Help me keep from drop-kicking my Amiga!!

[watertonian]

OK, the title of this is a bit extreme... However, my computer has been having weird problems since her upgrade to a tower early last year, and I was hoping somebody here might take a look at her specs and perhaps give me some kind of clue as to whats going on.
I'm getting all kinds of "deadend" gurus, mostly in exec.library. Also, the occasional red-screen after reboot (which I mentioned in another thread, though the ROMS seem good, and well seated, its just after I reboot into os3.9 it happens, I have a 3.1 installation on a bootable ZIP disk that works fine after a torture test)
I've fired up scout, and taken some screengrabs. (If I find out that Scout exports an html or txt report file, I'm going to flip.....) Anyway, heres the grabs:

More details on my hardware

Anyway, I've played with a couple version/combinations of 68040.library and 68060.library, which phase5/blizzard seemed to like using a dummy 040 library that simply refers to 060.library, but I'm not sure which comnbination of what is the most stable with my hardware. I'm also using blizkick with:
C:BLIZKICK * EXTRESBUF=800000 MODULE l:FastFileSystem FileSystem.resource l:ram-handler l:shell-seg console.device romupdate.idtag libs:icon.library libs:workbench.library exec.library romfixes NewAlert shell bootmenu fixgetmsg BBlank prepareemul a1000jingle waitide >>sys:logs/blizkick.log

and several MCP patches as well.

I've tried playing with this and that, removing and adding patches, rebooting, testing, rebooting again, etc... still with weird results. I've uploaded all this to see if anyone can see something I've missed, and perhaps nail down a potential "conflict" that perhaps they ran into in the past. Thanks much for any help!

P.S. This is the kind of error I get:

[Merlin]

Just an idea; does Snoopdos run under 3.9? If so, it may be worth running it to see what file may be triggering the event.

Some specs on your machine wouldn't go amiss, either.

[watertonian]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Just an idea; does Snoopdos run under 3.9? If so, it may be worth running it to see what file may be triggering the event.

Some specs on your machine wouldn't go amiss, either.

I've run snoopdos several times, and everything seems ok there. (No fails that aren't accounted for, or mismatched library versions) I'm thinking the prob. is at a level snoopdos doesn't really catch. I've tried running enforcer, but it seems to like crashing as much as everything else.
I have my hardware posted here, though it has alot of useless gfx on it. :-D Heres a text only copy&paste:

Elbox EZ-Z4 Tower
Blizzard 1260 68060 processor
Blizzard 1230 SCSI card
192 MB Fast ram
1 64MB 72 pin simm
1 128MB 72 pin simms
2MB Chip (AGA)
4x IDE adapter
40GB 2.5" IDE HDD
100 MB IDE Zip drive
LG DVD-R drive
Sony CD-RW drive
mouse/joystick switch
Docs wireless sega controllers
Mr. Mysza Amiga-PS2 Mouse Adapter
Generic PS/2-USB Adapter
Fellowes Wireless Mouse
2-way VGA switchbox
External CoCo scandoubler
Mitsubishi 20" Monitor
PC-Key 1200 PS/2 adapter
DIN to Mini-DIN adapter
PS/2 wireless keyboard
Optimus stereo system
Right-Angle PCMCIA adapter
Internal HD 1.7Mb floppy drive
External DD 880k floppy drive
4-way Serial port switch
US Robotics external 56K modem
Null-Modem to A1200
4-way parallel port switch
Canon BJC-210 printer
PerfectSound sound sampler
Mediator 1200LT4 PCI board
Realtek 100Mbps Ethernet NIC
S3 Graphics 4MB SVGA card
Ensoniq Es1373 Sound Card
Subway USB adapter
Nextar 512MB MP3 Player
Samsung Digimax A503 Camera
SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8GB ThumbDrive
Targus USB memory card reader
Polaroid LCD Picture Frame
Generic 4-port USB hub
Lacie USB 1.44MB floppy drive
Sony Clié PEG-TJ27 PDA (PalmOS)
Logitech Wingman Action pad
Targus 4-port USB hub
Uxtronic ProLinks USB -> PS/2
PS/2 wireless keyboard
Motorola WR850G wireless router
Actiontec 701c DSL Modem
Amiga OS 3.1 roms
Amiga OS 3.9

A bit more than needed, Ive also stopped using HID class usb stuff, because that seems to block the other USB devices.

[Merlin]

Hmm....

