@mlehto

Thanks for the links and all your help.

Will test with some of those benchmark software.

Forgot to mention tha I actually have turned the on board usb off from uboot, have also managed to disable on board Ide, everything from the uboot menu as I already have pointed.

I have noticed that uboot actually does not keep my second device in boot sequence, it actually boots first from CD and then goes on the hard disk if no CD in drive as it should but when I go on the uboot menu, on the boot sequence, only sil parallel CD is mentioned on the device 1. Anyway as long as it actually boots from Hard disk when no CD is found, there is not a big deal, I am just pointing out a uboot bug. This variable was lost when I also tested with setenv, you can read this on my above posts, but on te setenv cases the system eas not booting from hd until I go back on youtube and reset the boot sewuence.

Anyway back on benchmarks and testings.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

@Morphix

Happy to see it working well. Lots of action in the video. And some off topic footage. What's that theme? Looks trendy.

I'm not following you on the UBoot boot sequence. Is this the normal boot sequence or the temporary one you can change at boot? I'm not aware of any boot sequence bug and have come across a few UBoot bugs.

@Hypex

Just go @

UBoot Preferences Menu ---> Boot Sequence ---> Amiga MultiBoot Options

Selecting this you will notice a list, mine is like this:
Boot device 1: Sil Parallel CD ROM
Boot Device 2: none
Boot device 3: none
Configuration: Default
OS Selection timeout: 10 seconds

Well I guess that Boot Device 2 should be, Sil Parallel Hard Disk.

It boots from Hard Disk OK but does not keep the record.

Last edited by Morphix on 29-Oct-2013 at 02:55 AM.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

@Morphix

Hypex mentioned nvgetvar.

It's a good idea to redirect that output to a file and date it for reference.
That way you can also note what changes you made to uboot or uboot prefs and compare with the output of nvgetvar after you make changes.

nvgetvar > [filename]

#6

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@number6

Yes good idea, will do it snd pst the file here.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

@Morphix

I checked here and with only CDROM set like in your list my boot breaks without CD. So don't know what is going on with your system there.

Although I didn't save the setting so that may make a difference.

@Hypex

Does your system keeps all tne settings in all the devices?
Perhaps is a cable issue, will have tommirow some new ide cables bought and I will re check.
I do not know if that matters but I have changed my ide cables, still ussing some old ones.
I will also copy here file with my uboot settings.
Actually I do not know if this was an issue from the past... Anyway will get back to the thread.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

Quick update about my IDE connections.

1. Since day 0 I have small read / write problems with my original hard disk. Used to get rid off of them by fixing the partitions. I have divided the HD in two partition System and Work and one Swap. I got this HD connected on onboard IDE with a 2 way IDE cable. I used a second cable, it was a 3 way IDE cable the one side went also on the on board IDE the other side on my DVD-RW on the middle IDE input of the cable nothing was changed.

2way IDE cable: https://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/images/2.5_inch_IDE_cable_15cm.jpg
3way IDE cable: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/images/44-way-male-female-female-ide.jpg

2. When I bought the Sil Card I kept the same connections but used the Sil card instead of the IDE on board. LOTS of read errors on Block xxxxx -Volume Work: has a read error in Block: xxxxx-, so I decided to check with a new hard disk.

3. Checked out with a new maxtor 20Giga, same cable connections on the Sil card, the HD actually worked, still with errors. This time the errors was like the ones described here: http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=37042&forum=14. So I thought it was a cable error. So I exchanged the cables. I used the cable that I was using on the DVD-RW to connect the hard disk. And the cable I was using on the disk to connect the DVD-RW. The one to one cable was deadly loose cause even the DVD-RW was not recognized well. It would not appear in every boot when I was inserting a DVD-RW drive. etc.

So now I got the DVD-RW connected with 2way IDE cable and the HD connected with 3way IDE cable on the last IDE input -not the one in the middle-. I was NOT able tot est the new maxtor hard disk with this connection cause it failed. Do not know why. I tried to re instal the SLB but I got this message on media toolbox (the pic is not mine but the message is the same): http://images38.fotosik.pl/1703/e0a368533edc443f.jpg

I hope that if I manage to plug the HDD on a PC and re install a Windows MBR it would be saved.

So I went back to my old hard disk which works until now great, with no errors, I checked the partitions and it was the HD I was using as I was filming the video.

