AmigaOS Classic 4.1 Update2 fails to install [SOLVED]

[danbeaver]

Thanks for the help,

My A4000T has revision 11 Buster; I use a Radeon 9200 256MB card from Elbox (I have a Voodoo 3000 & Voodoo 5 in storage). To the best of my knowledge, the Deneb was working beautifully under 3.9, but I pulled it a month ago when I installed the Spider USB card (5 vs. 3 USB Ports, and open space on the Mediator). I did try ZII mode, "ROM" mode, "SPR" mode (normal use), but she only allows booting in RST mode. Deneb has latest firmware upgrade ~2 months ago. I tried her in 3 Zorro slots: next to last, one up from that and the second up from that. Last slot has Mediator "bridge card." Also tried her with ZorRam installed and not installed. I tried her with all but video card in Mediator (Radeon is in second PCI slot up up -- Mediator "bridge card," open slot, then Video). Also removed all memory from motherboard for a try. I have a CyberVisionPPC video card for RTG use, but its currently not being used. To remove it and try other solutions will take a day or so until my visitors leave, I neatened up the house.

Again, if I have to open up Ami, please give me a day or so, then check back.

-Dan

[alekc]

Thanks for the help,

My A4000T has revision 11 Buster; I use a Radeon 9200 256MB card from Elbox (I have a Voodoo 3000 & Voodoo 5 in storage). To the best of my knowledge, the Deneb was working beautifully under 3.9, but I pulled it a month ago when I installed the Spider USB card (5 vs. 3 USB Ports, and open space on the Mediator). I did try ZII mode, "ROM" mode, "SPR" mode (normal use), but she only allows booting in RST mode. Deneb has latest firmware upgrade ~2 months ago. I tried her in 3 Zorro slots: next to last, one up from that and the second up from that. Last slot has Mediator "bridge card." Also tried her with ZorRam installed and not installed. I tried her with all but video card in Mediator (Radeon is in second PCI slot up up -- Mediator "bridge card," open slot, then Video). Also removed all memory from motherboard for a try. I have a CyberVisionPPC video card for RTG use, but its currently not being used. To remove it and try other solutions will take a day or so until my visitors leave, I neatened up the house.

Again, if I have to open up Ami, please give me a day or so, then check back.

-Dan

Dan,
It seems to me that you really tried all the possible configurations. There is not much I can help you with unfortunately in such case other than ask you to try the following setup: Mediator with Mediator busboard and Radeon card in PCI slots plus Deneb in one of top ZIII slots. Setup Deben in rescue/install mode first and try to boot from install floppy/cd to see if it working. Than try to boot AOS 4.1 - obviously a clean install would be helpful but I guess you did it already so many times that you might be fed up with this already.

The only other thing that comes to my minds is faulty PSU or CSPPC or overheating problem - are you sure none of those issues could affect your current setup? I've seen one setup where CSPPC has been partially broken unfortunately and it worked quite stable under 3.9 but under 4.0 and 4.1 gave the user real headache. So the big question would be this: does your setup when using PPC CPU for a long time works stable under 3.9 or it just hangs/crash?

[danbeaver]

I can get to the guts of Ami tomorrow; I have a second CSPPC board with it's own 128MB ram I can try. PSU is New (400W classic AT & perfect fit) but I can put back into use the other one (~250W), or check it with a Multimeter. Current CSPPC has 2 blowers (a fan on each CPU) and a large fan attached to the upper edge of the power supply blowing across the CSPPC; I'd read stories of them overheating under 4.1.

I'll try your suggestions; any other combinations of the above to try?

Thanks much for the help,

-Dan

[alekc]

I can get to the guts of Ami tomorrow; I have a second CSPPC board with it's own 128MB ram I can try. PSU is New (400W classic AT & perfect fit) but I can put back into use the other one (~250W), or check it with a Multimeter. Current CSPPC has 2 blowers (a fan on each CPU) and a large fan attached to the upper edge of the power supply blowing across the CSPPC; I'd read stories of them overheating under 4.1.

I'll try your suggestions; any other combinations of the above to try?

Thanks much for the help,

-Dan

Dan,
Unfortunatly if this does not work I run out of ideas. Keeping my fingers crossed and wish you good luck. One final thoughs: while classics are great and fun to use they also require a lot of patience and time

[Calgor]

As my setup is extremely similar to yours I should be able to sort you out if it doesn't work (I even have CVPPC in there).

Currently my Deneb doesn't have any modules installed - although having it in causes a couple of recoverable alerts for OS3.9.

I was going to take the A4000T apart today to put a fan in but didn't get around to it, but maybe I can just for you and we can work these things out on both our systems. As you rightly said, cooling is a must, and with CSPPC and CVPPC both in there I need that extra 80mm fan coming in through the bottom 2 5.25inch slots. You should also clean the original intake fan and its filter if you haven't already.

As you have the latest update for Deneb, I can only suggest to not put any boot modules in there, or leave it very basic. And as alekc asked try in OS3.9 with your current setup (as your setup is constantly changing). It would be safer to leave the Deneb in Zorro2 mode and PIO mode until it is working perfectly so as to avoid any extra unforeseen issues.

