Falcon floppy problems

[Acsi]

Hi

OK so I finally got round to digging out my Falcon to find it will not boot from the CF card. It also will not access any floppy drive (LED stays on and motor does not spin).

Trying to format a disk brings up disk is write protected but does not try to access it.

The board has an Afterburner 040 and Nova fitted and is in a Wizztronics case. Voltages measure ok.

Any ideas?

[Acsi]

OK further to this using Exxos's test cartridge will never get to the menu and either locks up (black, blue or red screen) having got a certain way through the initial tests or loading the menu. Sometimes it comes up with E6 E8 or E9 error's.

Trying to run Gembench from the same cartridge gets stuck with the busy bee although the mouse will still move.

It will however sit on the desktop quite happily and the keyboard and mouse work fine. I can also change resolution ok.

[exxos]

For you first problem https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =17&t=1417 even though not for falcon, I believe it suffers with the same problem.

As for crashing, likely reseat will that you can and try again. Though you may have to remove afterburner and try again.

If your PSU hasn't been recapped, then you need to do that as well. There's various fixes here https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =17&t=1585

[stephen_usher]

OK further to this using Exxos's test cartridge will never get to the menu and either locks up (black, blue or red screen) having got a certain way through the initial tests or loading the menu. Sometimes it comes up with E6 E8 or E9 error's.

Trying to run Gembench from the same cartridge gets stuck with the busy bee although the mouse will still move.

It will however sit on the desktop quite happily and the keyboard and mouse work fine. I can also change resolution ok.

That sounds like dirty cartridge port connections to me.

Fold a piece of paper in half and then in half again. spray on isopropyl alcohol and gently place the corner into the cartridge slot. Slide it up and down the connectors and in and out a number of times to clean off corrosion and gently polish the surfaces. That should help the connections.

[Acsi]

So I've reseated what I can and tried different ram cards.

IDE, Floppy and cartridge do not work. I cannot test SCSI at the moment.

I've swapped the DSP's 50MHz crystal with another and swapped the main bus one which was 40MHz with a 32MHz one and get the same result.

Tomorrow I will try resetting the NVRAM as maybe that's causing the problem?

[exxos]

If afterburner is easy to remove, I really would try a stock Falcon configuration first..

[Acsi]

The afterburner is not easily removed (at least by me)

I have managed to get the diagnostic cartridge to work sometimes although it will always throw up a T4 error if it gets that far

RAM, ROM, Blitter and real time clock test OK

Floppy completely fails. Motor will not spin, LED is on constantly and any test fails. Times out waiting for interrupt.
IDE completely fails.
Video tests fail.
Timing Test fails with T4 Video Counter in Memory Controller.

Given this I am of the belief the COMBO chip has failed or is failing.

[exxos]

Does afterburner accelerate the bus, or do you have any other addons ?

[Acsi]

I do not believe the Afterburner accelerates the bus. I am probably wrong on this but from memory the Afterburner uses the system bus?

I have a Nova graphics adapter on top of the afterburner which I have removed.

The board itself has had the DSP bus accelerated to 50MHz and I have swapped the crystal to a 32MHz one.
The system bus has a 40MHz crystal on it which I have also swapped with 32MHz.

These changes have had no effect.

I am using a 44pin CF and DVD drive on the internal IDE which I have also removed although the CF card is back.
I did have a CosmosEx attached to the SCSI and Floppy which I have removed and tried several floppy drives in place of.

I have also swapped the the NVRAM chip and tried with it removed completely.

[exxos]

Is the PSU recapped ?