Re: Phil C's Raven build
Posted: 25 Oct 2025 19:29
So those of you who have been following along know that I've been having some trouble with using a CL-GD5434 card in my Raven,with it crashing under Tyrian and Doom.
Over the last few days I've been conducting some experimentation with CPU clock frequencies and seeing if these have an effect on anything.
My Raven will run happily at 96mhz all day long with the overclocked CL-GD5429 graphics card installed but crashes within a minute or two when trying to ruin anything graphics wise with the 5434.
I wanted too rule out if the CPU was the issue causing the crashes, so tried a few other frequencies.
At 88mhz Tyrian and Doom crash instantly, with Tyrian only making it as far as the menu screen and crashing instantly. Doom was pretty much the same.
At 90mhz the Raven seemed to be playing nicer with the GD5434 but would still crash but after about 10 - 20 mins or the Tyrian demo looping.
The next oscillator I had that I'd not tried was a 50mhz rectangular oscillator (which doubles to 100mhz or the Raven) that I'd had in my parts bin for a few years. I didn't expect much from this, thinking that this would likely cause a CPU crash.
Amusingly this seems to be the most stable out of the lot. With Tyrian running for a number of 20 min sessions with me resetting the Raven and repeating. Now its not much faster than the Raven at 96mhz, so I wasn't planning on using the 100mhz for bragging rights or anything but strangely, this combination of the Diamond Speedster 64 overclocked and the Raven running at 100mhz CPU is so far the most reliable its been.
I do have a good fan on the 68060from a Pentium, some good case fans and heatsinks on just about everything else, so will be trying this as is and hoping it doesn't die in a bunch of flames :lol:
I did hear Amigawise that some Rev 6 68060s are more stable at certain frequencies than others but I wasn't thinking 100 would run better for me than 96. Wondering if it's also a Raven timing issue?
Watch this space.
Over the last few days I've been conducting some experimentation with CPU clock frequencies and seeing if these have an effect on anything.
My Raven will run happily at 96mhz all day long with the overclocked CL-GD5429 graphics card installed but crashes within a minute or two when trying to ruin anything graphics wise with the 5434.
I wanted too rule out if the CPU was the issue causing the crashes, so tried a few other frequencies.
At 88mhz Tyrian and Doom crash instantly, with Tyrian only making it as far as the menu screen and crashing instantly. Doom was pretty much the same.
At 90mhz the Raven seemed to be playing nicer with the GD5434 but would still crash but after about 10 - 20 mins or the Tyrian demo looping.
The next oscillator I had that I'd not tried was a 50mhz rectangular oscillator (which doubles to 100mhz or the Raven) that I'd had in my parts bin for a few years. I didn't expect much from this, thinking that this would likely cause a CPU crash.
Amusingly this seems to be the most stable out of the lot. With Tyrian running for a number of 20 min sessions with me resetting the Raven and repeating. Now its not much faster than the Raven at 96mhz, so I wasn't planning on using the 100mhz for bragging rights or anything but strangely, this combination of the Diamond Speedster 64 overclocked and the Raven running at 100mhz CPU is so far the most reliable its been.
I do have a good fan on the 68060from a Pentium, some good case fans and heatsinks on just about everything else, so will be trying this as is and hoping it doesn't die in a bunch of flames :lol:
I did hear Amigawise that some Rev 6 68060s are more stable at certain frequencies than others but I wasn't thinking 100 would run better for me than 96. Wondering if it's also a Raven timing issue?
Watch this space.