exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi all,

I've come to provide the resolution.

In the meantime, I changed about everything that might affect it:
New MeanWell PSU, current ROM matching the OS, capacitors, you name it.

It was the damn CF card. I changed it for another and immediately got 3.5MB/s. Don't ask me why I decided to do that last.

Doesn't hurt having done the other upgrades, though :D :D

Thank you Stephen for all your work!

edit: and let it be known that yes, certain CF cards are slower with MuFastRom enabled and changing those might solve all your issues!

What brand of CF card did you have previously,
and what brand did you switch to, to make it work?

I had previously used the famous blue-and-white CF with 8GB capacity. I switched it for an older PLATINUM branded one, which I think is a German brand and might not be as ubiquitous elsewhere. It runs perfectly.

This one's only 2GB, so I'm definitely swapping it for another one. I just ordered an 8GB PLATINUM from eBay, and a 16GB SanDisk Extreme. Will find out how well these fare.

aera wrote: 10 Jul 2025 09:55 I had previously used the famous blue-and-white CF with 8GB capacity. I switched it for an older PLATINUM branded one, which I think is a German brand and might not be as ubiquitous elsewhere. It runs perfectly.

This one's only 2GB, so I'm definitely swapping it for another one. I just ordered an 8GB PLATINUM from eBay, and a 16GB SanDisk Extreme. Will find out how well these fare.

When modding my A500 I found that CF cards were quite unreliable, IIRC a lot identify as removable media rather than fixed disk which can cause issues. I bought a bunch of different sizes (256Mb up to 4GB) and makes, some worked, some didn't and overall the experience was poor.

I swapped to IDE2SD card adapters and all my issues went away.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 10 Jul 2025 12:06 When modding my A500 I found that CF cards were quite unreliable, IIRC a lot identify as removable media rather than fixed disk which can cause issues. I bought a bunch of different sizes (256Mb up to 4GB) and makes, some worked, some didn't and overall the experience was poor.

I swapped to IDE2SD card adapters and all my issues went away.

On the contrary, I have been using CF cards in my Amiga's since 2010 when I got back into the hobby. Never had 1 fail. Not a single one.

matt020 wrote: 11 Jul 2025 01:24
On the contrary, I have been using CF cards in my Amiga's since 2010 when I got back into the hobby. Never had 1 fail. Not a single one.

Out of curiosity are you using a specific brand/size and do you have a particular flavour of IDE to CF adapter you use? I had nothing but trouble with CF cards in my A500, multiple makes and several different adapters.

I was using a 10cm cable, though I did also try a 5cm, but it made no difference.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 11 Jul 2025 08:36

matt020 wrote: 11 Jul 2025 01:24
On the contrary, I have been using CF cards in my Amiga's since 2010 when I got back into the hobby. Never had 1 fail. Not a single one.

Out of curiosity are you using a specific brand/size and do you have a particular flavour of IDE to CF adapter you use? I had nothing but trouble with CF cards in my A500, multiple makes and several different adapters.

I was using a 10cm cable, though I did also try a 5cm, but it made no difference.

Mostly Sandisk.

I refuse to buy cheap ones.

And the results are, not a single one has failed.

I have now also settled on the 16GB SanDisk Extreme. It's the older 60MB/s kind with a black label. I get 3,449,000 bytes/sec on this card according to SysInfo, and boot times and opening drawers are very snappy now.

Note that my TF536 is from AmigaStore which still sells the Rev. 2, I think there is a newer one?

Anyway, very happy with this setup now. :)