Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[Hedeon]

Ramlib errors are mostly due to stack issues. Stack stack does not fix the ramlib stack. There are ramlib patches available.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Ramlib errors are mostly due to stack issues. Stack stack does not fix the ramlib stack. There are ramlib patches available.

I've installed RAMLibPatch, now I do get, depending on the slot:
1) total freezing of the system
2) it keeps giving me the #80000004 error
3) the usual crash during PPC setup

Ouch

[kgc210]

Originally Posted by kgc210

When it starts to load. The green LED (CPU) flicks on and off.
The orange one (BDFL) stays on.
When it goes to the loading of the Graphics / InitPPC the green LED comes back on solid, orange stays on. Monitor turns on, but I only have a black screen coming out of the VooDoo.

When I get time I will change my screen prefs to use the Amiga Graphics to see if it actually gets into WorkBench. I will also try connecting up to the debug port on J1 when I get time. I'm busy building a 3D printer at the min.

I removed my Apocalypse and changed the screen mode to an Amiga one, put Apocalypse back in and still get a black screen.

I plugged my USB FT232RL in but I didn't get anything from the debug port. I have ordered a new FT232RL as I can't remember if I killed it or not on another project?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by k0x

grelbfarlk -> what Fan do you use?

Evercool EC4007, a friend suggested these to me as they are very short and are 12V but not very loud.


Something else we have been doing with the Apocalypse is using electrical tape between the Ramix and the Apoc, so the only air that is sucked into the fan is from the back of the case over the heatsink.



Regarding the ramlib crashes, aside from actual ramlib or stack issues that sounds like general Mediator instability like CMSJ was having. In my experience this can be caused by the following:

• Power issues
• Running out of PCI space, make sure Winsize is set for 512MB
• Swap jumper configuration
• Poor connection between the Mediator bridge to the slots, or the busboard to the motherboard.
• Electrically noisy 5V fans, a couple people have seen this including me
• Poor seating of a PCI card, you run PCIINFO and see a card with corrupt entries or multiple corrupt entries like invalid PCI Vendor/Device information

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by kgc210

I removed my Apocalypse and changed the screen mode to an Amiga one, put Apocalypse back in and still get a black screen.

I plugged my USB FT232RL in but I didn't get anything from the debug port. I have ordered a new FT232RL as I can't remember if I killed it or not on another project?

PPCBug will not boot if jumpers 11-12 are connected. If that jumper is off and you have a serial cable working it should boot at power on. I use it connected to the Amiga serial port and just run Term.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

• Power issues
• Running out of PCI space, make sure Winsize is set for 512MB
• Swap jumper configuration
• Poor connection between the Mediator bridge to the slots, or the busboard to the motherboard.
• Electrically noisy 5V fans, a couple people have seen this including me
• Poor seating of a PCI card, you run PCIINFO and see a card with corrupt entries or multiple corrupt entries like invalid PCI Vendor/Device information

Thank you very much for your reply.

While I do not have an oscilloscope, I do believe that having replaced every capacitor in sight, my power supply is clean enough.
Anyways, just to rule out any kinds of power issues, I have an ATX power supply slamming 3.3V directly in the M1. No changes.

The Sonnet Library alerts you if the WinSize jumper is open and it won't start, accordingly.

Same issues with Swap open or closed, sadly.

I've tested the M1 in every kind of combination possible, and I do get the same results almost every time. The Voodoo works fine in the same slots.

Removed the 5V fan I had, nothing changed.

PCIInfo reports everything correctly.

Anyways, on the suggestion of user JOE, I've contacted Elbox to check if my Mediator needs any Mach chips to be upgraded.

[k0x]

I would focus on the Mediator.

Few years ago Jack-3D was setting up Sonnetized 4000D's for us.

We had 3 identical machines with Sonnet 7200 and black Mediators. On one machine the Sonnet was failing. After several days of troubleshooting when we used identical sw installation and swapped all components like psu, mb, cpu card, Voodoos - simply everything, we found the brand new Mediator bushboard was the the cause of problem.

