Cyberstorm MKIII/PPC and Memory issues... - Page 4

DarrenHD · 11 August 2021, 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad-Matt

The firmware may only designed to hook into a 3.1 rom. Maybe better off using 3.1 and just boot load any updated libs you need. This ensures max compatibility.

I'm running a CS PPC with 3.1.4 roms fully populated with 128MB ram and it's fine. I also have a MK3 again with ram on-board and with 3.2 roms...again it's fine.

I would try in another machine if possible.

Kin Hell · 14 August 2021, 10:58

Okay, so ROM's out of the way.....

This is fast turning into a real can of Whoop Ass!

Hang in there slaapliedje

slaapliedje · 14 August 2021, 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

I'm running a CS PPC with 3.1.4 roms fully populated with 128MB ram and it's fine. I also have a MK3 again with ram on-board and with 3.2 roms...again it's fine.

I would try in another machine if possible.

So here is what I have available for testing:
3.1, 3.1.4, 3.2, 3.9custom that I had someone build (this Amiga has a Romy, so it can handle 1mb chips).
My other A4000 is in a tower (not a 4000T though). It is... JANKY, with a plate above the motherboard so that the zorro daughterboarf is parallel with it and it doesn't have a whole lot of clearance, though it should be enough to fit the cyberstorm in, it seems to me to be a hot box of doom. I have an 040 -> 060 adapter in there right now. But every time I have to dig inside there I end up spending an extra hour just trying to get the daughter board reconnected... that is the main reason I haven't tried it in another machine. Qnyone with a spare A4000? ?

But for sure my next guess was to try swapping around kickstarts, could be I am just running into a weird bug with 3.2.

DarrenHD · 16 August 2021, 21:35

Strip the other A4000 down to just the motherboard outside of the case. You don't need the daughterboard installed. Just connect the floppy, monitor, and put in the MK3/PPC. You can run AmigaTestKit from that and do your testing. Takes time to do that (and be careful!).

I've done that recently to diagnose an A4000 cpu slot intermittant error. I finally determined my cpu FAST slot was not working correctly and I've sent it out for replacement.

slaapliedje · 17 August 2021, 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Strip the other A4000 down to just the motherboard outside of the case. You don't need the daughterboard installed. Just connect the floppy, monitor, and put in the MK3/PPC. You can run AmigaTestKit from that and do your testing. Takes time to do that (and be careful!).

I've done that recently to diagnose an A4000 cpu slot intermittant error. I finally determined my cpu FAST slot was not working correctly and I've sent it out for replacement.

I'll figure something out.

The tower is set up oddly. Basically the power goes from a giant AT style power supply to an ISA board, which then has the wires to go to the motherboard. The ISA board is then attached to two ribbon cables that attach to two boards that come out of the motherboard where the zorro daughterboard usually is. These two boards then have sockets for the zorro daughter board. Basically it creates a T above the A4k motherboard.

For me to remove the daughterboard and just run with the accelerator in there, I need to also grab the PSU from the other system. Granted my A4000D is kind of all torn apart and been that way for years because of this thing, so I suppose taking that out is easy :P it's getting something for the tower so it isn't going to fall over mid-testing...

I'll try to get to it tonight, assuming I don't work too late.

DarrenHD · 17 August 2021, 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

I'll figure something out.

The tower is set up oddly. Basically the power goes from a giant AT style power supply to an ISA board, which then has the wires to go to the motherboard. The ISA board is then attached to two ribbon cables that attach to two boards that come out of the motherboard where the zorro daughterboard usually is. These two boards then have sockets for the zorro daughter board. Basically it creates a T above the A4k motherboard.

For me to remove the daughterboard and just run with the accelerator in there, I need to also grab the PSU from the other system. Granted my A4000D is kind of all torn apart and been that way for years because of this thing, so I suppose taking that out is easy :P it's getting something for the tower so it isn't going to fall over mid-testing...

I'll try to get to it tonight, assuming I don't work too late.

