jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) (12/18/90)
I've been having a problem with my A500 for a while now, but it's just gotten frequent enough to make me want to do something about it. The system will lock up sometimes when I'm accessing my floppy drives. The drives will remain spinning and all I can do is reboot the machine. Specifically, it almost always happens when I'm starting an operation on DF0: before a previous operation on DF1: has finished. Which is not to say it happens every time I do that, though. It usually happens when the system has been on for a long period of time like an entire morning or afternoon. Lately it's started happening with as little as an hour of on-time. Thinking it was an overheating problem, I bought some rubber 'feet' from Radio Shack and stuck them on the bottom of the unit to raise it off the desk further than it was. With the original small feet, the middle of the unit sagged down to touch the surface of the desk. This didn't help, though. I've also re-seated the 8520 chips several times, and swapped them (with each other, not with another set) once. Each time the problem goes away for an increasingly short amount of time. As I said, it's just gotten to the point where the system will lock up *every session*, so I want to do something about it now. If this is really an 8520 problem, which one (or both) do I need to replace, and how much do they cost? If it isn't an 8520 problem, what's the next thing to check? -- paper : James Shaffer Jr., 37 Brook Street, Montgomery, PA 17752 uucp : uunet!cbmvax!amix!vanth!jms (or) rutgers!cbmvax!amix!vanth!jms domain: jms%vanth@amix.commodore.com CompuServe: 72750,2335 quote : ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION: WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL
jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) (01/05/91)
In article <jms.2064@vanth.UUCP> jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes: >I've been having a problem with my A500 for a while now, but it's just >gotten frequent enough to make me want to do something about it. The >system will lock up sometimes when I'm accessing my floppy drives. The >drives will remain spinning and all I can do is reboot the machine. This problem is common with Amigas with the 1.2 ROMs. The usual case is when a program is writing to one floppy at the same instant that AmigaDOS decides to click the other floppy (to see if it's still empty). I got killed several times while trying to backup my harddisk last year. The workaround: Keep a floppy disk in all drives at all times. (No clicking.) The fix: Go to an Amiga dealer and get new ROMs installed. -- Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com or jms@gemini.tymnet.com BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms PO Box 49019, MS-C51 | BIX: smithjoe | CA license plate: "POPJ P," (PDP-10) San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous dislaimer: "My Amiga 3000 speaks for me."
jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) (01/07/91)
In article <1398@tardis.Tymnet.COM> jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) writes: >In article <jms.2064@vanth.UUCP> jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes: >>I've been having a problem with my A500 for a while now, but it's just >>gotten frequent enough to make me want to do something about it. The >>system will lock up sometimes when I'm accessing my floppy drives. The >>drives will remain spinning and all I can do is reboot the machine. > >This problem is common with Amigas with the 1.2 ROMs. The usual case is >when a program is writing to one floppy at the same instant that AmigaDOS >decides to click the other floppy (to see if it's still empty). I got killed >several times while trying to backup my harddisk last year. > >The workaround: Keep a floppy disk in all drives at all times. (No clicking.) >The fix: Go to an Amiga dealer and get new ROMs installed. But, I usually *do* have a floppy in all drives at all times. The problem has hit me several times when changing floppies -- it locks up as soon as it tries to validate the just-inserted disk -- BUT it's also hit when I've had disks in my drives for an entire session. Say I have a program that, when it exits, writes a file to DF1: and another to DF0:. DF1: spins and steps and the file is written, but just as DF0: starts spinning, and before it steps, the system locks. DF1: is *still* spinning and there's about a 50% chance that the file written to it will be either open or non-existant. There is never a file on DF0: -- the lock-up seems to take place as soon as the spindle motor comes on, from what I've seen so far. You're right that I'm running the 1.2 ROM, but I'm using SetPatch from 1.3.2 and I'm also using the latest version of TrackSalve, which is supposed to patch trackdisk.device to prevent the bug you mentioned. So I sort of doubt that that's the problem. The increasing frequency of this over both uptime and lifetime also points to hardware. -- paper : James Shaffer Jr., 37 Brook Street, Montgomery, PA 17752 uucp : uunet!cbmvax!amix!vanth!jms (or) rutgers!cbmvax!amix!vanth!jms domain: jms%vanth@amix.commodore.com CompuServe: 72750,2335 quote : ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION: WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL
jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (01/07/91)
In article <1398@tardis.Tymnet.COM> jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) writes: >In article <jms.2064@vanth.UUCP> jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes: >>I've been having a problem with my A500 for a while now, but it's just >>gotten frequent enough to make me want to do something about it. The >>system will lock up sometimes when I'm accessing my floppy drives. The >>drives will remain spinning and all I can do is reboot the machine. > >This problem is common with Amigas with the 1.2 ROMs. The usual case is >when a program is writing to one floppy at the same instant that AmigaDOS >decides to click the other floppy (to see if it's still empty). I got killed >several times while trying to backup my harddisk last year. > >The workaround: Keep a floppy disk in all drives at all times. (No clicking.) >The fix: Go to an Amiga dealer and get new ROMs installed. Sorry, no, new (aka 1.3) ROMs won't help (all they have is autoboot support). However, getting the most recent version of 1.3 (actually I think every version later than 1.30) gets you the version of SetPatch that fixes this. -- 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") ;-)