So tomorrow I will buy two new IDE cables.

ps. I want to connect possibly a second hard disk. I guess I should use a 3way IDE cable. Can you advice me in this? I want to use this second hard disk together with my DVD-RW and let the main one on a 2 way cable alone. Is it possible? Which device should I use as primary and which as secondary on the 3 way cable?

Quote:

So don't know what is going on with your system there.

@Hypex

Perhaps somewhere in all those facts is the hidden problem with uboot not realizing the hard disk on the devices boot sequence but actually booting from it. Look at this var: boot2=psii
Is it its normal value? Perhaps uboot can not realize the hard disk correctly just because I know use a 3way IDE cable for it -even though II use only one hard disk on it right now).

Ok here is the uboot vars:

bootcmd=menu; run menuboot_cmd
bootdelay=0
baudrate=115200
preboot=
stdout=vga
stdin=ps2kbd
ide_doreset=on
ide_cd_timeout=30
menucmd=menu
pci_irqa=9
pci_irqa_select=level
pci_irqb=10
pci_irqb_select=level
pci_irqc=11
pci_irqc_select=level
pci_irqd=7
pci_irqd_select=level
bootmethod=boota
ethact=3Com 3c920c#0
ethaddr=00:09:D2:11:01:2C
video_activate=agp
a1ide_maxbus=0
a1ide_conf=0000
a1ide_xfer=0000
sii0680ide_xfer=CCCC
menuboot_cmd=boota; boota; boota
video_num=1
serial1_address=3f8
serial2_address=2f8
parallel_mode=0
parallel_address=378
usb0_enable=off
usb1_enable=off
usb_use_header=0
ide_maxbus=0
ide_swap=0
boot1=psiicdrom
boot2=psii
boot3=
boot_config=Default
boota_timeout=10
boot_method=boota
menuboot_delay=3
os4_commandline=debuglevel=0
bootargs=root=/dev/ram rw ramdisk=4096

Quote:

Happy to see it working well. Lots of action in the video. And some off topic footage. What's that theme? Looks trendy.

Thanks for your kind words. The theme is actually the SilverBlack theme but I have customized it a little bit:
http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=graphics/theme/silverblack.lha

Last edited by Morphix on 30-Oct-2013 at 01:30 AM.
Last edited by Morphix on 30-Oct-2013 at 01:24 AM.
Last edited by Morphix on 30-Oct-2013 at 01:21 AM.
Last edited by Morphix on 30-Oct-2013 at 01:21 AM.
Last edited by Morphix on 30-Oct-2013 at 01:20 AM.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

@Morphix

It is known problem, that not all old drives are fully ide-interface compatible. Maxtors has some problems and so on.


You can try next.


sii0680ide_conf xxxx

Where first x is primasry channel master, second pri slave, third is sec master and fourth is sec slave.

and when place number to x

0 = automatic
1 = hard disk
2 = optical drive

So

sii0680ide_conf 1020

Is where primary master is HD and secondary master is CD/DVD


That way it should remember hd, like boot source.

For hard drive allways use sii0680ide_xfer F000 or similar, where HD allways get proper UDMA mode. All ide drives wich are alive today, should can do it. With UDMA 5 there is noticeable performance difference allso.

I got allways problems with PIO-modes with HD-drives. Modes a-e actually.


All opticals usually can UDMA 2.

Other hand your uboot looks like clean. Didnt check it line by line, but it doesnt have errors at least.

@Morphix

Quote:

Does your system keeps all tne settings in all the devices?

Currently have CD 1, HD 2, rest none. So yes, these settings are saved. Any other settings?

@Morphix

Quote:

Quick update about my IDE connections.

For a quick update you have lots of content.

I must first mention that I've had a problem that comes and goes. It's not exactly like yours but quite similar. Sometimes at bootup the HD fails and I can hear it trying to spin and fail. And then UBoot will search for devices and fail or find them and report a corruption ID for the HD. Sometimes the Kickstart loads and AmigaDOS will lose the drives and present me with a Boing screen. If can happen when Workbench is up, I hear this "squeak" and then programs stop responding or I get error requesters. They can be reported to debug log. An attempted reboot and the drives are gone.

Sounds bad doesn't it!? Well I tracked it down to my power cables. I thought the IDE cables may have been a bit tight and stressed as for some reason the IDE ports face out from the PCI slot, instead of the other end towards the drive. I have a badly designbed card. Some how the power cables were failing to the drive. The machine would be fine for weeks and then suddenly fail. SmartCtl reported no logged errors or fails.