Ok keep us posted. My A4000 board is now repaired, I will pick it up from the repair shop tonight. Hopefully the replaced CPU slot connector resolves my issue.

slaapliedje · 20 August 2021, 01:26

Okay, filling up the proverbial swear jar; that is a big negative on swapping the accelerator to the other board. Gives the same error with amigatestkit on the same memory address. Also after the pain of moving it over, only half the memory was detected again, that was fun... If it weren't such a pain to test on the tower, I would have done more.

slaapliedje · 29 August 2021, 08:36

I don't know if I should say anything, as I may curse it. But I may have discovered my problem!

A bit of history....
At one point in time after getting this A4000 (many, many years ago now) I then was on the lookout for an accelerator card. I can't recall now how much I spent on it... but it was an Cyberstorm MK1 with an 060. It worked great.. until one day I went to turn on the Amiga, and instead of a boot up, I was greeted with a smell.

Opened it up, and the ram sitting on the vertical board had actual physical bubbles burned up! It was toast. Tried to send it off to Stanchu for repair, but it was dead. I mourned, but he built me an adapter so I could use the 060 (which was still fine) on the A3640. Of course the problem was, I did not have any install disks to support it, and that brought on a dilemma if I ever needed to reinstall.

So Cosmos became my hero with the Romy (pretty sure I got the earlier version that supports 1mb kickstart ROMS) and some '3.9' ROMs that had the libraries in so it could boot my A3640/60.

So here I thought... wait, the Amiga itself has several different memory chunks here and there. And the memory on the CSPPC reserves 512kb (from what can tell when I do have 128mb, it shows as 127.5 in memory tests). So we have that chunk, something for the kickstart to boot into, the csppc has a maprom piece, which I don't use, but it might be reserved... etc. And I was always getting this failure on a particular chunk it seemed.

So I plucked the ROMY off earlier today, swapped in memory I had bought (as the old RAM was only detecting half) and then ran the ram test... and it kept running, and running... and now I have 3.2 kickstart and OS4.1 installed and working!

Kin Hell · 29 August 2021, 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

I don't know if I should say anything, as I may curse it. But I may have discovered my problem!

<snip>

so i plucked the romy off earlier today, swapped in memory i had bought (as the old ram was only detecting half) and then ran the ram test... And it kept running, and running... And now i have 3.2 kickstart and os4.1 installed and working!

slaapliedje · 30 August 2021, 01:08

ha, I inevitably cursed it...

trixster · 30 August 2021, 12:11

Oh no! Stopped working?

slaapliedje · 30 August 2021, 16:05

Yeah, it is giving me 8000 0008 errors randomly. I have not looked those up yet. I finally stripped everything out except 3.2 (because without it, it whines my hard drive is a non dos drive). Even pulled out the indivision. The RGB to VGA adapters look terrible ha.

grelbfarlk · 31 August 2021, 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Yeah, it is giving me 8000 0008 errors randomly. I have not looked those up yet. I finally stripped everything out except 3.2 (because without it, it whines my hard drive is a non dos drive). Even pulled out the indivision. The RGB to VGA adapters look terrible ha.

You sure that's not 8000 000B?
That would be an FPU error or a problem with the 68060.library, usually.

slaapliedje · 31 August 2021, 01:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

You sure that's not 8000 000B?
That would be an FPU error or a problem with the 68060.library, usually.

Maybe? But this is from just attempting to boot the machine, so maybe whatever library is in OS3.2?

DarrenHD · 31 August 2021, 04:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Maybe? But this is from just attempting to boot the machine, so maybe whatever library is in OS3.2?

3.2 ROM doesn't have a full 68060.library. It will know it's a 680x0 CPU and advise you to install a 3rd party 68060.library or the included MMULib version that comes with 3.2.

Needless to say, it should not guru with 3.2 if you go to early startup and then boot with no startup-sequence. My system does not.

Kin Hell · 31 August 2021, 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

3.2 ROM doesn't have a full 68060.library. It will know it's a 680x0 CPU and advise you to install a 3rd party 68060.library or the included --->MMULib<--- version that comes with 3.2.

Needless to say, it should not guru with 3.2 if you go to early startup and then boot with no startup-sequence. My system does not.

But no 060 Libs....

Just to recap slaapliedje, what version of 060 Libs you using and from where?

slaapliedje · 08 September 2021, 05:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kin Hell

But no 060 Libs....

Just to recap slaapliedje, what version of 060 Libs you using and from where?

