OS 3.1 + Apollo 1260 - Strange Behaviour/Issue

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by crazyc

When I had my b1260 and scsi kit in the wedge I basically cut away almost all the trapdoor cover but left enough to support the card and a fan

That's right actually I remember your photos.

I think I could use a dremel and sand the area down a little where the rom chip is seated. It's that which is causing most of the issues. Well that and the ram. Perhaps cut a section away may be? Might need to experiment.

Still worried I can't get the f-ing keyboard down completely on one side. Trap door aint affecting that that's for sure. I don't want mega stress on the case really but it is under it right now as I've to apply pressure to get it screwed.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by crazyc

If you look on thingiverse I think there are risers for the a1200 to lift it up.

They look ok, but I need a 3d printer now

[paul1981]

I have a fan which sort of sits wedged infront of a capacitor and leans against the keyboard.
I don't have a fan or heat sink on the 060 - that is definitely better if you can. My 060 is socketed so space was tight.

[paul1981]

As others have said, don't lift your 1200 up and let the Apollo card flop down as this is putting a lot of strain on the edge connector of the Apollo. Without the trapdoor cover fitted, the Apollo will flop down a bit anyway even if your A1200 is flat on a table...which is a BAD thing too (but not as bad as lifting the Amiga up and letting it flop down). Don't let it strain the edge connector.
I'm not sure why your 1200 case isn't closing, you need to find out why because you do not want any strain anywhere on anything.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by paul1981

As others have said, don't lift your 1200 up and let the Apollo card flop down as this is putting a lot of strain on the edge connector of the Apollo. Without the trapdoor cover fitted, the Apollo will flop down a bit anyway even if your A1200 is flat on a table...which is a BAD thing too (but not as bad as lifting the Amiga up and letting it flop down). Don't let it strain the edge connector.
I'm not sure why your 1200 case isn't closing, you need to find out why because you do not want any strain anywhere on anything.

Well currently it is all closed up. I have the trap door on the the card us supported albeit there is a bulge on the trapdoor. The Amiga is raised up off the floor as I don't have a desk right now for it. Plus that would not be practical in my living room. So it's sitting on four lids which I believe were from hair mousse bottles.

some pics

This is how much the card pokes out





Trapdoor

[rabidgerry]

My startup sequence in the 3.1 build

[rabidgerry]

well who would have thought! I figured some shit out myself. Not much mind you but I have reached a conclusion regarding the weirdness!

But have not got the card configured optimum. At least I figured out the weirdness.

Ok so before I got this accelerator I prepped one of my CF hard drives to be the one I tested out the 060 with. Well I did stuff like install the MMUlibs for example.

Anyways this card is the one we are having issues with.

Today by pure random accident I decided to use another 3.1 CF hard drive. First of all I just copied MMULibs library files and stuck them in Libs in DH0 of this card.

Ok so it booted.. But some shit as the other card. It would crash etc if I did anything really other than shell. So then I swapped the libs out gradually with the Apollo ones. Really tried to use the MMUlibs but they were not working for me.

So once I swapped them out and rebooted everything worked.

One thing I have not mentioned so far as I figured it was hardware issue.

The card that I was having the issue with, this card some how was making me hard drive LED light permanently. It did activity as it should have but whilst remaining fully lit also. I only realised this when I use my 3.1.4 build. The 3.1.4 build did not have this problem. I didn't think it was card specific until today when I tried my alternate 3.1 CF hard drive and and went through the library experiments as I mentioned earlier. So once I got this card working correctly (which basically was by not using any other libraries other than the Apollo ones) I noticed several things.

1) The Amiga booted and right away at the top banner it recognised it was a 060

the other card did not unless I ran sysinfo from shell and did a speed test

2) I was able to click into paritions and freely navigate my way through directories without crashing

3) The hard drive LED did not remain permanently illuminated and behaved normally

4) The IDE speed of DH0: was quick and up to about 1.5mb DH1,2,3 were past 2mb so this is also an improvement that the other card did not have


So what I am currently doing now is copying the good 3.1 CF hard drive as it is currently. I am then going to wipe the problematic 3.1 CF hard drive. Then copy the image from the good one onto this card. Simply to see if any of the issues remain which will hopefully tell me that it is either the card itself physically.................or something I have done or installed that was causing WEIRDNESS!

At least these weird factors are out of the way now and I can run the Apollo on 3.1 and 3.1.4 ClassicWB CF drives so I guess that means I can concentrate on trying to obtain best performance from the Apollo 1260.

