exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi,

A few days ago i introduced myself because of the TF536.
I should have posted earlier , but i was busy doing a lot other things besides of messing around with my Mega ST.

But pictures first. It may be interessting to others tat an ET4000 Graphics adapter, 4 via software switchable TOS, 8 MB ALT-RAM, IDE and USB are fitting well together with the TF536 into a Mega ST.


On the CPU-socket the cloudy/storm ST combi-pcb is placed. Then a relocator on top of the cloudy to come clear of the STGA.
then the Lightning ST (IDE/USB-board) is placed on the relocator. Finally the TF536 now is sitting on top of everything.


Generally the setup is working very well.
In certain combinations (TOS-Versions and agranlund's tools) USB and/or the floppy drive stopped working.

But i have to check this again without changing too much at once.



greetings

Markus

Isn't that a 534 ?

Nice! Impressive stack of things in that machine :)

Uuuh, YES sorry,

of course that's the TF534...

but the TF536 looks the same:


Looks like the TF536 has got a problem today. The system is freezing after about 15 minutes. It was running for days before without any problems before... DAMIT

Markus

Hello Markus,

Were did you get that relocation board from? Or did you make it yourself.

It's probably crashing because of that plastic 030 CPU. As far as I know you need a ceramic to safely reach 50mhz. It probably also needs a little heatsink.

Steve wrote: 13 Jun 2022 10:29 It's probably crashing because of that plastic 030 CPU. As far as I know you need a ceramic to safely reach 50mhz. It probably also needs a little heatsink.

Other people have found the opposite re: CPU type. It very much depends upon the specific die, revision and whether the oven operator had a cheese sandwich that week. Overclocking is always a hit and miss affair, otherwise the chip would be marked for that speed by the manufacturer.

Well...

The actual CPU is only clocked at 40 MHz, but i think i have overdone it trying different mainboards...
In an unmodified Mainboard the TF was running, but unreliable especially after a hard reset.
The second mainboard has pullups and reset line modified and the TF was running very stable and only crashing when starting certain software (when i was testing what software was running, doing some benchmark using gembench and testing differences when using agranlund's tools). The only thing i noticed is that the ET4000 was getting warmer than the other two cards i am currently using.
I decided to install the TF into a third mainboard that has additionally the LS244 and LS373 replaced by F-types. The grapics card seems to work cooler but at this point the "freezes" started.
After moving the board back to the second board the problem still is the same. For this reason i think i may have caused a damage to the TF.

Anyways, im looking for a 50MHz CPU and maybe a TF536 that has 128MB installed.

The TOS-Board, IDE and USB are running fine with EMU-TOS. even the IDE mapped to "1" seems to work. (meaning that i now have the possibility to install 4 IDE devices ?!?

very fascinating to experience a now nearly 40 years old machine that can still be very usefull...

btw..

thy for all the replies...