I've been using the latest version off the Phase5 disks. v43.1

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

Jope · 08 September 2021, 07:59

Final version available here http://phase5.a1k.org/

slaapliedje · 08 September 2021, 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

Final version available here http://phase5.a1k.org/

Thanks! I found those at one point, then forgot about them! I'll give them a try after I manage to put my system back together again (was angry and tore out the Mediator and all the other things.)

I also noticed with 3.2 that they ask what accelerator you have when you install the MMU library disk. It does mention Phase5, what does that do differently than the other options?

Jope · 08 September 2021, 19:36

It sets some specific MMU tables for P5 accelerators. If you install the MMU libs, then definitely choose P5 if you have a P5 card.

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14 August 2021, 10:58	#62
Kin Hell 0ld0r Git Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Cornwall, UK Posts: 1,570	Okay, so ROM's out of the way..... This is fast turning into a real can of Whoop Ass! Hang in there slaapliedje

16 August 2021, 21:35	#64
DarrenHD Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: London / Canada Posts: 781	Strip the other A4000 down to just the motherboard outside of the case. You don't need the daughterboard installed. Just connect the floppy, monitor, and put in the MK3/PPC. You can run AmigaTestKit from that and do your testing. Takes time to do that (and be careful!). I've done that recently to diagnose an A4000 cpu slot intermittant error. I finally determined my cpu FAST slot was not working correctly and I've sent it out for replacement.

20 August 2021, 01:26	#67
slaapliedje Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Utah, USA Posts: 516	Okay, filling up the proverbial swear jar; that is a big negative on swapping the accelerator to the other board. Gives the same error with amigatestkit on the same memory address. Also after the pain of moving it over, only half the memory was detected again, that was fun... If it weren't such a pain to test on the tower, I would have done more.

29 August 2021, 08:36	#68
slaapliedje Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Utah, USA Posts: 516	I don't know if I should say anything, as I may curse it. But I may have discovered my problem! A bit of history.... At one point in time after getting this A4000 (many, many years ago now) I then was on the lookout for an accelerator card. I can't recall now how much I spent on it... but it was an Cyberstorm MK1 with an 060. It worked great.. until one day I went to turn on the Amiga, and instead of a boot up, I was greeted with a smell. Opened it up, and the ram sitting on the vertical board had actual physical bubbles burned up! It was toast. Tried to send it off to Stanchu for repair, but it was dead. I mourned, but he built me an adapter so I could use the 060 (which was still fine) on the A3640. Of course the problem was, I did not have any install disks to support it, and that brought on a dilemma if I ever needed to reinstall. So Cosmos became my hero with the Romy (pretty sure I got the earlier version that supports 1mb kickstart ROMS) and some '3.9' ROMs that had the libraries in so it could boot my A3640/60. So here I thought... wait, the Amiga itself has several different memory chunks here and there. And the memory on the CSPPC reserves 512kb (from what can tell when I do have 128mb, it shows as 127.5 in memory tests). So we have that chunk, something for the kickstart to boot into, the csppc has a maprom piece, which I don't use, but it might be reserved... etc. And I was always getting this failure on a particular chunk it seemed. So I plucked the ROMY off earlier today, swapped in memory I had bought (as the old RAM was only detecting half) and then ran the ram test... and it kept running, and running... and now I have 3.2 kickstart and OS4.1 installed and working!

30 August 2021, 01:08	#70
slaapliedje Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Utah, USA Posts: 516	ha, I inevitably cursed it...

30 August 2021, 12:11	#71
trixster Guru Meditating Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: England Posts: 2,337	Oh no! Stopped working?

30 August 2021, 16:05	#72
slaapliedje Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Utah, USA Posts: 516	Yeah, it is giving me 8000 0008 errors randomly. I have not looked those up yet. I finally stripped everything out except 3.2 (because without it, it whines my hard drive is a non dos drive). Even pulled out the indivision. The RGB to VGA adapters look terrible ha.

08 September 2021, 07:59	#78
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,861	Final version available here http://phase5.a1k.org/

08 September 2021, 19:36	#80
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,861	It sets some specific MMU tables for P5 accelerators. If you install the MMU libs, then definitely choose P5 if you have a P5 card.

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