exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Cosmic Puppet wrote: 07 Apr 2021 15:17

rubber_jonnie wrote: 07 Apr 2021 15:08 I need a photo of the drive connected to the GW. I need to see the connections between the FDD and GW and power, with no background clutter please

Will do. I need to shut the computer down and open it back up.

Thanks

Plugging in with red aligned to triangle.


USB plugged in and going to the pin header that previously had satisfactory results.


I now get this:

Was I right to move this jumper to the left for 5V?


It's no longer in the position shown here.

Ok, so the connections look ok for the power and 34 pin cables.

If you want 5v from the GW then you have 2 options:

1. Set the jumper to 5v Reg and use the 12v barrel power connector on the GW to power the FDD and GW. I believe this gives you both 12v and 5v for the FDD from the GW.
2. Set the jumper to 5v USB and take 5v from the USB connection. If your FDD needs 12v this is a non starter.

I'd suggest that you power the FDD from your PC power supply to avoid all the messing around with power from the GW, that way you guarantee a good supply.

Does the GW get any power lights? It should do and if you're using the GW to power the floppy and there is no power to anything, then you're either not getting power from the USB connector or it can't deliver enough power.

I'd suggest you start off with the GW and plug that into an external USB socket to make sure that you get a power light to start with, as if you don't then that's a problem from the off. Take it a step at a time.

I wasn't expecting power issues as it worked fine with this:


I'll open it up again later and try it externally.

I don't think there is a way to connect to the PC power. This motherboard was never meant to have a floppy drive.

Yeah but the GW probably requires considerably more power than that device. Just plug the GW into an external USB socket and make sure it powers on without a floppy drive. If not then you have to fix that first.

I use mine with a proper PSU for the fdd.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 07 Apr 2021 19:08 Yeah but the GW probably requires considerably more power than that device. Just plug the GW into an external USB socket and make sure it powers on without a floppy drive. If not then you have to fix that first.

I use mine with a proper PSU for the fdd.

Just to understand you properly. Do you mean via the 12V barrel plug on the GW board?

No.

When I use my GW I plug it either into the PC power supply or an external power brick that has an FDD power connector on it. I don't power it via the GW. You can do so, but I'm telling you not to so that we can verify with a known good PSU.

BTW most PC PSUs will have an FDD power plug, if it doesn't you can get a 4 pin Molex to FDD connector like this from eBay for pennies:


Before you do anything else just plug the GW on its own with no FDD connected into an external USB socket and make sure you get power lights on the GW. If the GW has no power then you are going nowhere.

The steps are:

1. Take your bare GW with no FDD connected, and connect a USB cable to it.
2. Plug it into a running PC.
3. Check it is detected by the PC and has a power light.

Until you've done that basic step and know the GW powers on you're going nowhere.

If the GW has no power light then check your jumper settings, and if they are correct and you still have no power speak to whoever you bought it from (Keir Fraser I expect) as it may be faulty.

Once you have verified that the GW has power and is detected, disconnect the GW from USB so it is powered off.

Then do the following:

1. Connect the IDC cable to the floppy and GW.
2. Connect the FDD to a power cable from your PCs power supply. Not the GW or anything else but your PC PSU to guarantee the correct power to the FDD.
3. Connect the USB cable to the same external socket as you used to test the GW.
4. Check the GW powers on and is detected as before.
5. Test using the GW software to see if it will read a disk.

Don't expect the GW floppy to work like a normal FDD and be seen as an FDD under Windows, it doesn't work like that, it will only work with the proper GW software.

I really can't offer you more help if you won't try the steps above to verify the GW is working. It doesn't matter if it worked with your other dongle, that is clearly a USB FDD adapter, the GW does not do the same thing.

Thanks @rubber_jonnie

I'll do the steps.

I will look for a 4 pin Molex to FDD connector also as I've noticed some extra molex coming off the power supply.

OK, let me know how you get on.

You can do the first steps with just the GW and no fdd without the molex to floppy power connector as that is only required for the 2nd set of tests.