So it can pay to check power cables as well.

Quote:

I got this HD connected on onboard IDE with a 2 way IDE cable. I used a second cable, it was a 3 way IDE

I hope it isn't the ones in the pictures! One looks too old and the other has 44 pins. Connecting a laptop drive?

What you need are 80 wire UDMA IDE cables. First and fourth pictures on here link to some good info.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=80+wire+ide+cable&btnG=Search&tbm=isch

Quote:

I hope that if I manage to plug the HDD on a PC and re install a Windows MBR it would be saved.

How do you mean, saved from what? In case block 0 has an error the drive will reassign the block?

Now, as to your IDE setup plans. It's better to keep devices of same kind on their own bus. That is the HD on their own bus and the DVD drives on another. Bus being synonyms to a cable. This speeds up transfer from HD to DVD or the opposite. And the transfer speed will be slowed to the slowest device on the bus. So a DVD sharing a bus with a HD can slow it down.

However, you can share HD and DVD if you want. With UDMA cable, put the master on the end and the slave in the middle. I tend to set the HD as the master of the bus.

Quote:

Is it its normal value?

Yes, it's fine. The "psii" would refer to the HD on parallel Sii controller. My guess it they left off "hd" as it was obvious a HD being the main boot device. My boot1, 2 and 3 variables are exactly the same.

Quote:

Thanks for your kind words. The theme is actually the SilverBlack theme but I have customized it a little bit:

Cool.

@mlehto

Quote:

I got allways problems with PIO-modes with HD-drives. Modes a-e actually.

I'm surprised at that. My A1 had no UDMA stable IDE so I had to use PIO at the start. With my onboard IDE. I had no problems.

But, I've read that older cables need to be connected backwards to UDMA ones with regard to master and slave. That could affect it along with the mode setting.

I've also got a Pioneer DVDRW that can't be used with interruprts in UBoot.

What controller, cable and position did you have with your PIO problems?

So lets give a quick update on this topic sharing with you my progress.

As I have reported I have attached a Silicon Image IDE card on my AmigaOne XE, as well as a USB card, both in PCI slots.

I have reported some error messages while reading from my hard disk: "Read / Write Error In Block xxxxx". Also errors were found on the Partition Wizard on the checking procedure of each partition.

Having read cases -on AW threads- with similar or same error messages, I have decided that I should change IDE cables and / or hard disk. I changed both. Errors remained.

I thought that there was something wrong with my PIO / UDMA settings. Hypex was kind enough to provide me with some advice via PM. Changes UDMA / PIO settings were done, lots of different settings used on testing. errors remained.

I changed slots to the PCI cards, nothing changed so I thought that I should go back to the old Amiga advice: "Pull out all the cards and start testing getting them on board one by one".

I discovered that when I booted the Amiga without my USB card no hard disk errors where present, starting with the Partition Wizard checking. Hoping for a last chance that this would not be a conflict between cards but a device driver issue, I thought of this: As I was doing this Partition Wizard checking I was booting from the AmigaOS 4.1 CD, so I thought to check the kicklayout file in there to see which usb device driver is loaded, I discovered that ohci.usbhcd was loaded and used.

Hmm. So perhaps it is a usb device driver issue and not a card conflict. I have left this ohci device driver active on my hard disk setup, commenting out ehsci and uhci drivers following previous advice -see earlier posts- so I thought to change direction and comment out ohci, leaving ehci and uhci active and see the results. I have also in mind that sometimes my OS 4.1 hard disk setup wes booting leaving me on a black screen after the splash and that has brought to my mind a case of a device driver issue.

To cut a long story sort the machine booted fine and the hard disk was working with no read / write errors, partition checks reported no errors and all this after commenting ohsci on kicklayout (please have in mind that I have done all the updates till 1.6 and live updated as well).

All this was done using my original hard disk and not the new I bought. You see I have all my Amiga One stuff in there. But now is getting clear that the hard disk is OK. I have mentioned some I/O errors in the past -not so many- and OK I guess it was just because the onboard IDE controller. With the sil card onboard and the ohci commented the last 48 hours I get no errors at all.

Yes testing have started and the machine works almost non stop the last 48 hours. No freezes so far and no read / write errors so far.

There is only a light issue: After the commenting of the ohci device driver none of my two usb mouses work with the XE. But all the other USB sticks I have hooked including a usb card reader work great in read and writing processes. As far as the mouses: well I am ussing a ps2 mouse for now.

