[comp.sys.amiga] Too Many Gurus, Need Help

fgd3@jc3b21.UUCP (Fabbian G. Dufoe) (05/25/88)

				   25 May 1988

     I've been getting a lot of visits from the Guru and I'm looking for
ideas on how to fix the problem.  The crashes occur at semi-random times and
seem to be related to my memory expansion.  The repairman at the local
dealer suggested replacing the PALs.  I've already tried improving the
grounding and that didn't help.

     My system consists of the following:

          Amiga 1000 (Commodore)
          262K internal memory (Skyles Electronics)
          1080 Monitor (Commodore)
          External 3.5 inch disk drive (Commodore)
          External 5.25 inch disk drive (Commodore)
          2MB MEGAmiga SOTS memory expansion (Analog Precision)

     My question is: Can I expect new PALs to make a difference or should I
be looking at replacing some memory chips in the MEGAmiga?

     Does anybody have experience with the MEGAmiga box?  Have you had
similar problems?  Have you fixed them?  How?  Has anybody had similar
problems with other peripherals?

     The Guru meditation numbers I've recorded over the past several months
are appended.  In addition to these, I couldn't run the Transformer at all
with the external memory.  Transformer got to the screen which asks for the
PC-DOS disk, then crashed and rebooted.  It did not, however, give me a
Guru.  After I returned from a three week trip Transformer mysteriously
began working.  Does that shed any light on the problem?


--Fabbian Dufoe
  350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South
  St. Petersburg, Florida  33705
  813-823-2350

UUCP: ...gatech!codas!usfvax2!jc3b21!fgd3 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
02/26/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000004.0002BDB0 after setting date and
          time with Preferences following cold start. (MEGAmiga not
          attached.)
03/08/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #0000000A.0002B4B0 after setting date and
          time with Preferences following warm boot.  (MEGAmiga not
          attached.)
03/12/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000004.0022A228 after running Silent
          Service from RAM:.
03.12.88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000004.0020C5C8 after running Silent
          Service from RAM:.
03/13/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000003.00200DF2 after running Silent
          Service from RAM:.
03/15/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000004.00203750 running Ferrari 1 demo
          when paddock scene comes up.
03/23/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000003.00203750 running Jet.
03/25/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000003.00203750 running Jet--system
          locked up after firing machine gun.
03/28/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000003.00203750 running Jet without
          external disks--failed exiting armament menu.
03/29/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #0000000B.4EF900FC running lc from ram:.
03/29/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #0000000B.00219BA8 running lc.
04/03/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #81000005.265F48F1 running ed on a file in
          RAM:.
04/04/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000005.0021C6D8 running Infominder to
          read autodocs.
04/07/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #84000009.00010182 running Draw--trying to
          save drawing to disk.  (I think I caused this one.  I cancelled
          the requestor that wanted the drawing icon file.  My drawing was
          saved but the crash occurred trying to write a .info file for it.)
04/07/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000004.00215BB0 trying to "type >PRT:
          Lattice".
04/11/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000003.00203750 running Jet--combined
          attack mode, firing guns.
04/29/88: Amiga Guru Meditation #00000003.002282E8 running PCFormat.

glewis@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Glenn M. Lewis) (05/27/88)

[]

	Yes, I have had similar problems, but have a different setup:

Amiga 1000, 512K, external drive
ASDG 2M fully populated

	I, too, have done the hardware modification as described by Perry
in Amazing Computing (v3.3).  It didn't help.  I have run 12 hours of
the ASDG RAM test software, and it couldn't find anything wrong with my
expansion RAM.  My Amiga 1000 is one of the early ones, and I expect this
flakey-ness is being caused by some hardware problem, like the PALs.
Perry will be calling me next Wednesday, and I'll see if he can help.
Until then, I don't know what to tell you.  I just wanted to let you
know that I am having similar difficulties.

							-- Glenn Lewis

-- 
glewis@cit-vax.caltech.edu