TF1230 Issues

[terriblefire]

@relo999 which country are you in?

[relo999]

@terriblefire Netherlands.

[relo999]

The saga continues.

I've been send a second card by the wife of the seller. But this one also got the same issues.
With Kickstart 3.1 it doesn't boot at all, with only a dark grey/black screen and some sound that the floppy drive gets power, but doesn't go so far to that it checks for any disks. I did however notice that soft-reseting seems to do something as than the power light becomes less bright for a moment and the TAB-light blinks about half a second after doing so.
With 3.0 it boots, but without any RAM and 25.9Mhz CPU speed on sysinfo. Trying to use the RAM with addmem makes the computer freeze.

I also checked for short on the board for good measure, but none I could find and seeing as the second card acts the exact same I doubt that'd be really it to begin with. For my sanity, and seeing as the symptoms seemed to be somewhat similar to other accelerator cards that draw to much power, I checked the power from my A500 PSU with the card installed and that gives me a good 5.2V and 12.2V. Type of RAM used, at least based purely on specs and pinout, should be compatible though I see other boards being made with Micron tech, Alliance memory or ISSI RAM and none with Samsung.

At this point I'm just really curious what the actual issue is.

[alenppc]

The saga continues.

I've been send a second card by the wife of the seller. But this one also got the same issues.
With Kickstart 3.1 it doesn't boot at all, with only a dark grey/black screen and some sound that the floppy drive gets power, but doesn't go so far to that it checks for any disks. I did however notice that soft-reseting seems to do something as than the power light becomes less bright for a moment and the TAB-light blinks about half a second after doing so.
With 3.0 it boots, but without any RAM and 25.9Mhz CPU speed on sysinfo. Trying to use the RAM with addmem makes the computer freeze.

I also checked for short on the board for good measure, but none I could find and seeing as the second card acts the exact same I doubt that'd be really it to begin with. For my sanity, and seeing as the symptoms seemed to be somewhat similar to other accelerator cards that draw to much power, I checked the power from my A500 PSU with the card installed and that gives me a good 5.2V and 12.2V. Type of RAM used, at least based purely on specs and pinout, should be compatible though I see other boards being made with Micron tech, Alliance memory or ISSI RAM and none with Samsung.

At this point I'm just really curious what the actual issue is.

I use Samsung, so that's not an issue, however it does seem like your builder might have fitted defective RAM... This would fit your description. Either that or there are solder bridges somewhere.

[supaduper]

If you were in the UK I would look at for you but time and post cost would not make it practical, perhaps another fellow EU Amigan with some knowledge could help this guy out ?

[relo999]

Found the issue!

Both card work! As a last check I wanted to see if it might be my own Amiga that might have caused the issue and decided to manually check all pins of the extension port. To do that I needed to remove the whole motherboard and everything connected to it from the case. Well I was very surprised that the Amiga booted during my testing some 15~20 second in. Tried again without touching anything, same thing happened. So started assembling the computer again part for part, it stopped booting when the cf card was installed, even though I did test the computer without a cf card before. Well the CF card doesn't seem to be the issue, but it was the internal cable that connects the CF card to the motherboard, as simply connecting the cable without anything attached to it cause the Amiga to stop booting.

Why it interferes with booting the computer when the card is installed is a mystery to me, probably a short in the cable (but even than I would expect the cf card reader to not work, not that the computer doesn't boot when the cable AND TF1230 is installed). But I suspect it's simply a case of replacing the cable and the computer should work properly with everything installed.

Made a Sysinfo bootable floppy and everything seems to look good. Just need to get a replacement cable and I suspect everything should work properly after that.

[alenppc]

Why it interferes with booting the computer when the card is installed is a mystery to me, probably a short in the cable (but even than I would expect the cf card reader to not work, not that the computer doesn't boot when the cable AND TF1230 is installed). But I suspect it's simply a case of replacing the cable and the computer should work properly with everything installed.

The internal IDE cable length is a known and documented limitation of the 1230. You need to use a 5cm or shorter internal cable or have a buffered interface, otherwise nothing will work.

[relo999]

Why it interferes with booting the computer when the card is installed is a mystery to me, probably a short in the cable (but even than I would expect the cf card reader to not work, not that the computer doesn't boot when the cable AND TF1230 is installed). But I suspect it's simply a case of replacing the cable and the computer should work properly with everything installed.

The internal IDE cable length is a known and documented limitation of the 1230. You need to use a 5cm or shorter internal cable or have a buffered interface, otherwise nothing will work.

Even when nothing is attached to it? BTW I'm not using the connector on the card, but on the motherboard.

[alenppc]

The internal IDE cable length is a known and documented limitation of the 1230. You need to use a 5cm or shorter internal cable or have a buffered interface, otherwise nothing will work.

Even when nothing is attached to it? BTW I'm not using the connector on the card, but on the motherboard.

The motherboard cable is the one I am referring to. So if you have, say, a 15 cm cable connected to the internal IDE port, even if nothing is attached to it, your 1230 won't work.

[relo999]

The motherboard cable is the one I am referring to. So if you have, say, a 15 cm cable connected to the internal IDE port, even if nothing is attached to it, your 1230 won't work.

Is the one on the card also limited in that way? I do like my cf cards being accessible without opening the amiga.