A2000 and HC+8 issues

[maniades]

Hi all!

I'm having an issue with my GVP HC+8... perhaps some of you might know what is happening...

I'm trying to enable a couple of megs in it, but when I do so, I get a yellow screen boot (not a guru, just a full yellow screen, like a chipmem error). If I disable by the jumpers this 2megs config, all is ok, A2000 boots and works.

The thing, is I am not sure if the mem bricks I'm using are really 1mb... I though they where, but now I'm in doubt. I accept suggestions on how to know the capacity of this bricks. I can't post chip's id numbers right now (I'm at job xD will so it in the afternoon from home), but I will.

Another question is, if the HC+8 can use Z2 fast mem as DMA buffer (I know it can use its own Z2 mem, but what about other card's mem?). If HC+8 can use other cards mem, then I don't need to enable it's memory anymore, as it was only a caching thing... I have plenty of fastram in the turbocard...

 

[AndyLandy]

Another question is, if the HC+8 can use Z2 fast mem as DMA buffer (I know it can use its own Z2 mem, but what about other card's mem?). If HC+8 can use other cards mem, then I don't need to enable it's memory anymore, as it was only a caching thing... I have plenty of fastram in the turbocard...

That depends on where the turbo card is putting its FastRAM. If it's allocating it into the 8MB Z2 pool, the HC+8 can probably DMA into it. If it's an '030 or higher with 32-bit addressing, the Z2 bus can't touch it and so you won't be able to DMA into it. What CPU card do you have in the A2000?

Some other obvious things to try with the HC+8 are to pull out the RAM sticks and re-fit them, maybe even swap them round to different sockets. I'd try adding the RAM back in steps of 2MB at a time until you can see where it fails.

Don't forget that the Z2 bus is limited to 8MB FastRAM maximum. If you've got any other Z2 RAM cards in there, or your CPU card is allocating RAM into the Z2 space, you won't be able to fully-populate the HC+8.

Perhaps you could tell us a little more about what configuration you're running and we can suggest other things which you might try.

Good luck!

 

[Amigafanboi]

Also try cleaning the contacts on the simms with a rubber eraser, those 30 pin simms are getting old.

 

[maniades]

Sure!!

I forgot to tell some things:

My turbocard, is a PPS 040 2000, as far as I know, by default, it addresses 2 mb of ram into the ZII space, and the rest is added (not automounted, but enabled by software later in startup) as 32bit ram.

I also have a picassoII, I don't know if it also maps it's memory as Z2, or if this memory can be handled this way... being graphic memory, might be slow as hell for reading, or something like that.

Right now, I'm getting something like 1.1 or 1.2 mb/s copying to ram. I don't know it this are good numbers (i'm using an UWSCSI disk with an adapter so this drive should be fast enough), or if transfers are slower than they should be... this results, are a simple test done by myself... just copying a big file into ram with a chronograph in my hand xD. HC+8, also has a Gururom chip in it.

I have around a 8 mb Z2 board (currently not plugged into the amiga, in some shelve or cardboardbox around, don't know its brand or model right now). I could try to configure it to 2megs (to leave some space in the zorro mem space), and push it in too, and see if transfers speed up... but I think that the turbocard ram mapped as Z2 should be enough... what do you think?

Thanks a lot for helping . Beers are guaranteed if you ever come to Spain xD.

 

[Amigafanboi]

The picasso memory is mapped into the Zorro2 adress space.