@DWolfman

I'm currently also trying to iron out some stability problems in my A1-XE. I've replaced the PSU and added a fan, and this seems to have improved things a little. I used to get GUI-related lock-ups (often while changing screens, but sometimes while windows were opening), and haven't had one in a while.

Next I'll be replacing the CPU fan.

However, I am wondering: these boards are over 10 years old now. Perhaps it is simply approaching end of life? If the CPU is overheating, then its had ten years of this kind of overheating, and may be irrepairably damaged.

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AmigaOne X5000 P5020 2Ghz, OS 4.1
AmigaOne XE G4 800mhz, OS 4.1
A1200T 40Mhz 68040, OS 3.9

In the A1XE it's always worth changing the battery when things misbehave.....!

@DWolfman

I, too have been working on a flaky A1-XE...see the kind of help you get from the Hyperion site!!!

The XE motherboards had a few flaws that only showed up after they had been released and tested using real software. The main problems were "The DMA problem" and "The USB problem", but there was also the "On-board sound" problem:

The DMA problem: because of bugs in the VIA southbridge (which was designed to run with an x86 bus), there was a problem with data transfers using DMA if the on-board IDE interface and the on-board Ethernet interface tried to send/receive data simultaneously. It can be fixed by cutting a couple of tracks and adding a couple of wires to the back of the board, but it has the side effect of preventing use of the 66 MHz PCI slot for video graphics. A better solution is to use a plug-in PCI card for disk interface - these days you'd be better off with a 2- or 4-port SATA card, anyway. As long as the card has a 3112/3114/3152 chip set, it'll work OK with existing drivers.

The USB problem: because of lack of documentation of the VIA southbridge, terminating resistors for the USB ports were omitted from the motherboard. They can be added easily by anyone with a soldering iron and good eyesight. The four USB ports on the board need to have a resistor of 12-15 kOhms connected from each data line to ground. These resistors are usually added on the back of the board, soldered across the pins of the sockets. Some people have removed the 47 pF EMI caps from the data lines and replaced them with SMD resistors, but that is a tricky job unless you are experienced with SMD.

The On-board sound problem: when the XE board was first released, no one could get the sound chip to work, so it was assumed that there was a wiring fault and it was left off the later manufactured boards. Later still, it was discovered that an undocumented enable bit in a southbridge register had to be turned on to make it work. If you are lucky, you might have an early board that had the sound chip installed. If yours is a later board, the sound chip can be added afterward by someone who knows what he is doing, but it's fiddly and the on-board sound is only average in quality anyway. A better solution is to use a plug-in audio card.

If your XE is "flakey" (and a lot of them were), it may be because of the memory. I've tested and worked with a lot of XEs, and they all behave differently. Some of them will run with two memory DIMMs, but most will only run reliably if you have a single memory DIMM installed. It is getting harder these days to find suitable memory for the XEs (it's old technology now), but you should be able to find a 512-MB DIMM at a second-hand market or on line. I would advise against trying to use two DIMMs - you'll likely get better reliability out of a single.

The mounting of the CPU module is another cause of problems. The CPU module is supported on two M3 tapped nylon spacers that are too long, and the CPU module sits crooked because of it. If you (or a kind friend) remove the spacers and cut about ½mm off each one, you'll be able to get the module to sit parallel to the mobo and it might cure some intermittents.

Lastly, the XEs are famous for being very touchy about their 3V clock cells. The voltage of a new one is usually about 3.2 V, but once it falls below about 3.0 V, the machine crashes or won't boot properly. Fortunately, they are cheap and can be found at any supermarket or chemist/drugstore/pharmacy.
cheers
tony

@SACC-dude

Thanks for the info, but all of that I already knew. Plus this board had been "fixed" before I got it. As in the DMA and USB fixes had already been applied to it.

Don't know if it had a sound chip or not, but it's got a Soundblaster card plugged in that has worked flawlessly, even back when I got that 69-day uptime out of it a few years ago. There's a thread here about that I started at the time.

As for the memory, I've tried a few different sticks in it. The old Crucial 512MB PC133 stick I had in it back when I got the 69 day uptime acts the same way as when I have this 1 GB stick in it I found at a local used computer parts store (same place I found the NEC USB 2.0 card at), which I had found out before I got that card. It's just that with that usb card plugged in, the uptimes can only be measured in minutes, compared to at least a few hours without it.

Because I'm just not in the mood to mess with it anymore, the A1XE has been shut off for at least a week now. After spending 10 hours each day for four days out of the week fixing other people's computer problems, I just can't get myself to work on it much right now.

As it is I just may sell the A1 and be done with it. All I'm doing with it anymore is running Thor on it to collect up my emails from my server as a backup, and to see stuff I'm filtering out of my main email on GMail. I can easily do that on WinUAE like I did for a while before I got the A1 after my A3000 died. Either that or see if I can get Amithlon to work in a virtual machine of some kind (I don't have any hardware old enough to run it any more).