Hopefully this is not too boring for you all lol

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

Well currently it is all closed up. I have the trap door on the the card us supported albeit there is a bulge on the trapdoor. The Amiga is raised up off the floor as I don't have a desk right now for it. Plus that would not be practical in my living room. So it's sitting on four lids which I believe were from hair mousse bottles.

some pics

This is how much the card pokes out

Trapdoor

That's one heck of a bulge you have there. Definitely don't use the original trapdoor unless you want your Apollo card folding in two.

On mine, I think I cut away that crappy plastic lip that the card is supposed to sit on (when the Amiga is upside-down that is) with pincers. There may be other plastic I cut away too, I can't remember. I think I cut plastic away on my other 1200 too which also has a card in the trapdoor - just helps the card stay straight instead of being forced downwards. I don't know who designed the trapdoor but it doesn't appear to be the best design in the world does it? Also, I think I raised the motherboard too with rubber washers around the trapdoor area, one or two of the screws just to raise the motherboard higher where the trapdoor connection is, this again gives more clearance for less bulge (I have no bulge in this particular Amiga due to this and cutting those lips away). You just have to look at it and come to your own conclusions about it I suppose.

So is your system working now then? How much RAM do you have?

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by paul1981

That's one heck of a bulge you have there. Definitely don't use the original trapdoor unless you want your Apollo card folding in two.

On mine, I think I cut away that crappy plastic lip that the card is supposed to sit on (when the Amiga is upside-down that is) with pincers. There may be other plastic I cut away too, I can't remember. I think I cut plastic away on my other 1200 too which also has a card in the trapdoor - just helps the card stay straight instead of being forced downwards. I don't know who designed the trapdoor but it doesn't appear to be the best design in the world does it? Also, I think I raised the motherboard too with rubber washers around the trapdoor area, one or two of the screws just to raise the motherboard higher where the trapdoor connection is, this again gives more clearance for less bulge (I have no bulge in this particular Amiga due to this and cutting those lips away). You just have to look at it and come to your own conclusions about it I suppose.

So is your system working now then? How much RAM do you have?

Yeah you are right, none of my accelerators even rest on those rails. It has to be said the ACA1233n for the size of it really is a great card. Fits so well yet packs as much punch as a blizzard 1230. It's a good design.

To describe what is happening currently with my accelerator and trapdoor, well the trap door I guess is pushing against the Apollo. And having done this with my finger if I gentle nudge the Apollo it's edges then connect with the little rails inside. But it's natural resting place is to be off the rails even upside down. What I think I will try (and believe me I am currently sick to death of opening and closing my Amiga and just want to play games right now ) is try and make a little room on the trap door for the big rom chip. Even cutting a hole. This might solve the seating issue. I'll take a look at a few other things. Very reluctant to fuck with my Amiga case since they cost so dam much. If I feel I am beat with the trap door. I'll take it off and do what Novacoder suggested with the hot glue.

Questions:
Should I stick the fan back on?
If so, should I remove the old glue, if so how?
Could I damage the cpu?
Stachu recommended the epoxy glue that costs like £30-£50 quid to stick back on, but I think said in general any super glue. Any recommendations?

I avoided buying epoxy to fix a single lifted pad I had and decided it was cheaper to send to Amigapassion for a recapping in the end! The epoxy glue cost more than a recap

Next up, I got to start utilizing the RempApollo software I believe. Not having much luck if I can't use the patch that comes with the package in remapollo 1.7. Instructions say to use it first.

On another note. Backed up the good working 3.1 CF card last night. I then I copied that to the weird misbehaving CF card. Looking forward to seeing what happens later when I get a chance to use it! How weird is it that a CF card made the LED stay on permanently?!

Also just wanted to say thanks for you guys helping me. Really appreciate it

oh BTW I have 64mb of fast ram.

[paul1981]

I have a spare 2.5" HDD which permanently illuminates the HDD access light on the Amiga. There is a solution to it, you have to put some resistance (Ohmages) on one of the IDE ribbon wires, there's a thread somewhere about it in Amiga land. That may be the issue there, but it's not the Amiga's problem.

Regarding the glue, personally I wouldn't risk damaging anything by trying to remove it. I would however have some air blowing on the CPU from somewhere, whether you re-glue it back on or put it somewhere else pointing towards the CPU is up to you. Particularly because it is overclocked. Regarding CPU glues, I don't have any experience with them, so I know as much as you. Hot glue I do know about, and if your item is light, you can secure it with hot glue. The CPU would melt the hot glue so don't have any hot glue withing a 1/4" of the CPU at least (I'm not saying glue CPU fan on with hot glue!). Hot glue can pop off if the item is heavier or it is strained when dealing with smooth surfaces, so if you use it for heavier stuff don't 100% rely on it. Repeated bendings etc. will weaken the hot glue joint. I wonder whether you could hot glue a piece of nylon thread onto the 1200 case on the inside and have it support the Apollo so it doesn't flop when the A1200 is lifted up. Cotton or string would do as well I suppose.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by paul1981

I have a spare 2.5" HDD which permanently illuminates the HDD access light on the Amiga. There is a solution to it, you have to put some resistance (Ohmages) on one of the IDE ribbon wires, there's a thread somewhere about it in Amiga land. That may be the issue there, but it's not the Amiga's problem.

