[comp.sys.amiga.hardware] 3000 Flakyness

jafo@miranda.UUCP (Sean Reifschneider) (02/15/91)

I just got a 3000/25/50 a month ago, and have been having some problems with
it.  It seemed to crash more than I expected it to (one reason that I moved
from a 2000 to a 3000.  I figured it'd be more stable).  No such luck.  It
seemed to crash when I was doing things that would never crash the 2000
(like run my version of 'ls', mainly on the root of a disc).

A week or so later, I moved the 1MB of RAM to the Chip section, and added
4MB of 1MBx4 Static ZIPs.  I checked and rechecked the contacts to the
chips, and every thing was ok.  When I booted it, it cam up with a yellow
screen during the boot, then it just kept cycling through the boot and
coming back to the yellow.

When I power cycled it, and selected kickstart 1.3, it came up Ok.  The avail
command reported 512K less than 6MB.  I figured that was due to the ROM.
I checked the seating of the chips about 10 times, and could find nothing
wrong.

Any ideas?
Sean
--
From the desk of Sean Reifschneider.  Isn't Amiga UUCP great?  Thanks Matt.

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daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (02/19/91)

In article <jafo.4188@miranda.UUCP> jafo@miranda.UUCP (Sean Reifschneider) writes:
>I just got a 3000/25/50 a month ago, and have been having some problems with
>it.  It seemed to crash more than I expected it to (one reason that I moved
>from a 2000 to a 3000.  I figured it'd be more stable).  

The combination of bugs and compatibility issues in the first 2.0x releases
for the A3000, and the list of bugs in some 1.3 Amiga programs, could make for
a less reliable setup running the A3000 under 2.0x.  It all depends on the
programs you're running.  My experience is that 2.0x itself is at least as
dependable as 1.3, but you're going to run into far more software conflicts.
I have been spared in many ways in my own use, since I had already weeded out
any programs that had trouble with the 68030.  That leaves those that have
trouble with 2.0x, and those that have trouble with 32 bit addressing.  Either
of those conditions can cause crashes on an A3000 you won't see on an A2000 or
A500.

>No such luck.  It seemed to crash when I was doing things that would never 
>crash the 2000 (like run my version of 'ls', mainly on the root of a disc).

The version of ls I used to use, Justin McCormik's LS (3.1 or some-such), also
crashed under 2.0x.  Seems it was doing something wrong that didn't matter
under 1.3's FFS but did under 2.0x's FFS.  There is supposedly a fix out
somewhere, but I just switched over the the ls that comes with Manx 3.6a, and
the problem went away.

>A week or so later, I moved the 1MB of RAM to the Chip section, and added
>4MB of 1MBx4 Static ZIPs.  I checked and rechecked the contacts to the
>chips, and every thing was ok.  When I booted it, it cam up with a yellow
>screen during the boot, then it just kept cycling through the boot and
>coming back to the yellow.

I have never seen this problem.  But it sounds like either [a] you have one
or more page mode DRAM in there with the static column DRAM, and the OS is
still setting up RAMSEY's burst mode, or [b] your expansion bus daughter board
is loose.  A yellow screen on power up indicates that the system is getting
a bus error before graphics is set up enough to give you a guru or other
system error message.

>When I power cycled it, and selected kickstart 1.3, it came up Ok.  

The 1.3 OS won't try to turn on RAMSEY's burst mode.  

>From the desk of Sean Reifschneider.  Isn't Amiga UUCP great?  Thanks Matt.

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
	"What works for me might work for you"	-Jimmy Buffett

drz@csri.toronto.edu (Jerry Zarycky) (02/21/91)

In article <19079@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>
>The version of ls I used to use, Justin McCormik's LS (3.1 or some-such), also
>crashed under 2.0x.  Seems it was doing something wrong that didn't matter
>under 1.3's FFS but did under 2.0x's FFS.  There is supposedly a fix out
>somewhere, but I just switched over the the ls that comes with Manx 3.6a, and
>the problem went away.
>

Don't worry, this bug was not limited to WB2.0.  When operating under 1.3, 
LS would crash for me on my A2000.  Strangely enough, I would get a 
"Disk corrupt - Task held" message every time I did an LS in the root 
directory (or as Carolyn Scheppner would say "This disk drove DOS insane"!).
The really weird thing was that if I accomplished a successful LS on a
subdirectory somewhere on the root partition, then subsequent invocations
of LS would NOT crash in the root partition!
Any ruminations/explanations?