[danbeaver]

Back again after trying your suggestions.

Just "in case," I removed the unused CVisionPPC card, tried the upper most ZIII slot with Mediator empty except for Radeon; it boots as before only in Deneb RST mode, but "no go" in ZII, or standard mode. [ After the first couple of weeks of owning mine, I'd given up on loading modules in the Deneb; a head-ache would break out after a while, so its been a clean slate for a long time.] I have the OS4.1 Updates 3 & 4 ready to install, but the Deneb problem kept me from using them.

My Ami sits like this: A4000T [Amiga Technologies Gmbh, circa 1994 -- Software Hut], CSPPC 233MHz 604e, 50MHz 68060 with 128MB (60ns) ram, 16 MB Motherboard ram (70ns), 3 CPU fans (working) as described earlier, clean 400W PSU & case fans (also working), Meditor 3/4000T with Radeon 9200 256KB GPU (from Elbox) in #2 PCI slot, De-interlacer card in video slot, and Deneb. The cybppc.device has a Atlas V Ultra3 18.1GB HDD, an Acard SCSI->IDE (white) DVD-R/W and a multi-slot SCSI card reader (recognized but otherwise not accessible in OS 4.1 mode). It allowed me a new install of OS 4.1 Update 2, and I'm going for updates 3 & 4 before powering down to fiddle with the Deneb some more. She remains stable and running in OS 3.9 and 4.1 for hours (if I don't kibitz with her), just not bootable into OS 4.1 when the moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, i.e., certain hardware configurations.

-Dan

[danbeaver]

I guess I was too quick to wait for a response.

I could not get Deneb to work under OS4.1 (up through update 4). I did get the X-Surf driver -- a version of the Ariadne II driver patched through a hell-and-high-water process that resulted downloading the original driver, applying the hard to find patch and then copying the driver from a OS 3.9 partition to OS4. Ami now has internet access. The Radeon card is stable at 1920 X 1080; sound is Paula (I tried the Mediator SB128 so far without avail). AHI is up to date (6.6 with 6.7 device). It's 01:30 here and I'm headed for bed. If she needs to, Ami can rock my MP3 collection under 3.9 later in the day.

I had asked Elbox for help, and ............

If anybody has any further ideas, I am open for suggestions.

-Dan

[Calgor]

Sounds like you now have everything you can get working working, except for the Deneb. Very good work!

I just spent a few hours fixing up my Classic so it now has extra cooling and a new ATX PSU.

Tomorrow I will upgrade from my current OS4.1 Update 2 to Updates 3 and 4 (possibly I will install from scratch), then after that I will tackle the Deneb.

In OS4.1 currently I have no drivers loaded to utilise the Deneb, but it does not prevent OS4.1 from functioning (with its virtually empty flashrom). I do not have any more suggestions until I upgrade and install the software for Deneb. Then I would be able to compare notes and configs.

[danbeaver]

Glad to have someone in Sympathy or Empathy!

I forgot to mention that without the Mediator I did have the Deneb working in OS 4.1, but you are absolutely correct, NO ROM modules need apply. When I finally got the Mediator to work under OS 3.9, after the graphics cards worked (I had the opportunity to test a Voodoo2, a Voodoo3, and a Voodoo5 -- with a 4500 NOT working) each card after that (especially the PCI FastEthernet from AmigaKit with their EasyNet software) took a day or more to get working. When I got the audio and spider to work, I pulled the Deneb and put her away. As far as the Deneb knows in OS 4.1, it acts normally with appropriate LED's on and is recognized by ShowConfig, but not Posiedon (the only two bootable modes are RST & ROM); in RST the flashdrive is their (as FD0:) and accessible for the files, but when switching to ROM (which I've used in OS 3.9 because of multiple ROM Module crashes), the Deneb is invisible to Posiedon. I tried to manually add the ports with AddUSBHardware (all 3 Deneb device driver but all units fail -- the error is "-1" if that helps anyone. I know others got it to work, but the weird hardware issues I have had makes me think that there is some, as yet to be identified, issue.

If I had to make a guess, since the OS 4.1 kernel hangs on Boot/Reboot, there is a "core" configuration issue with the kernel and certain hardware that is: 1) not recognized, 2) recognized wrongly, 3) is not supported, or 4) conflicts with resources (interrupts and the like). We know that the Mediator has DMA "issues." I would haphazard another guess and say that some folks in Poland need to open good lines of communication with some folks in Belgium & Germany.

Any thoughts?

-Dan

[danbeaver]

Well, as a side diversion,

I was able to Network Ami under OS 4.1 (using OS4 Depot's version of lpr.device) to my HP ColorLaser 2605 printer, and using the Usbparallel.device I can print directly in OS 3.9. By the way, I worked with an actual "line printer" in the 70's; named so because it printed one entire line of text at the same time -- it was an IBM ?407 and had 120 rotating spools or wheels of letters vertically that spun to form 1 line of text and then impacted against a printer ribbon onto a continuous roll of (green & whit stripped) paper. It was connected to an IBM 1130 (not to be confused with a PDP 11/40).

-Dan