GVP 030 combo not showing RAM on A2000

matt020

Finger lickin' good
AmiBayer
Blogger
Joined
Dec 20, 2009
Posts
689
Country
Australia
Region
Western Australia
Yo.

I just picked up a GVP Combo 030 25mhz with 1mb fast ram onboard.

The 030 works but I can not get the system to pick up on the 1mb fastram. I read on Amiga.org about changing jumper J12 and I have tried that but it made no change.

Has anyone had a similar problem?

Any help is appreciated please.

Matt.
 
I have had limited success, by changing some jumpers, the board will now show the 1mb as "BAD". The system cant use the memory, but it knows it is there.

It is interesting to note that any other Zorro memory cards I now add to the A2000 also come up as "BAD" when those memory cards work perfect without the 030 plugged in.

I might add that the A2000 has kickstart 2.0, and the GVP 030 has ROM version 3.(something). Is GVP ROM version 4.xx required for Kickstart 2 and above?
 
Not enough power from your PSU? :shrug:

Have you tried disabling the 030 to see if the other cards then work?

Try contacting ralph here:

http://babel.de/contact.html

He might be able to offer you some advice.

Kin
 
just to be sure, you know that the zorro limit of rtg/fastram is 8MB on the A2000? I trust you try it without any other cards connected, right?
 
Update.

I spent around 8 hours today working on this card. The 030 part works, but the onboard memory will give a red screen at first power up stating a part of the board is "BAD" (I should have taken a pic to show you what this screen looks like).

Once booted into Workbench, the GVP util identifies the board, but also labels the memory as BAD. The memory is not shown as fastram at the top workbench title bar (next to chipmen).

When I change jumpers and make the ram become extended ram (outside Zorro range), the red "BAD" error screen disappears, but then in workbench the GVP util does not recognise the extra 1mb onboard at all. It seems that the memory is not there at all?

I inspected the board closely, and there appears to be some corrotion around the fingers/connectors on the edge connector. A couple of tracks have "bloated" and I suspect may be bad. The tracks are thin and my soldering iron is fat so Im not sure how likely it is that I will be able to repair the tracks.

Without the onboard 32bit fastram, Sysinfo reports the board to be not much faster than a 68000 :( so it is not much use.

I think the board is a write off and Im really disappointed by the experience.
 
You live relatively near Anthony Hoffman (aka Castellen), I think a trip to New Zealand will make wonders for the card. :)

See: a good climate, stunning landscapes and the one of the best Amiga hardware gurus in the world.
 
Nice work. I have dropped him a PM to make some inquiries about his service :)

Last night I stripped the card of all socketed chips, and scrubbed the card with lemon juice and then vinegar + toothbrush. Then rinsed it with distilled water. The board and chips are drying at the moment.
 
@ matt020

As a matter of interest, which version of card do you have there?

Kin
 
It's a version 3, Kin.

After a nice clean over, the board and it still does the same. Would appear then that the RAM is actually bad.

Grrr.
 
Thanks. I've just had a look over the board @ BBoAH & yet there is nothing on that card that could rupture & leave a corrosive mess?

Can you get a pic or two up?

Kin
 
Back
Top Bottom