ACA1230 discussion

[MikeFishcake]

As posted by Jens over on EAB.

I've had several customers in Germany who had stability problems with their ACA1230-28. Three of them have now confirmed that the attached timing fix is perfectly working for them. One feedback is still pending, and one feedback indicates a warranty case.

Chris from AmigaKit confirmed the fix as well, he even did cross-tests by removing and re-applying the caps to really confirm that these are the cause for the stability problems. Thanks for all that work, Chris!

I have snapped pictures and wrote the attached document. Should anyone of you have stability issues with the ACA1230, please check if you have the capacitors E123C and E125C installed. Only remove them if you really have stability problems. By removing them if you don't have any problems, you're likely to introduce timing issues. In other words: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Bit nervous about potentially having to hack bits out of my 1200 - what sort of issues are people getting? Is this anything I'm likely to get if I'm just using it as a WHDLoad machine?

Edit: Not that I've confirmed whether I have those particular caps or not yet...

 

[FOL]

As posted by Jens over on EAB.

I've had several customers in Germany who had stability problems with their ACA1230-28. Three of them have now confirmed that the attached timing fix is perfectly working for them. One feedback is still pending, and one feedback indicates a warranty case.

Chris from AmigaKit confirmed the fix as well, he even did cross-tests by removing and re-applying the caps to really confirm that these are the cause for the stability problems. Thanks for all that work, Chris!

I have snapped pictures and wrote the attached document. Should anyone of you have stability issues with the ACA1230, please check if you have the capacitors E123C and E125C installed. Only remove them if you really have stability problems. By removing them if you don't have any problems, you're likely to introduce timing issues. In other words: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Bit nervous about potentially having to hack bits out of my 1200 - what sort of issues are people getting? Is this anything I'm likely to get if I'm just using it as a WHDLoad machine?

Edit: Not that I've confirmed whether I have those particular caps or not yet...

Is yours randomly freezing or crashing??

 

[desiv]

As they've said, it's not just if you have the CAPs. You only need to if you're having problems..

I JUST got my ACA1230/28. Haven't tried it yet..

I'm a bit nervous myself, but we'll see...
I've done some soldering, but never surface mount, so I'm hoping I'm OK..

We'll see..

YEAY!!

HAPPY ME!!! YEAY! ;-)

Thanx Amigakit too!!!!

desiv

 

[MikeFishcake]

Is yours randomly freezing or crashing??

Not really had much of a chance to test it as my noisy old hard drive finally farted itself to death not long after I got the card. Didn't notice anything during the time I did test it though.

I just like to be prepared and know what I'm looking for just in case it does happen, for example if it seems to happen when people are doing particularly system intensive things, or if there can be a bit of a workaround by disabling certain things in ACATune.

 

[FOL]

Is yours randomly freezing or crashing??

Not really had much of a chance to test it as my noisy old hard drive finally farted itself to death not long after I got the card. Didn't notice anything during the time I did test it though.

I just like to be prepared and know what I'm looking for just in case it does happen, for example if it seems to happen when people are doing particularly system intensive things, or if there can be a bit of a workaround by disabling certain things in ACATune.

You should be able to test by running some floppy games.
Someone on EAB reported seeing problem when running EPIC (Classic game by the way, ).

 

[desiv]

OK, looks like "Quick Reply" didn't work, but I'm posting from my Amiga with its ACA1230/28!!!!

So far, I'm having pretty good luck with this card (knocking on wood)...

Performance is much nicer than my Standard A1200, even with the 8M card...

iBrowse isn't too bad..
It has frozen a few times, but only in the Preferences - Settings screens.
Nothing so far browsing...

Happy Camper here..

desiv

 

[Tajmaster]

Just out of interest, can anyone explain why the ACA1230s dont pick up all their RAM unless you have kick 3.1 or load ACATune on 3.0?
Whereas older card like the Blizzard do it without any additional software loading? Surely thats kind of a step backwards? Just curious

 

[desiv]

There was something from Jens on that on the EAB thread, but that thread is so huge, searching is even getting difficult.. ;-)

It had something to do with the way 3.0 didn't do Z3 autoconfig, or at least not the way 3.1 did..
I'm sure he could have made it work, but he was trying to keep it as simple as possible, and he really wants you to use the acatune software anyway.
Most people are going to "at least" use the maprom feature to get the kickstart into FAST RAM, so it was probably something where he decided that a "fix/feature" wasn't worth the effort/cost....

desiv

 

[fitzsteve]

Zetr0 explained this to me on the phone the other day but alas I've since forgotten - where art though Zetr0?

 

[rkauer]

The same occurs on some other 030 accelerators, like the Microbotics MX1230XA: using 3.0 ROM you must use an addmem program (AutoXA, on this exact case) to add the memory to the system.

As previously written, that's how 3.0 ROM (badly) treats Z3 memory...

 

[Zetr0]

@3.1 & Z3 32Bit Fast

Indeedy friends,

The A1200+3.0 Kickrom has a bit of a fudging when it comes to 32bit (Z3) FAST RAM.

A lot of cards had some "work around's" however some like the DKB Cobra that was tailored to the Kick 3.0 memory routines ended up breaking compatability with Kick 3.1 (that has better/proper 32bit fast (Z3) memory initializing / handling).

Hence in the case of the DKB Cobra you need to flash the firmware to work (with memory) under Kickstart 3.1. Dont for one minute think that the DKB Cobra is a bad card, infact it is one of my favourite 030 cards for the A1200 and I wouldn't want to choose between that /Blizzy Mk4 or Apollo Mk3 all great cards...

Okay the DKB might beat the Apollo - although its 20% slower in its default 33mhz state, but I would proffer this card over the Apollo because it has a reasonably implemented SCSI (about 2.6MB per sec DMA) and can have 128MB of RAM - and trust me you never get tired of that on the workbench screen!