Regarding the glue, personally I wouldn't risk damaging anything by trying to remove it. I would however have some air blowing on the CPU from somewhere, whether you re-glue it back on or put it somewhere else pointing towards the CPU is up to you. Particularly because it is overclocked. Regarding CPU glues, I don't have any experience with them, so I know as much as you. Hot glue I do know about, and if your item is light, you can secure it with hot glue. The CPU would melt the hot glue so don't have any hot glue withing a 1/4" of the CPU at least (I'm not saying glue CPU fan on with hot glue!). Hot glue can pop off if the item is heavier or it is strained when dealing with smooth surfaces, so if you use it for heavier stuff don't 100% rely on it. Repeated bendings etc. will weaken the hot glue joint. I wonder whether you could hot glue a piece of nylon thread onto the 1200 case on the inside and have it support the Apollo so it doesn't flop when the A1200 is lifted up. Cotton or string would do as well I suppose.

Regarding the LED, I find this weird because the CF drive didn't used to do it. I believe I have stumbled upon this thread myself actually.

Well the results of the test are, after copying the good CF card onto the CF card with issues everything is hunky dory but still the issue with the LED remains. Very strange. I was thinking perhaps the card is fucked. But it did actually work before I just had to do sysinfo first. Thankfully I don't have to do that anymore.

With the thread, so yeah like a belt. I tell ya what I could do, and I wouldn't mind doing this as it's only two little holes. But I could do holes one on either rail of the Amiga case and then use some sort of material like you suggest to keep card from flopping down. Sometimes to me even with my ACA1233n I feel the card want to sit on the other side of the rails. I believe I had the ACA fitted on the other side of the rails by accident before.

Having looked at your photo and where you have your fan, mine is a lot close, but I guess I could create a permanent place for it in the case to sit without gluing at all back to the cpu. I could even get a bigger fan.

Who would I know if I was over heating by the way? This hasn't happened or anything I'm just asking? Would the Amiga crash and reboot?

[paul1981]

The 060 is robust so probably just run hot but I wouldn't ever want it to run that hot, because it will definitely get very very hot without a fan blowing air on it or past it. Prevention rather than cure here! Mine is socketed so if it melts I can replace it! Anyway, with the case being closed the heat would make everything in the case hotter and age the components much faster than a cooler case, ie one with some airflow. That's what my fan does, it blows air all around the case but mostly onto the Apollo. This cools all the Amiga and Apollo components. The voltage converter board on my Apollo runs hot, so the fan takes care of that too.

If I was you, I'd massacre that boing trapdoor for the easiest, if it's viable. There's one for sale with lots of squares which can easily be cut away if that would be better. You mentioned having the card above that lip...I have done that too with an ACA 1200 I built for a friend, infact I think that's where I raised the motherboard a bit too around the trapdoor area. No probs at all on that machine, even the original trapdoor fitted on.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by paul1981

The 060 is robust so probably just run hot but I wouldn't ever want it to run that hot, because it will definitely get very very hot without a fan blowing air on it or past it. Prevention rather than cure here! Mine is socketed so if it melts I can replace it! Anyway, with the case being closed the heat would make everything in the case hotter and age the components much faster than a cooler case, ie one with some airflow. That's what my fan does, it blows air all around the case but mostly onto the Apollo. This cools all the Amiga and Apollo components. The voltage converter board on my Apollo runs hot, so the fan takes care of that too.

If I was you, I'd massacre that boing trapdoor for the easiest, if it's viable. There's one for sale with lots of squares which can easily be cut away if that would be better. You mentioned having the card above that lip...I have done that too with an ACA 1200 I built for a friend, infact I think that's where I raised the motherboard a bit too around the trapdoor area. No probs at all on that machine, even the original trapdoor fitted on.

Been thinking about this actually. I could probably make something to suspend the fan. It's such a small fan as well it looks like it would do dam all to be honest. I have noticed my Amiga in general is hotter. Not having a clue though I wouldn't know if the fan was of any benefit or not. I am going to assume it is since the guy I bought it off had it stuck on to the cpu.

ACA1200? That an earlier model of the ACA1233n? You raised your mother board? Wouldn't that bend it a little?