After furter investigation we found that 3 or 4 solder joints ware missing on the bushboard. When the bushboard was swapped with other one the machine started to work as expected.

Based on communication with Elbox the bushboard was returned to them for repair. After several weeks it arrived and machine works like a charme.

[ottifant011]

Hi,

I have a question about the Ragnarok card "PRPMC8150-1371" must there be something jumpered?

[trixster]

Not on Ragnarok

[k0x]

Originally Posted by ottifant011

Hi,

I have a question about the Ragnarok card "PRPMC8150-1371" must there be something jumpered?

No, there is no need for jumpers on this card.

[ottifant011]

Thank you for the fast answer .

is there hope that the original USB Spider card works?
if this card is inserted the system is unstable

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by ottifant011

Thank you for the fast answer .

is there hope that the original USB Spider card works?
if this card is inserted the system is unstable

I've only been able to make the Spider work if it's in the first, or lowest PCI slot, next to the bridge. With the Ragnarok/Voodoo it worked mostly ok. Though you might not want to load psdstackloader during boot.

[trixster]

I’m in agreement with grelbfarlk that the order of PCI cards is crucial for Apocalypse. Sonnet, K1, Ragnarok (and even Rapture) are never problematic for me regardless of positioning, but Apocalypse will only work in this order:

Top of machine (4000D with 4000Di)
4) Soundblaster
3) Graphics card
2) Apocalypse
1) NIC
0) Mediator logic board

This is with latest powerpc.library #431, latest pci.library and mmulibs for 060

Each individual machine may require its own specific order so mine might not work for someone else.

Also what G said about electrically noisy fans - I have also found this to be true. I used a 12V fan on a 5V molex (to reduce speed and noise) but found this directly affected Ragnarok stability.

[ottifant011]

Thanks for the tips, now it seems to be working properly
even a little idea for a quiet better cooling, this should also work in a desktop housing.

[amigoun]

I can confirm Apocalypse working stable if plugged in correct order.
In A4000 I have
4) empty
3) radeon
2) Apocalypse
1) empty
0) logic board

Working right from the start, no warmup time.
Although I expected the speed to be faster (when I compare to old sonnet 400/512 in emulators like SNES looks to me Apocalypse being even slower). Time to do more benchmarks.

[trixster]

My experience is that Apocalypse is considerably faster than sonnet in MAME, neomame, dgenerator etc, and also far faster in GLQuake, Quake2 and WOSQuake

[kgc210]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

PPCBug will not boot if jumpers 11-12 are connected. If that jumper is off and you have a serial cable working it should boot at power on. I use it connected to the Amiga serial port and just run Term.

I think I have tried every slot combination under the sun.

My card is the PrPMC8005E-1259 version.

When you connect via serial do you use the default 9600 baud as per the manual, or have you found you need to set it to a different speed? One of the LED's flash on my FTDI board. But I can't see anything on the terminal screen. I am using PuTTY

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by kgc210

I think I have tried every slot combination under the sun.

My card is the PrPMC8005E-1259 version.

When you connect via serial do you use the default 9600 baud as per the manual, or have you found you need to set it to a different speed? One of the LED's flash on my FTDI board. But I can't see anything on the terminal screen. I am using PuTTY

Looking at your messages it seems to me you start the card during the startup-sequence? I mean, you state that you cannot get to WB? Could you remove that from the S-S and first go to WB and then try pciinfo (and show output) and then InitPPC/Getinfo and then if possible show again the pciinfo output?

[kgc210]

If I remove

Run >NIL: <NIL: C:InitPPC

I can get into WB. But as soon as I run IniPPC or any program that uses the PPC you can see the RAM getting allocated, but the System hangs.

I will get a photo of PCIInfo

[Hedeon]

What accelerator card are you using? Are you using mmulib? if so, what does muScan give?