Tidying up a Falcon & CT60 combo (power supply & drive)

[PacificState]

FWIW, it does feel like a dry joint somewhere, given that the RAM issue is so intermittent.

[PacificState]

Hmm - so I was reflowing the CPLDs, and noticed something odd. While there's a bit of minor (existing) damage to the middle pins on one side (visible at the top left of the picture - they're still connected, though), there appears to be a piece of something (metal?) under one of the pins (fifth from the bottom right). I don't think it's a lifted pad - can anyone tell me if this is the same as on their CT60?

IMG_2471@0.5x.jpg

[PacificState]

And... it's the pad underneath - maybe this was reworked before, as I didn't apply excessive heat? I guess I'll try to bridge it to the track.

[coonsgm]

Thank you so much for posting this!! I have experienced a similar set of symptoms as you were describing on my CT63 since I bought it new about a year and a half ago.

I could never get it to recognize fast ram and while it would work kind-of, I ended up switching to a DFB1. I tried have 5 different pico-psu's, a dozen sticks of specifically sourced PC133 RAM and 3 68060 CPU's (only one is a full fat one with FPU thank goodness) and had really given up on it.

I JUST reflowed the CPLD pins thoroughly (I had tried it half heartedly in the past) and BOOM the fast ram is recognized and it's working like I think it was supposed to from the beginning! I ran the CT63 diagnostic and all the RAM passed!!

Thank you thank you thank you!

[PacificState]

I'm glad it helped! In my case, reflowing the two CPLDs seems to have fixed the RAM recognition - but I'm still getting the 'not a Falcon 030' error on boot intermittently, and the temperature monitor isn't still not read. Anything else I can try?

[PacificState]

OK - I left this aside for family stuff for a little while, and now I'm back on it and tearing my hair out. Since the last post:

- I ended up buying a new CT63 from Centuriontech as the original CT60 stopped recognizing RAM (so I thought this could be another sign the accelerator was at fault)

- It's installed OK with a *different* rev 6 68060 which was tested in an Amiga

However, although the ram problem is now fixed, the machine *still* fails on first boot - it used to boot to the 'this machine is not a Falcon 030' dialog, whereas after booting to a freshly erased drive, it now boots to a 2 colour (red and white) display - presumably due to the same problem. If I then soft-reset, everything works perfectly until I turn the machine off.

Notes:

- Booting at 33Mhz (half the 66Mhz default) doesn't help

- I cannot run any programs in this state as they hang - running SysInfo, for example, to read the cookie jar as suggested earlier in the thread, hangs up the Falcon with a busy icon. Similarly, whilst I can open the TOS panel to change the screen resolution (which informs me that the display is set to 2 colors), that hangs too if I (say) change to 256 colors and click OK.

- I've tried replacing both the SODIMM on the CT63 and the ST (14MB) memory - the latter takes a SIMM, which I've swapped out

- The CT60 boot menu offers an option to drop to diagnostics - all seem to pass

From the earlier suggestions, it sounds like the likely cause here is a corrupt cookie jar - it's therefore a bit unfortunate that I can't run anything to introspect it. It's odd, too, that the machine otherwise runs fine. Are there any suggestions as to what I could look at further? Thanks!

[PacificState]

Sorry to reference another forum, but I'm pretty sure that this is the same problem called out at https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 30#p402830. Does everyone basically reset and get on with things?

[exxos]

If pressing reset fixes the problem then you likely need to change the reset caps on the falcon.

Also may or may not be relevant viewtopic.php?p=110236#p110236 Pavel apparently used to thin PCB traces on the ATX connector causing all sorts of problems. So it might be misleading that you you have tried 2 CT60s and still have problems. I had nothing but problems with my original CT60.https://exxosforum.co.uk/atari/last/CT60/index.htm including some brands of osc causing problems as already mentioned.

[PacificState]

That's really interesting. I should mention two more things:

- I did just swap out the caps in the reset circuit, with a 47uF @ C1 and 22uF at C7 (new Cornell Dubilier caps from Digikey)

- Separately, I do have a reset problem that I didn't seem to have a with the original CT60, in that it can take a few tries to start up. Recapping didn't help, and I'm using what I think is a good quality PicoPSU from Mini Box (https://www.mini-box.com/PicoPSU-120).

I definitely wonder if this is one problem or several:

- Not consistently starting. There seems to be a history of this for other people, who fix it with new reset caps, decoupling caps (https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=23218), or even additions to the reset circuit (as in the thread you posted)

- Not initializing as a Falcon at boot (although this was happening with the old CT60 before I changed the reset caps). From what I can tell on other threads, this *seems* ultimately to be related to the SODIMM RAM test running - so maybe that's wiping out the cookie jar?

Otherwise, thanks for pointing to that thread - I'll look at the 5V voltage today...

[exxos]

I haven't read the whole thread. But I assume you know there's issues with some ram...https://exxosforum.co.uk/atari/mirror/p ... sdram.html