chem194@canterbury.ac.nz (John Davis, chem dept, UoC NZ) (09/22/90)
>I just fitted a 2630 ( 68030 ) board in my 2000 over the weekend, >and I've been experiencing problems with the hard-disk (40mb toshiba >ST-506 interface drive off a 2090a ) ever since. > >It'll read fine, and small writes are ok too - but any largish write >will result in a total crash ( typically to guru 03, 04 or 0b ). > >I've tried swapping in a different 2090a off a working 2500/30, and >it got rid of the problem - and I noticed the working controller >had the PROM at the rear top of the board ( U36 I think ) marked >as xxxxx-03, wheras as the non-working board was marked xxxxx-02. > >Unfortunately the owner of that board kind of wanted it back ... :-) > >There's meant to be a replacement HD controller on the way - but what >I'm interested in are .... > > - what are the difference between the different revisions of the 2090a > and what does it affect - are there any links, trace cuts etc that should > be done to the 2090a when used with the 2630? > > - what other main board alterations should be done for the 2000 when > fitting the 2630 ( my motherboard is labeled rev 4.4 ). > > ( the board just turned up , no docs on recommended board mods to be > done before fitting etc ) > >We've tried getting info out of CBM New Zealand, but they either >don't have it, or don't want to pass it on to the dealer I'm going >thru. > >Incidentally, the 2090a problem seems related to DMAing into the 32 bit >ram on the 2630 - at least if I set the mask entry in the mountlist to >0xfffff to restrict dma into the 16 bit chip mem it's ok ( then again >that could be due to the slowdown in writes this incurrs ), it's also >okay under the 68000 .... > >Any help much appreciated ... Well, the new controller turned up, and in spite of having the exact same PAL/ROM version numbers as the card that _did_ work, the new one exhibits the exact same fault as the old one. I'm now totally stumped, and as CBM NZ ( an outfit who's idea of tech support seems to be an answering machine with a recording 'I dunno' repeating ad infinitum ) still can't come up with any info on how to remedy the situation, it looks like the only alternative is going to be to try and convince them to ship a complete replacement machine, that hopefully will work properly - then again, given their record so far (2 out of 2 2500's non-functional on delivery) I don't hold great hopes. I'd still really like to here from anyone who either has info on what (if any) mods should be done to the rev 4.4 motherboard before fitting a 2630 (wherefore art thou CBM engineering ??), or has any ideas on what's causing this (like the only boards in the machine are the 2630 and 2090a - considering they're all CBM boards you'd expect them to work together). As I said it seems to be related to LARGE writes only - does anyone have any info on whether there _should_ be a maxtransfer specified for FFS on the 2090a ( again, all we got when we asked CBM NZ's 'tech support person' this was a 'derrrr .. ummm ... I dunno' ). Ahhh .. the joys of living on the wrong side of the planet, stuck with a large pile of _expensive_ hardware that just refuses to work together. Time to go find a really good bar methinks ..... ----------------------------------------------------------- | o John Davis - CHEM194@canterbury.ac.nz o | | o (Depart)mental Programmer,Chemistry Department o | | o University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand o | | o o | | o co-sysop AmigaINFO BBS,1200/2400 baud CCITT, o | | o 24 hours a day, ph NZ +3-3371-531 o |