Hey guys,
some weeks ago I purchased a Wicher 500i from a forum member and whilst I knew this card could be finicky and was quickly replaced with the Wicher 508 which apparently fixes a lot of the problems, I thought I would at least be able to get it running.
After weeks of trying I cannot get this card to boot. Before I send it back, I thought I would ask if anyone had any suggestions I could try in case there was something I overlooked.
Originally I installed the card in a recapped A500+ running KS 3.2.2, however when I could not get it to boot (gurus at a random point between power on and Workbench screen appearing) I searched the net and found that the 508 needed a firmware update to work on 3.2.2 ROM's, so I assumed the 500 simply would not work on 3.2.2 ROMs, and I purchased a 3.1 ROM from Sordan.
That ROM arrived yesterday and I have now spent another 6 hours trying to get the card to boot.
So far I have tried:
Three different recapped A500s.
Four different PSU's, all with regulated 5v that measures between 4.98v and 5.11v.
Three different Kickstart ROMs (3.14, 3.22 and the newly arrived 3.1).
Eight different CF Cards - from 4GB up to 32GB, Sandisk, Lexar, Toshiba etc.
And over 40 different 72pin RAM SIMMs.
I have never managed to get the card to boot to Workbench once, and it appears to be even worse with the 3.1 ROM. It will even crash randomly at the Kickstart screen.
Voltages on the 5v line are all good and the three A500's I have used for testing are proven working systems that work fine with TF536's etc.
Is it a dud card, or am I doing something really stupid? Please help.
some weeks ago I purchased a Wicher 500i from a forum member and whilst I knew this card could be finicky and was quickly replaced with the Wicher 508 which apparently fixes a lot of the problems, I thought I would at least be able to get it running.
After weeks of trying I cannot get this card to boot. Before I send it back, I thought I would ask if anyone had any suggestions I could try in case there was something I overlooked.
Originally I installed the card in a recapped A500+ running KS 3.2.2, however when I could not get it to boot (gurus at a random point between power on and Workbench screen appearing) I searched the net and found that the 508 needed a firmware update to work on 3.2.2 ROM's, so I assumed the 500 simply would not work on 3.2.2 ROMs, and I purchased a 3.1 ROM from Sordan.
That ROM arrived yesterday and I have now spent another 6 hours trying to get the card to boot.
So far I have tried:
Three different recapped A500s.
Four different PSU's, all with regulated 5v that measures between 4.98v and 5.11v.
Three different Kickstart ROMs (3.14, 3.22 and the newly arrived 3.1).
Eight different CF Cards - from 4GB up to 32GB, Sandisk, Lexar, Toshiba etc.
And over 40 different 72pin RAM SIMMs.
I have never managed to get the card to boot to Workbench once, and it appears to be even worse with the 3.1 ROM. It will even crash randomly at the Kickstart screen.
Voltages on the 5v line are all good and the three A500's I have used for testing are proven working systems that work fine with TF536's etc.
Is it a dud card, or am I doing something really stupid? Please help.
) and they suggested the card is notoriously picky with not only the RAM SIMMs, but also the TYPE of ROM used for the Kickstart. Apparently the Wicher 500i has problems with most EPROMs, which are 99% of ROMs currently available to purchase new. He suggested trying an original ROM.... of which the only one I had available was a KS2.04. Tried it and no crashes.... but no HDD as the 2.04 ROM had no scsi.device built in. After it not crashing at the Kickstart screen for an hour I replaced the original 2.04 with a 2.05, which has scsi.device. System ran perfectly.