So the big goal was to have AmigaOne XE work with third party hardware that would replace the onboard IDE controller -sil card-, the onboard ethernet -wireless network card- and the onboard USB card -usb card-. Yes I have disabled internal IDE and both USB ports on Uboot.

Speaking about UBoot I have restored to factory settings and on Boot Sequence I have set the IDE hard disk on the PCI Sil card as first boot device. It always saves the first slot on the boot sequence -see previous post about this little issue of uboot not saving all my boot devices-. So I am set and done with this. First boot device is saved anyway and when I want to boot from CD I just enter uboot and select it by hand.

So the big deal is this, I may repeat:

Yes testing have started and the machine works almost non stop the last 48 hours. No freezes so far and no read / write errors so far -yes so far and hopefully forever-.

A big extra thanks to everyone helped in this big thread and especially Hypex for the extra help and interest.

AmigaOne is one of my favorite machine no matter the lots of strange issues and problems. I want to keep it as most productive and alive as I can.

I will update the thread with future upgrades / tests etc.

Last edited by Morphix on 07-Nov-2013 at 08:50 PM.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

@Morphix

If your USB card is with VIA-chip, same USB-problems will remain.

NEC based should work ok.

@Morphix

I haven't seen OHCI fail on USB AFAIK except on Sam. EHCI has. Do your flash drives mount and work fine in USB2 mode using the EHCI driver? That can cause trouble with incompatible hardware but doesn't usually do so until you have devices plugged in.

Also, what USB card do yo uhave? Perhaps load Ranger and repeat the Device and Vendor information here. Thanks.

As to UBoot, it can be set to boot CD first then HD, as I have this set. But maybe it can only do it here and not over there where you are.

All my devices are on Sii 0680 controller, so I have parallel CDROM first then parallel HD second.

I know there is a shortcut in UBoot to a boot selction menu to easily pick CD so I guess it's not too bad. Whatever is causing that. Battery okay? Esc or something.

Last edited by Hypex on 12-Nov-2013 at 01:11 PM.

@Hypex

@Morphix

Quote:

I haven't seen OHCI fail on USB AFAI except on Sam. EHCI has. Do your flash drives mount and work fine in USB2 mode using the EHCI driver? That can cause trouble with incompatible hardware but doesn't usually do so until you have devices plugged in.

Have tried a usb card reader and a usb pen. Copied some files and it went quickly. But can not provide any actual speeds. Is there a utility to test it?

Now that I am thinking of it I had the usb pen sticked on the usb card, as I was doing all the tests described on previous posts, the most of the times it was on. Not all of the times but the most of... In any case I strongly believe that the ohsci causes problems. With it commented @ the kicklayout, no read / write errors which was the main case and no stuck splash screen which was the second case. Perhaps it is the fault of my usb card that holds a VIA chip and not the driver itself. But I do not have another one.

Quote:

Also, what USB card do yo uhave? Prrhaps load Ranger and repeat the Device and Vendor information here. Thanks.

It is an Asus. Will report back with the exact model and the ranger info.

Quote:

As to UBoot, it can be set to boot CD first then HD, as I have this set. But maybe it can only do it here and not over there where you are.

This is a fact. It will save only the first device.

Quote:

All my devices are on Sii 0680 controller, so I have parallel CDROM first then parallel HD second.

Same here, everything attached @ sil. About the boot sequence, I explained. Have set HD as first boot device, it will not save the second, no matter the tries. Not a big deal.

Quote:

I know there is a shortcut in UBoot to a boot selction menu to easily pick CD so I guess it's not too bad. Whatever is causing that. Battery okay? Esc or something.

It actually goes to the boot menu when you enter the uboot on start and yes you can select devices. This is actually the first slot of boot sequence. Where in my case Sil Parallel HD is selected as default and I can select any other device to boot from, pressing escape I am switching to a little menu form there, can boot into this config, save settings etc.

Battery was changed some months ago.

Thanks for the interest. All those are minor issues, the big deal is that I have not face any kind of freezes on the machine so far! And those are good news :)

Last edited by Morphix on 09-Nov-2013 at 01:42 PM.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

So here are some pics form ranger.

1.jpg is a general grab of the PCI bus as showed by ranger.
a1.jpg is my general setup as showed by ranger

1u.jpg 2u.jpg 3o.jpg 4o.jpg 5e.jpg are the 5 usb ports or devices or what (????) presented by ranger.

u is for uhci
o is for ohci
e is for ehci

Remember that I have an Asus PCI Usb2.0 card plugged on the machine -got to check the excact model still, will do it-, it has 4 usb ports, I also have on board usb ports turned off from uboot and that I have ohci commented out from the kicklayout file.

