dml attempts a Raven

[sety]

Have inserted a LC060 for now with some shims added below in the hope of being able to remove it again after some tests.

Faith time! Boot it up!

68060 is easy to remove, no need to shim. Just get some of those electronic picks and temper them so they aren't so butter soft. Put them on an open flame until they glow and then dunk them into ice cubes, water and salt.

It will fly, I can feel it!

[dml]

Faith time! Boot it up!

What, like, stick in an ISA video card, hook up the mouse & keyboard, load the TOS rom and just.... fire it up?

o_O

Ok, I guess why not? :D I can't find my null modem USB cable so its a valid plan B.

68060 is easy to remove, no need to shim. Just get some of those electronic picks and temper them so they aren't so butter soft. Put them on an open flame until they glow and then dunk them into ice cubes, water and salt.

Tempered steel!!!

It will fly, I can feel it!

Hopefully nothing actually flies off the board, it would be upsetting at this point.

I need to find the least damaged looking ET4000 board for this...

[dml]

I have powered the board with the LC060 now and its getting very mildly warm but I also just noticed there is nothing happening on the header for the front power LEDs.

What is responsible for driving those LEDs? Is it controlled in software or baked into the hardware?

Testing with the ISA card showed no activity - but I'm not sure what to expect at this stage, e.g. if something needs to be configured over serial first...

[dml]

Found a weird issue where there is no continuity between J202 power LED+ and R201 right next to it. But both are soldered ok.

Hmmm.

[dml]

Gaaaaaahh!

Spot the schoolboy error....


-_-

gaaah.jpg

Never solder anything 1206 or smaller after bedtime.

[dml]

Ok so NOW I'm getting a power LED :)

I should really have checked that a bit sooner.

[dml]

Can a PC ISA slot POST diagnostic card be used to check anything on the Raven during boots sequence? I'm not expecting real POST codes but I'm curious to know if it is safe to use one and if anyone has tried it?

[sety]

What, like, stick in an ISA video card, hook up the mouse & keyboard, load the TOS rom and just.... fire it up?

It is like jumping into cold water. You're going to have to punch in sooner or later, the more you hesitate the worse it feels. ;)

Ok, I guess why not? :D I can't find my null modem USB cable so its a valid plan B.

Not an excuse, here's mine :lol:

cable.jpg

[dml]

It is like jumping into cold water. You're going to have to punch in sooner or later, the more you hesitate the worse it feels. ;)

I did actually try it (above, but not the water part) and saw absolutely nothing happening.

So... serial it is!

Not an excuse, here's mine :lol:
cable.jpg

Well I dug around for D-type serial connectors and it took so long that the USB serial cable showed up. :p but after everything else I got mixed up in today, it's too late now to play with it. Will see what happens tomorrow.

[dml]

Latest testing results....

- Power LED turns on/off with power button.
- 5v / 3.3v / 12v confirmed on rails, various ICs.
- Booting with ISA video cards (tested 2) shows no activity. Video remains dark.
- No activity over serial @ 115200/N-8-1. Tested with both the monitor ROM and the full TOS rom - I doubt both ROMs are bad.

I have the RAM simm in slot 3, using the latest Nessi firmware (20250627).

Now thinking about which components could prevent reporting over serial.

- CPU: pretty sure this is still good because it was tested in a CT6x
- ROM: it seemed to flash ok and some random-sampled bytes matched the image, although no full verification
- RAM: ??? will it report without functioning RAM?
- ATF1508: this seemed to program ok from ATMISP7, after I replaced the bad chip with a new one
- MC68150: suspect?
- MFPs?
- Some of the small SMT things.

I'm sure there are plenty of possible causes but I'll probably need to start by confirming traces to various places. Maybe need to remove the CPU again to do it properly - but if there are other tests I can do before that I can try those first.