moses@hao.ucar.edu (Julie Moses) (10/21/90)
A fellow in our user group has a very unusual problem involving his new external hard drive and his monochrome monitor. The PROBLEM: Copying of some files to or from his hard disk drive causes the vertical sync on his monochrome monitor to be lost. The CONDITIONS are: - Latest ICD host adapter and booter. - Seagate ST177N drive. - Any ST computer (we tested a couple). - Only Monochrome monitors (we tested 3 monos). Problem does not exist when a color monitor is connected. The files that are copied to/from the hard drive and cause the vertical sync to be lost are successfully copied (even successive files in a multiple copy). The files that cause the problem have nothing in common; for example, one file is a desk accessory and another is a resource file to a different program. These 'problem files' (the problem is not the files but something to do with the hardware) will cause the vertical sync on the mono monitor to be lost everytime. With one file we were able to isolate a particular block of the file as the culprit by saving the block as a new file. Has anyone experienced this problem before? Does anyone have an solution to the problem? A technically inclined fellow in our ST community has been conferred and he thinks that somehow these problem files have a bit pattern in them that when transfered into or out of the hard drive create interference with the vertical sync of a monochrome monitor. The poor guy with this problem has lost 2 months getting his new hard drive mechanism working. He has shipped it back and forth twice now. There was one other problem with this external hard drive system that was finally solved by replacement but this remaining problem is something really unusual indeed. J. Moses
kawakami@earthquake.Berkeley.EDU (John Kawakami) (10/26/90)
I think I have experienced this loss of vsynch as well. My setup is:
520ST
JRI simm board + 2megs
ICD Host Adap. + ST157N drive (the olde ICD board)
etc.
I did not think it was caused by file copies (or I guess reads or writes) but
I get the feeling you all might be right. I have no idea how to deal with
this problem other than RESET.
John Kawakami kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu
ucbvax!ocf.berkeley.edu!kawakami
Amateur crank! My Atari Macks!tdrga@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Todd Drga) (10/27/90)
I have had my Toadfile 44 removable hard drive for about a month now, and
I have noticed the interference problem on many occasions.
Here is a typical session that results in the interference: (from memory)
1. I have an ARC, ZOO, or LZH'd file on drive G:
2. I run the respective un-archiving program...
3. About 50% of the time, sometime during the time the files are being un-
archived, I hear a 'pop' from my 1040 stf and the monitor goes bonkers.
4. The un-archiving continues and finishes with no problem (unless I turn
off the computer).
The hypothesis posted earlier that it had something to do with sequential
reads/writes and the ICD adapter sounds like what is happening. I have not
opened up my Toadfile, but I assume it has the latest ICD adapter as of the
date it was shipped. Other than this, my drive has performed perfectly.
The problem seems to be the horizontal sync on the mono monitor. This is
_my_ guess... it just looks like tthat to me based upon my experience, I
have not attempted to trace it and can't say exactly...
The interference has also occurred on one occasion when I copied many files
from my floppy to the HD.
Anyone know of a fix for this? Has anyone heard from ICD on this?
oh, BTW, my setup is a stock 1040stf, the HD, color and mono monitors,
printer, and modem.
E-mail for more info if you need it...
Thanks,
Todd
= INTERNET-> tdrga@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Todd Drga, UT Dept. of Drama) =
= ' Do you hear the people sing... Will you join in our crusade... =
= Somewhere beyond the barricade / Is there a world you long to see? ' =
= _Les_Miserables_ =
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= -- almost my famous last words =steveg@com.com (Stephen Harold Goldstein) (10/31/90)
I had a similar problem with my Mega 4 and my mono monitor. Color worked fine, but accessing either of my hard drives (a Seagate 277N and a Syquest 44meg cart) with my *NEW* ICD Advantage ST (no plus) adapter would make the mono monitor APPEAR to lose both horizontal and vertical sync. I played around with the monitor adjustments and was able to stabilize vertical hold for both normal and "Weird" mode, but the horizontal display was still flaked out - seems like there were the right number of black and white dots per scan line, but they were garbled. Anyway, the nice guys at ICD suggested I check my adapter for a daughterboad with two blue capacitors underneath it. Sure enough they were there. Clipping BOTH of them off improved the situation, but not completely. Replacing the ICD (long) DMA cable with a short (Atari size) cable seems to have done the trick for me. Before you start mucking with your host adapter, try a short DMA cable as I'm not sure if removing the caps was really necessary. Steve Goldstein steveg@cseic.saic.com -- --- Stephen Goldstein steveg@saic.com My first Atari system? A 24K Atari 800, Rev. A ROMS, C(not G)TIA graphics Disclaimer: That's not what I said.
csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Claus Brod ) (10/31/90)
steveg@com.com (Stephen Harold Goldstein) writes: >I had a similar problem with my Mega 4 and my mono monitor. >Color worked fine, but accessing either of my hard drives >(a Seagate 277N and a Syquest 44meg cart) with my *NEW* >ICD Advantage ST (no plus) adapter would make the mono monitor >APPEAR to lose both horizontal and vertical sync. I played around >with the monitor adjustments and was able to stabilize vertical >hold for both normal and "Weird" mode, but the horizontal display >was still flaked out - seems like there were the right number of >black and white dots per scan line, but they were garbled. Perhaps this has something do to with spikes on the RESET line on the DMA bus. Since RESET is connected to nearly everything inside your ST, those spikes can severely influence the behavior of your computer. Especially the shifter custom chip doesn't like spikes. This might or might not be the explanation of 'weird mode' (still wonder how many colors you could get in this hyper-interlace kind of mode 8-); due to the somewhat unstable design of the DMA bus, there are probably other possible reasons. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Claus Brod, Am Felsenkeller 2, Things. Take. Time. D-8772 Marktheidenfeld, West Germany (Piet Hein) csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de ----------------------------------------------------------------------