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@DWolfman

I dont think the XE has APIC ( Advanced Prgrammable Interrupt Controller ), so the interrups has to be shared, simply remove the USB2.0 card and be happy. And stop looking for problems.

There is nothing we can do to help you, Sam460 is a way better product, its even faster in most cases, its better if you did not sale it , you only going to giver some one else your problems you have and not a nice thing to do.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 18-Aug-2013 at 08:55 AM.

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@DWolfman

Quote:

As it is I just may sell the A1 and be done with it. All I'm doing with it anymore is running Thor on it to collect up my emails from my server as a backup, and to see stuff I'm filtering out of my main email on GMail. I can easily do that on WinUAE like I did for a while before I got the A1 after my A3000 died. Either that or see if I can get Amithlon to work in a virtual machine of some kind (I don't have any hardware old enough to run it any more).

If you're not keen on using emulation, or the massive headache of trying to make Amithlon work, why not just pick up a cheap Mac Mini G4 off ebay? They can be had for next to nothing these days. Run latest MorphOS on it and you can run Thor, Simplmail, YAM, all the classic 68K apps you ran on OS4 etc. If you get the 1.5ghz model you've got a machine that's almost twice as fast as your XE and much better build quality, quiet and only consumes 60w of power. Very happy with mine.

@DWolfman

You could install the onboard sound driver and see if it shows up in AHI. That would tell you whether or not you have the onboard sound chip.

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-=#Val#=-
Valiant@Camelot


Amiga 1000; Amiga 2000; Amiga 3000T; CD-TV; CD32;
AmigaOne-XE 800Mhz G4;Sam400ep 666Mhz;
AmigaOne X-1000 1.8Ghz PA6T-1682M

@danwood

Emulation was never really a problem for me. Did manage to get it working, after I gave up trying to install from the OS3.9 CD image and just used it to unpack my last old backup of the OS3.9 setup I had the last time around. Worked beautifully after that.

I'd look into getting a Mac Mini G4 if I could run AmigaOS 4 on it. Granted MorphOS would likely do as an Amiga OS substitute if I had no other choice, but it still won't be the same as what I've had and been using for the last several years on the A1.

Think I'll just be saving up to get a new Sam 460 instead. Would rather get an X1000 but they are way too expensive, especially since all I'd really want is just the motherboard but they won't sell it that way.

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@Valiant

I vaguely recall trying something like that once, which is probably why I'm thinking it doesn't have one.

Most of the issues are likely because I'm using a USB interface for the keyboard and mouse, and we all know the USB on the A1 XE models is kinda flakey to begin with. The KVM switch I'm using does not have an option to do it any other way. The only other thing I could do would be to go back to having multiple keyboards and mice on my desk, which kinda defeats the purpose of having a KVM switch.

I recall that when I had those really long uptimes, including that one that went more than 69 days, was when I used PS/2 connections for the mouse and keyboard. That was on a previous KVM that had that option, but was also VGA only for the monitor. The current KVM is DVI for the monitor, which has much cleaner video compared to the other.

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@DWolfman

If you're saving for a Sam 460 then fair enough, but MorphOS will definitely bring you a lot better experience than running OS 3 on WinUAE or Amithlon.

I wouldn't dismiss MOS until you try it though, I used to use OS4 exclusively but these days my A1XE rarely even gets switched on.

@danwood

Anymore, about all I ever do with it is use Thor to backup my email from my server (and read what I'm "filtering" out of the main mailbox at GMail), and run the Distributed.net client on it.

As it is WinUAE takes care of the email part.

I spend most of my computing time on my PC anyway. I've got a lot of games in Steam that we aren't likely to see on any Amiga-compatible system any time in the next decade, unfortunately.

I've got a decent paying job now that should last at least a year (it's a contract position) and eventually should become a direct-hired position, so I know I can save up for a new AmigaOS machine finally. Most likely the Sam 460ex 1.1 GHz.

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Well, small update on this "flakey" A1 of mine. Posting this with OWB on it.

Finally got some time this weekend to take a look at it. Took it apart so I could get the CPU card off of it and check everything out. First time I put it back together, it wouldn't boot. Swapped the battery, but no change. Voltage wise I could probably still use the old battery (new one measured 3.3 volts, old one about 3.05) but I stuck with the new one.

Took the CPU card off again, then just plugged and unplugged it in the socket two or three times, and put it all back together. Booted up fine after that. Same 1 GB stick as before, though I know the video card is not what I had in it with that previous long uptime I mentioned above. That was with an older Radeon 7000 AGP card, this is with a Radeon 9200 128 GB AGP card.