Jerry Zarycky

Usenet:	{uunet,watmath}!csri.toronto.edu!drz
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BITNET:	drz@csri.utoronto

cassiel@well.sf.ca.us (Paul Theodoropoulos) (02/26/91)

Another thing (concerning installing ZIP SCRAM, yellow screen cycling),
sometimes it can make a difference if you power down for a good long time,
something like five minutes. I've noticed that it can take a while for the
system to "drain down"....could this have anything to do with the battery-
backed ram?

Paul  (cassiel@well.sf.ca.us)

jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (02/28/91)

In article <23343@well.sf.ca.us> cassiel@well.sf.ca.us (Paul Theodoropoulos) writes:
>
>Another thing (concerning installing ZIP SCRAM, yellow screen cycling),
>sometimes it can make a difference if you power down for a good long time,
>something like five minutes. I've noticed that it can take a while for the
>system to "drain down"....could this have anything to do with the battery-
>backed ram?

	No.  The battery-backed ram is part of the clock chip.  However,
external scsi devices that are powered up (on some pre-production (maybe
early production as well, though I don't think so)) may feed a bit of power
back in via terminator power (a diode was backwards).

	I doubt that causes the scram problem, though.

-- 
Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
The compiler runs
Like a swift-flowing river
I wait in silence.  (From "The Zen of Programming")  ;-)

jafo@miranda.UUCP (Sean Reifschneider) (03/02/91)

In article <674.27c41ac9@vger.nsu.edu> manes@vger.nsu.edu ((Mark D. Manes), Norfolk State University) writes:
>In article <jafo.4188@miranda.UUCP>, jafo@miranda.UUCP (Sean Reifschneider) writes:
>> seemed to crash when I was doing things that would never crash the 2000
>> (like run my version of 'ls', mainly on the root of a disc).
>> 
>> chips, and every thing was ok.  When I booted it, it cam up with a yellow
>> screen during the boot, then it just kept cycling through the boot and
>> coming back to the yellow.
>
>Be sure that the daughterboard is put back when you bring 2.0 up.  If
>the board is not in, your system will boot 1.3 but will not boot 2.0.
>Be very sure that you are using the _correct_ chips for your memory
>upgrade.  These are documented in the manuals supplied with your 
>system.

Well, the yellow boot problem just went away.  My amiga usually stays on
24 hours a day, but a couple of days ago I had to power it down when I moved
to my new house.  I figured I'd just let it boot and see if it would come up.
It came up in 2.0 mode, no problem.  The same day, somone mailed me a copy
of ReBoot, and I can now change between 2.0 and 1.3.  Great!

Now, my system seems to be a little more stable.  The more I use it, the
less it crashes.  Though I do have a problem with the keyboard sticking
(have to track that one down).  I guess I was just disapointed then I put
out so many bucks, and the system was acting flakey on me.

Sean
--
From the desk of Sean Reifschneider.  Isn't Amiga UUCP great?  Thanks Matt.

uunet.uu.net!ccncsu.colostate.edu!ncuug!miranda!jafo

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (03/05/91)

In article <jafo.4236@miranda.UUCP> jafo@miranda.UUCP (Sean Reifschneider) writes:

>Well, the yellow boot problem just went away.  My amiga usually stays on
>24 hours a day, but a couple of days ago I had to power it down when I moved
>to my new house.  I figured I'd just let it boot and see if it would come up.
>It came up in 2.0 mode, no problem.  The same day, somone mailed me a copy
>of ReBoot, and I can now change between 2.0 and 1.3.  Great!

While it isn't all that common, some places have lousy line voltages, which
can cause problems.  I ran into this myself in the C= lab during the A2620
development.  I had the A2620 to the point where it would run for a day or 
so, then lock up.  The A2000 it was plugging into, on the other hand, would
go virtually forever without a lock up.

So I spent over a week trying to catch some "almost never happens" kind of 
logic glitch.  Then one morning, while I was looking for a condition that
was never supposed to happen, my analyzer triggered and the monitor display
jumped.  The analyzer showed every signal in the system glitching for just
long enough to throw the A2620 into limbo.  The faster you go, the smaller a
fatal glitch can be and still cause you trouble.  And this lab bench AC supply
was glitching just enough to crash the faster A2620, but practically never
enough to affect a plain A2000.

While supplies are designed with the idea that the line supply is never quite 
what you would want in a computer AC line, they can't handle everything.  If
you find that a computer is real flakey one place, but works great in a 
different place, you may have some kind of power line problem.  Sometimes the
power company has nothing to do with it -- turning on heavy equipment, the
same kind of thing that dims your lights for a second or two, may annoy your
computer as well.

>From the desk of Sean Reifschneider.  Isn't Amiga UUCP great?  Thanks Matt.

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
	"What works for me might work for you"	-Jimmy Buffett