with a screwdriver
(123c and 125c removed)

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by phl22

Yeee aca and amiga working timefix made with a screwdriver
(123c and 125c removed)

That's "ouch" - big time. The capacitors are fixed in three positions: Two solderspots and a small glue-spot in the middle. By just destroying the part, you may also damage the mainboard, maybe even beyond repair. While this appears to have worked for you, I strongly recommend others not to try this at home.

Jens

[phl22]

working well on six hours finally thanks aca is the best
all time no guru
ang change cf card to 4gb all work
only led hdd all time light
thanks Jens

[Bamiga2002]

I guess it was a moment of joy too soon. Acatune status revealed that maprom=disabled and something "can't map kickstart because RAD: is present". I have KS 3.1 in A1200 with ACA and the jumper was left off (manual states that). With "ACATune >NIL: -maprom * p -cache on -burst on" won't boot and shows strange chaotic display with black/white stripes. Now when I put the jumper on this declaration works just OK. And I have KS 3.1...and the jumper is ON....even if it's meant to be ON if you have KS 3.0....catch my drift here?

But it works fine this way and Acatune status reports ALL OK so it's the main thing for me. Just wanted to let you know. But I have the same problem with CF-adapter and 4gb CF card...Amiga's own HD-led is lit almost all the time. I noticed that the Amiga-led activates when there's graphical movement on the screen + normal hd activity of course. The CF card's own led works OK -> only when there's activity on HD.

Originally Posted by Bamiga2002

Today the ACA 1230/56 was put to test. First tried without ACATune: had installed ClassicWB 3.9 and it booted fast from a CF card with 3.1 ROMs - no probs . Then put Parasol Stars demorolling itself for 2 hours - all OK.

Then the scary part: copied latest ACATune 1.5e to C:, added commandline
"ACATune -maprom ** p -cache on -burst on" to S-S and reset...(fingers crossed!)....
Booted OK & fast! Played around in WB and then tried various WHDLoad-games for about 2 hours - ALL WORKING!

If I left one '*' from the maprom option then the A1200 wouldn't boot but show strange chaotic display with black/white stripes. So had to add the second '*'.

No graphics trash at all, no strange probs yet, and I hope it stays that way!

[Schoenfeld]

We have a confirmed bugreport about this exact configuration from a German customer as well, and the current state is that he wants to try setting the Kick3.0 jumper (for $c0-mem reservation) in order to keep Kickstart memory from being added to the freemem list.

Your report here now confirms that this is a valid workaround until we can reproduce and fix the bug here. Trouble is that the programmer who did the new version of ACAtune is the same guy who is currently busy making the config/flash tool for Indivision AGA MK2.

In other words: Please understand that it'll take a few weeks until we can turn to this one. Since it's not a showstopper at all, the workaround should do it for you.

Jens

[alenppc]

Hi Jens,

I just emailed Vesalia to order the 1231. What a beautiful board! Made me dust off the good old A1200.

I am curious about a few things.

Where did you get the 030 cpus from? As I understand it, they are no longer manufactured so these must be old/unsold stock?

Why did you clock the CPU at 42 Mhz? I presume you used the 40 MHz variants.

Is the synchronization with the main board the reason? If I remember correctly, the various M-tec cards used that frequency by mutliplying the A1200 motherboard clock.

I also suppose the 68040/060 stocks must be dried up by now, as they are also no longer manufactured and quite costly as well.

Last but not least, thanks for the good work...

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by alenppc

Hi Jens,

I just emailed Vesalia to order the 1231. What a beautiful board! Made me dust off the good old A1200.

I am curious about a few things.

Where did you get the 030 cpus from? As I understand it, they are no longer manufactured so these must be old/unsold stock?

The CPUs were Vesalia's stock.

Originally Posted by alenppc

Why did you clock the CPU at 42 Mhz?

That was not a decision based on the CPUs, but based on memory speed. The SD-Rams I use are Winbond 200MHz types. They can deliver data within 48ns after row-open. This can be achieved by running memory clock at 83.325MHz, which gives 12ns per clock cycle. Running the CPU at half of the memory clock is the evident solution.

Originally Posted by alenppc

Is the synchronization with the main board the reason? If I remember correctly, the various M-tec cards used that frequency by mutliplying the A1200 motherboard clock.

I did that on ACA1230, but the ACA1231 is fully async. You can run it at almost any clock speed.

Jens

[Bamiga2002]

Originally Posted by phl22

working well on six hours finally thanks aca is the best
all time no guru
ang change cf card to 4gb all work
only led hdd all time light
thanks Jens

Seems like you have the same led problem as I have. I don't know what causes that hdd led flashing all the time when something is moving on the screen. If I browse the Classic WB intuition menus the amiga's led flickers constantly. Also if I play a game the led is lit almost all the time. I use the cf adapter & 4gb cf card combo from Amigakit.

EDIT: I add that the cf adapters own red light indicating hd activity doesn't get lit when I browse the intuition menus or play a game when there's no actual read/write activity.

[melbourneben!]

Same here, I recently upgraded from a regular spindle to a CF drive from Amigakit, it works great but I too have noticed that the HD light flashes when typing and not when I'd expect HD activity to be occuring. Its as though the HD is blinking to indicate IO, not just HD activity. I would be interested to hear what causes this.

[Schoenfeld]

The HD LED is only controlled by the harddisk, or in this case by the CF card. There is no connection between any Amiga software and the LED state.

If the LED turns on every once in a while, then the CF card has decided to do that. This has nothing to do with an accelerator or key strokes - at least not directly.

Jens

[magnetic]

I have been running a CF card and adaptor for 2 years now and never once has the LED accessed in that kind of way. I had an apollo 030 and now a blizz 060.

[Jope]

Neither have I. I guess our CF cards are more standards compliant, than the ones those other guys have then.

[Bamiga2002]

It seems that removing ClassicWB 3.9 scsi.device using
'Setpatch NOROMUPDATE' did the trick and no more unusual led-activity. Have to test some more to be sure...

[magnetic]

Originally Posted by phl22

Yeee aca and amiga working timefix made with a screwdriver
(123c and 125c removed)

By far the funniest quote i've seen on EAB in a while!

Great way to work on vintage electronics!

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by magnetic

By far the funniest quote i've seen on EAB in a while!

Great way to work on vintage electronics!

Lol, lol, lol...

[phl22]

Amiga perfect working !!!

[magnetic]

phl22

lulz.. good to hear but if you keep taking a screwdriver to her not for long!

[techguruuk]

I've got a very unstable A1200 at the moment, using the Aca 1230 28mhz.

I notice the 030 is very very hot, so hot it heats up the desk below it and burns my finger to touch the chip, is this normal? I have the trapdoor cover removed and the metal shielding of the A1200 gone.

I get back graphical corruption often after being on for an hour or two, I made a video showing it:

[ Show youtube player ]

What would be my solution or cause here?

My A1200 doesn't seem to require the timing fix, I've checked the motherboard and it's missing those components.

[desiv]

Does it do any of that if you remove the ACA1230?
Are you using an Indivision/SD/FF or just a DB23 to VGA/SCART cable or ?

How is the 1200 Power Supply? Is it an original 1200 PSU or an A500 PSU?

desiv

[Schoenfeld]

Heat is not an issue with a PGA processor @28MHz. However, A1200 motherboard issues are. Look back further in this thread for a description of how to correct the assembly errors: check E123C, E125C and if they are gone, the second "more complicated" mod, described about a year ago.

Jens