And now it's been up for almost 27 hours without any serious problems. When it booted the first time, I shut it down and plugged back in all the PCI cards (first time I just had the AGP Video in there), but it hung after a few minutes. Took out the NEC USB PCI card, and it's been up ever since. All USB ports are disabled on the motherboard in Uboot, and I have the Kicklayout file set up to not load any USB-related modules.

So far so good. Guess I'll see if I can get another 69-day plus uptime out of it.

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@DWolfman

knowing from my past the woes of fighting with irreparably broken hardware i wonder what it is worth?

@wawa

Its worth what ever some is willing to pay for it, just like the PowerUp cards

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Aug-2014 at 02:25 AM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Well, I gave up on selling it months ago. Not gonna get enough out of it to make it worth it, and then I'd be without an OS4 capable system.

Anyway, it seems to be working good so far. Posting again from OWB on it and it's up to almost 31 hours uptime so far.

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@DWolfman

Its the same thing with my old XE, it works as is, so I'm not going to mess too mutch with it. While I don't use it too often this days, its a nice backup system, if the X1000 is not booting, take the HD out put in the XE, and fix my mistake kind of thing, I also use it for testing software.

So its not completely redundant, anyway its nice to have some redundancy just in case.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Aug-2014 at 08:55 AM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Our A1s are probably approaching end-of-life. They're at least 10 years old, possibly as much as 12.

I've been trying to switch my own from PATA to SATA. Worked for about a week, then got some catastrophic uboot errors. Managed to fix it for a couple of days, then the same again. Got it back up and running last week, added a 2nd HDD and copied everything across. It's working now, but for how long...

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AmigaOne X5000 P5020 2Ghz, OS 4.1
AmigaOne XE G4 800mhz, OS 4.1
A1200T 40Mhz 68040, OS 3.9

@DWolfman

How stable is it with the USB2 card installed but EHCI disabled? The main problem on the A1 seemed to be the USB hotplug issue and yours was fixed.

Also KVM switches are known not to work as they should on OS4. Some do, some break. There is also the boot mouse and keyboard USB classes that can be disabled.

I have a VIA USB2 card still in my A1-XE and the EHCI stack can't use it, it's broken. But USB2 can work fine with this card when using Linux on an old 2.6.31-1 kernel.

Right now I have my printer plugged into it and EHCI disabled. Bit of a waste. I've already bought two "broken" USB2 cards and decided to stop. I stuck one in my spare PC which works fine but next to useless as nothing is plugged into it.

BTW, does that mean you are back to PS/2 and less desk space, if you have no USB on your A1 now?

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

While I don't use it too often this days, its a nice backup system, if the X1000 is not booting, take the HD out put in the XE, and fix my mistake kind of thing,

It's almost funny to me you say that. Right now my X1000 is a backup system. I've started using it to backup all my files and discs. It has the biggest of all my HDDs. The funny thing is that I still use my XE more! And that is because my A1 is so much more reliable than my X1000!

Just the other day I went to boot it up to transfer some data to it. BD drives kept flashing and it ended up in CFE giving a memory error. No sign of HD. Reboot, same thing. Give up, I'm going out, I have no time for this crap!

Now, this is not likely the fault of the X1000 itself, but most likely the SATA drives and setup. I read in an Amiga blog recently (may have bene Trevor's) that IDE took up space but it was solid and works perfeclty fine unlike SATA. And I can agree! I've had nothing but trouble with SATA. Most times I turn on my X1000 I am turning it off agin to fiddle inside with the SATA cables. Perhaps I need some metal strap to hold it on but my A1-XE, which didn't even have a socket around the IDE pins, never gave me so much problems as a new machine with drives disappearing!

@Hypex

Quote:

BD drives kept flashing

Are you a beta tester, did you build it your self?
I only have DVD drive in my X1000.

Quote:

And that is because my A1 is so much more reliable than my X1000!

If you have system like I have, it should have gone through extensive testing at Varisys.

Maybe you have changed some thing that has effected the computers stability?

Quote:

I've had nothing but trouble with SATA. Most times I turn on my X1000 I am turning it off agin to fiddle inside with the SATA cables. Perhaps I need some metal strap

Maybe you have damaged your sata cables, the Fractal Design cabinet can have some sharp edges, I know there is a rubber edge protection, but the rubber edge protection can have fallen out. The two on the back for water cooling always fall out on my computer. Also the large edge protection for power cables is also get loose easy.

It can also be the type of hard-drive you use, as I understand it AmigaOS file systems are not designed for SSD hard drives, maybe some thing to think about.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/39569-trim-support-ssd-check-enable-disable.html

I do not believe AmigaOS4 supports TRIM yet.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/02/04/windows-7-ssd-performance-and-trim/1

If its not the cable it might be the plug.

Quote:

Perhaps I need some metal strap to hold it on

That's just the thing you don't wont inside your computer, metal straps can easily damage cables.

My suggestion is get “velcro ties”, easy to remove when you need to change some thing with out accidentally cutting cables.

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