Frimware1.jpg and firmware2.jpg would bring you up my firmware -uboot- settings as showed by ranger.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jocz3mz4flo98p8

Everything packed on an lha file.

This is mainly done by Hypex who asked for some more info, thanks man!

Last edited by Morphix on 10-Nov-2013 at 02:21 AM.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

@Morphix

Thanks for taking the time to gather the info. I know it can be time consuming. Just for now a quick repsonse.

5e and a1 appear almost the same. Can you redo 5e? The rest are fine.

Now, taking the OHCI controllers, it looks like you have an NEC chipset.

Vendor: 0x1033 (NEC Corporation)
Device: 0x0035 (USB)

The bottom most USB devices in the PCI list will be the additional USB2 card. Also, you can use "pciscan" to print PCI info as well. Saves you from screen grabs.

Continuing.

Quote:

After the commenting of the ohci device driver none of my two usb mouses work with the XE. But all the other USB sticks I have hooked including a usb card reader work great in read and writing processes

Your mice are probably using the OHCI driver then. Though I would have thought the UHCI driver would take its place. I expect the card reader and drives are working in USB2 mode so taken by EHCI.

Quote:

Have tried a usb card reader and a usb pen. Copied some files and it went quickly. But can not provide any actual speeds. Is there a utility to test it?

There is ScsiSpeed on OS4Depot but it is buggy and can crash testing USB. And is hard to use on CLI only. I reccommend DiskMonTools off Aminet. 68K but has a GUI and returns reasonable result for USB.

Quote:

With it commented @ the kicklayout, no read / write errors which was the main case and no stuck splash screen which was the second case.

At this point it would be good if you could reactivate OHCI, then reboot, in order to collect debug information. If possible without hard resetting the machine, a soft reobot is fine, you could then grab the log with C:DumpDebugBuffer. You could also setup a serial terminal to capture the output.

As a betataser I can formally submit a bug report if I determine a specific component is at fault.

Quote:

Perhaps it is the fault of my usb card that holds a VIA chip and not the driver itself. But I do not have another one.

We now see you have an NEC chipset, but Ranger reports it as N/A. Is its PCI database okay?

Any brand on your other USB2 card chipset?

Quote:

Have set HD as first boot device, it will not save the second, no matter the tries. Not a big deal.

Well I'll leave that then. Just hate not knowing why it is.

OTOH my BootMemTester doesn't work properly with Sam keyboards. And my OWB has crashed since Update 6. Somethings just are and you can't figure out why. So just leave it.

According to your previous post you have this set. Which is the same as mine. Nothing else I can see:

boot1=psiicdrom
boot2=psii
boot3=

Quote:

1u.jpg 2u.jpg 3o.jpg 4o.jpg 5e.jpg are the 5 usb ports or devices or what (????) presented by ranger.

Yes, I'll explain. The UHCI devices at 00.07.02 and 00.07.03 are the onboard USB1.1 USB ports.

The following OHCI and EHCI at 00.09.00 to 00.09.02 are your USB card NEC chipset ports. Or rather, the PCI devices siting on the PCI bus for the USB hardware.

I also notice a few things. You have a 1MB L2 CPU cache. Mine is a G3 with a 512KB L2 cache in XE model.

On the same bus as your VGA device you have a network device. What is up with that? Does your graphic card also have a network controller?

In that spot my 9200SE has a TV out device. Strange!

You only have a VGA card in your AGP slot and nothing else in the top (4th) PCI slot?

Last edited by Hypex on 12-Nov-2013 at 01:47 PM.
Last edited by Hypex on 12-Nov-2013 at 01:41 PM.

@Hypex

Yes I can do 5e :)

Will gather the rest of the info as well!

Thanks!

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5

http://www.mediafire.com/?8gc4u19bm07xm22

Here is the updated 5e picture which presents a grab from ranger showing an ehci USB device / port (?).

All in all I have to say that the machine is rock stable all those days. Not a single freeze.

Last edited by Morphix on 11-Nov-2013 at 07:25 PM.

_________________
Peg1, Peg2, Efika,
Amiga 500, Amiga 1230,
Amiga 4000PPC,
Sam 440EP, AmigaOne XE,
MacMini PPC, PowerMac G4, G5