[crazyc]

Once upon a time, when I crammed my blizzard 1260, scsi kit, scsi to ide adapter, indy mk2, and ide-fix express all in a wedge, i butchered the case to have a fan blowing in from the side near the pcmcia slot, a fan blowing from underneath through the trapdoor onto the blizzard, and two fans blowing out through the grill at the top. Got a bit messy inside....

[rabidgerry]

crazyc what is an IDE-FIX?

Some sort of IDE speeding device is the only other thing I could invisage in my Amiga now that I have Roids (the Apollo ) and an OSSC.

Also must be why you are called crazyc

[crazyc]

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/ideexpress

[rabidgerry]

@paul1981

You still have an Apollo 1260 right? You mapped your rom using RemApollo?

@Novacoder I was looking at the threads you posted way back on the first page and there is a lot of jive talking I aint got a clue about

So RemApollo is like what I used with an ACA1233n yes? Where I used the ACAtool to map my rom into fastmemory

In the instructions read me it says I need to run "patch" first before I attempt anything else. Patch seems to come with the remapollo 1.7 that I have but not the 1.8. 1.8 comes with like two things where as the remapollo 1.7 has a tonne of stuff.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

@paul1981

You still have an Apollo 1260 right? You mapped your rom using RemApollo?

@Novacoder I was looking at the threads you posted way back on the first page and there is a lot of jive talking I aint got a clue about

So RemApollo is like what I used with an ACA1233n yes? Where I used the ACAtool to map my rom into fastmemory

In the instructions read me it says I need to run "patch" first before I attempt anything else. Patch seems to come with the remapollo 1.7 that I have but not the 1.8. 1.8 comes with like two things where as the remapollo 1.7 has a tonne of stuff.

I don't have a clue what I was talking about either

This is the guy who looks at code he wrote 6 months ago and can't understand any of it

Basically Remapollo is the Apollo equivalent of Blizkick (amazing must have program for Blizzard 1260 owners).

Yes at it's most basic function it copies all the libraries from your physical ROMS and sticks them into FASTRAM which speeds up anything that uses WB (like my ports do). It can do a lot more though, because the libraries are loaded off disc you can included patched or newer versions of the libraries that you have in your ROMS. Also you can patch in many additional speed ups and utilities when your Amiga boots (like Speedy IDE, no click etc).

It's really a must have for Apollo 1260 users. When I got it working properly it increased by speed my about 20%

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I don't have a clue what I was talking about either

This is the guy who looks at code he wrote 6 months ago and can't understand any of it

Basically Remapollo is the Apollo equivalent of Blizkick (amazing must have program for Blizzard 1260 owners).

Yes at it's most basic function it copies all the libraries from your physical ROMS and sticks them into FASTRAM which speeds up anything that uses WB (like my ports do). It can do a lot more though, because the libraries are loaded off disc you can included patched or newer versions of the libraries that you have in your ROMS. Also you can patch in many additional speed ups and utilities when your Amiga boots (like Speedy IDE, no click etc).

It's really a must have for Apollo 1260 users. When I got it working properly it increased by speed my about 20%

I laughed my ass off at that last message!

Well I better get it working then or there will be no Novacoder ports for me

Ok so it's a lot more complex than just a rom remapper I dunno shit about making custom roms. For me a rom used to be just the chips in my Amiga, not the kind made from potatoes either!

Then that idea actually turned into me being aware that you can have the software within the chips in file format and these could be loaded into memory for more efficiency.

So custom roms and stuff, like big boy 6 former stuff. I'm still in primary school

Will need more research dammit!

[crazyc]

If I remember correctly, but am sure someone more knowledgeable will correct me...
Access to the fast ram is quicker than access to the rom chip itself. Therefore if you map (copy) the rom into fast ram it speeds up access.
The basic process just moves your existing rom chip into fast ram.
The fun begins when you then map an image of a different rom chip, which saves you messing about with changing actual roms.
The real fun begins when you take that rom image, and swap out bits for newer versions, or add patches into it, to create a custom rom.
My b1260 boots off quite a custom rom but I haven't messed with it for a few years, and as I have some 060 specific stuff in it (I think) I had a problem when using that rom on my b1230 and have reverted to basic 3.1 rom there.
Not sure how remus (custom rom program) deals with 3.1.4 but I think I read somewhere that it could now work with it.
You can also just load patches and stuff in via the startup sequence using load module etc (does remapollo do this as well - never used it)
When playing with custom roms I have a small program that means if you hold one of the mouse buttons down when booting you get a menu and can choose which rom to map. Useful for when you make mistakes....and need to revert to a safe rom image.