I have a weird problem. When my BPPC is attached and enabled in my A1200 tower, both my zorro cards stop working (x-surf II and GVP SCSI controller). I have the same problem with two different A1200 motherboards (1.d1 and 1.d4) and busboards (ZIV and Micronik Z2-i). Also WHDLoad stops working for 95% of games, they all fail with a "long write to $7ffff" error.

I can test the X-surf with the supplied xsurftest program. It will report that the card is found, but the memory test fails because the data that is read from the card is incorrect. The X-surf card is fine though, Jens himself tested it since we initially diagnosed it as faulty.

I wonder what is causing this problem; I've been unable to affect it in any way. However, the BPPC run absolutely fine. PPC software works fine, MP3s play for hours without any problems.

I'd really like to get my classic Amiga on the net with my X-surf (that's what I bought it for!). Can anyone help?

@Eco
Maybe it is a power problem, how big is your PSU?

@Radfoo

I have two AT power supplies, approx. 230w each. I've tried both with both busboards, first using the busboard's power connector, and then from the back of the Amiga. I've also used a "legacy" A500 PSU. This does not seem to affect the problem at all.

I've also attached the floppy power connector from the PSU to the motherboard, and taken the power for the BPPC's fan straight from the PSU.

I've measured the voltage of the +5 rail from the BPPC:

- Powering from the back of the miggy only: 4.77 volts
- Powering from the back of the miggy + floppy connector: 4.83 volts
- From the ZIV busboard: 4.93 volts
- From ZIV busboard + floppy connector: 4.97 volts

The Micronik gets results similar to the ZIV. The results have varied a bit depending on the PSU and measurement, I've seen the voltage at 5.05 a few times. The system has been rock solid with all power options, except for the problems mentioned above.

@Eco

look at the power supply..how many black,yellow,red wires are coming out of the power supply ( nearest to the power supply )..


on my system here i use all the black and red wires..


add a second or third wire from power supply as 4.7 volts is to low..


in order for blizzppc to work properly it must be at least 4.83 anything above this is better and must not drop below 4.83 at full load..

@delshay

I don't have any spare +5 leads, they're all used in my system. Two of them go to the custom power plug on the Micronik busboard, one for the floppy connector feed, and the rest to the molex connectors.

I just measured the +5 on the BPPC, and it's 4.98-5.01. I don't think it's lacking power.. besides, it does not do anything funny in the way of reboots, processing errors or general flakyness. Except, of course, the items mentioned above.

There is one think i've though of.. there are two other machines and several peripherals connected to the same wall outlet as my Amiga. Could this cause problems?

@Eco

I agree that your PSU is probably not the problem, but there is another test you can do with your DMM.

Set to the smallest AC range, and see if you can measure any AC ripple. It should be less than 20mV. In fact, it should probably be much less, 20mV is the Vpp I just measured with a CRO on a dodgy AT PSU...

I guess you could find a pinout of the Z3 bus, and take voltage measurements on the Z3 slot itself - careful not to short anything though

Are there any jumpers you can fiddle with? I take it the boards show in autoconfig at the ESC menu?

Sorry, not much else I can suggest. By the sounds of it your power is probably fine. I don't suppose you've tried cleaning edge connectors?

- Paul

@Eco


another thing to check is the extra power though the fan..

disconnect the extra power lead at the fan & put it back to normal..see if the blizzppc fan is still spinning..this is to check that you have not damaged to fuse type resistor..if all ok put extra power lead back..

I attached the fan connector back to the BPPC, and the fan is spinning fine. I've cleaned all relevant connectors with IPA, and the ZIV and X-surf are brand new. Jens cleaned the X-surf but it was fine to begin with I think.

As for measuring ripple, I haven't done that. I guess I should get right on it..

If there's significant ripple, what can I do about it?

The boards show up in a "working" state in the startup menu which is entered by pressing both mouse buttons. The ESC menu of the BPPC does not show me any board info, only the "ram" and "system" options are available for me as I don't have SCSI on the BPPC.

Neither the X-surf nor the BPPC have any jumpers. The ZIV has jumpers, and I've set them correctly for BPPC operation as indicated in the manual. I've tried other settings also, but no effect.

The ZIV is actually not connected right now, as the GVP SCSI controller does not work with it (something about not offering DMA I've read), I'm currently running with Micronik Z2-i. It has one red jumper, but moving it does not do anything for this problem.

The GVP SCSI controller has some serious jumpering on it, but I have now removed it as I'm trying my best to get the X-surf working. I also removed my internal DCE scandoubler, didn't help.

@Eco

Like I said, the specificity of the faults and the fact that you've got problems with more than one known working PSU then that suggests it probably isn't it (unless you're unlucky).

You could try yet another PSU, but another way to place a capacitor across the load where the ripple is trying to be reduced. Also check the 12V rail. Does the ZIV use -ve supply rails?

On reflection, if you don't have a True RMS AC DMM then you may get around 20mV (since the cheapies measure Vpp and * 0.707) so don't panic if you do.

- Paul

@csirac

My "el cheapo" multimeter only has 600v and 200v ranges for AC. On the 200v setting, I get the reading "10.1" from the fan connector of the BPPC. Am I doing this right? I have no training whatsoever for this stuff

@Eco

if you don't use the XSurf IDE ports, try to remove the XSurfIDE from Expansion:

Try to change the position of XSurf also.

Ciao

_________________

@Framiga

I'm not using the IDE ports on the x-surf, and XSurfIDE is not in the Expansion folder. x-surf problems manifest themselfs right after boot, before binddrivers or loadwb (but naturally also in wb).

I've tried all zorro slots for the x-surf multiple times. But thanks for mentioning this, generally seems to be a factor in getting zorro cards to work.