Question: Can you configure any of the 192Mb fast memory as additional chip memory?

From what I can see, the issue may be due to running short of chip memory as you are only showing 2Mb, although I've never had a machine that could run 3.9.

[watertonian]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Hmm....

Question: Can you configure any of the 192Mb fast memory as additional chip memory?

From what I can see, the issue may be due to running short of chip memory as you are only showing 2Mb, although I've never had a machine that could run 3.9.

The closest thing would be FBlit, however it does horrible things to an RTG based system. AGA stuff just uses chip mem for nataive graphics stuff, And for the most part I use Picasso96+AHI via SVGA and SoundBlaster PCI cards. Generally, I don't use any more than about 200-300K of Chimpem (even with RTG/AHI some system stuff happens there, and datatypes have a nasty habit of using it). I do try to avoid using chipmem as much as possible, due to MUCH slower access. (Apparently there's a bug in an earlier 68060.library that was fixed later, with faster chipmem access)

[Bamiga2002]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Hmm....

Question: Can you configure any of the 192Mb fast memory as additional chip memory?

From what I can see, the issue may be due to running short of chip memory as you are only showing 2Mb, although I've never had a machine that could run 3.9.

2mb IS maximum chip ram in an A1200 and this problem is not related to lack of chip. Fast mem can't act as chip mem anyway. I'd try and swap the memory module.

[alexh]

Stack problems?

[watertonian]

Originally Posted by Bamiga2002

2mb IS maximum chip ram in an A1200 and this problem is not related to lack of chip. Fast mem can't act as chip mem anyway. I'd try and swap the memory module.

I'll have to try that, as soon as as I can get ahold of some single-sided simms. (Actually, I think the 1260 can use double sided, but the scsi daughter card needs single) However, having a million things to unplug before I do this (plus the tower+stuff inside weighs a ton), is there a memory testing app. for 68k?

[watertonian]

Originally Posted by alexh

Stack problems?

I'm using stackattack, not sure how stable that is, though. Anyway, I found a quick and dirty memory checker on Aminet, which has the ability to check fast or chip only. The chipmem test came back clean, however the fastmem check came back with an alert window, so I'm going to start tracking the addresses that cause the errors, then mmu-block those areas. (I believe there's a proggy to do that, and yes, I know this is just a crutch until I get some $$$ for new memory.... Might go to 60ns instead of the 80 I have) I'll try a few other proggies, too. I think this one might be older and possibly not MMU-aware. (I would expect a crash, if its testing stuff the MMU already had allocated)

[watertonian]

OK, back on the 1200. (Had to reset her, last post was on the wifes XP machine which is ironically behaving better than this one) The memchecker I used is this, which is nice because I can test in segments. Considering I have a 64MB simm and a 128MB simm, I'll test the first 64MB of RAM, then the remaiining 128. Assuming the maprom jumper doesn't screw something up. I'll look at the address values in scout, and try to narrow things down a bit. Looks like smoked memory, though. (I had a feeling about that, but denial is a rather potent thing.....)

[watertonian]

OK, think I found the prob.. I ran every mem checker I could get ahold of. Turns out the first on only failed because it was trying to "add" memory to a location that already had it. (Misread the docs) I did the whole double-mouse-button from a cold boot, with no startup-sequence, and rand the checks. Then I ran them with my standard config. The only prob was a bus access error, leading me to believe there's a problem with the mediator. I have my video card frequence overdriven a bit, as the LCD monitor I'm using doesn't like interlace. (Looking for a dvi-d card to fix that) Also, I have the mediator jumper set to 4mb, I'm thinking an 8mb window might be better. (Though I believe that will disable the pcmcia port, and I was kinda hoping to slap a wifi card in there, and solder an external antenna to it) I'll have to open her up and make sure the connections are all tight (again) and try the 8mb setting, but that can wait for an hour or so. (My wife found a compaq desktop that someone was giving away, plan on gutting it for parts) Now to fire off some of the WHDload demos I've recently installed, grab some coffee and a cigar, and kill the lights....

[watertonian]

Also, with my latest mod. concerning wireless sega controllers (see here), I had to disable wheeldriver and freewheel, as the joystick switcher I'm using doesn't support the mousewheel anyway. System is running noticably smoother, as well.

[gulliver]

@watertonian

Nice setup!!!
I hope you can solve the problems you are having


OT: Could you please tell me about the average transfer speed you get with the subway? I have a similar setup, and i was trying to see if it was worthwile as an addition.