exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I've been talking to jookie and hes added a new test into his program. I'll send it to people who can test.

DMA issues normally (and should ) be verified by saving folders and desktop.inf to confirm the drive gets easily corrupted.

All my STEs have the DMA fixes. So I can't test the program currently :lol: :roll:

I guess we need an ACSI HD to verify the DMA issues, right?

MegaSTEarian wrote: 21 Sep 2022 15:00 I guess we need an ACSI HD to verify the DMA issues, right?

Ultrasatan generally.

exxos wrote: 21 Sep 2022 15:13

MegaSTEarian wrote: 21 Sep 2022 15:00 I guess we need an ACSI HD to verify the DMA issues, right?

Ultrasatan generally.

:( I was hoping to be able to help...up until I saw that comment about Ultrasatan...
Unless someone wants to send one to me to test with my 3x working STE's? :D

I have tried several STEs now of various " disposition & revisions". It's just typical, I cannot get any of them to fail DMA transfers now :roll: I have copied endless thousands of files about. Previously I would only have to create a folder or save desktop. It was always repeatable.

I think the problem is tolerances everything is just so borderline that even just using a different power supply or a different ROM board could be enough to make or break things. Problem is a lot of my old test boards of been dismantled and rebuilt that many times over the years.. I did not specifically save a broken STE specifically for testing DMA issues anymore.

I mean last time I was doing tests the MOT brand CPU would always fail but the SGS ones wouldn't. I have tried 5 different MOT CPU's and they all work. I likely use the same set of CPUs when testing previously. Maybe the things only fail on extremely cold days or extremely hot days or something :shrug:

I will have a hunt for some more of the STE boards. But as it stands I will have to put out a plea to UK folks. That if any of you have a failing ultrasatan with your STE motherboard, to basically loan it to me to investigate it. I cannot develop a hard drive test program when I do not have a faulty system :lol: :roll:

I have an untouched STE that I will have a closer look this weekend (will bring it to the Cyber Legends show).
Is it purely HD file copying to test the DMA - no specific chip numbers/versions?
I have an ACSI SD card device i could test.

viking272 wrote: 22 Sep 2022 12:50 I have an untouched STE that I will have a closer look this weekend (will bring it to the Cyber Legends show).
Is it purely HD file copying to test the DMA - no specific chip numbers/versions?
I have an ACSI SD card device i could test.

It generally will fail with a Motorola's CPU and -38 DMA IC. Just try copying a few files to and from the hard drive to a different partition or something. When I was doing my test just creating a few folders was enough to corrupt but old card. Pretty much every single time saving desktop did it.

I'm using my original ultrasatan, the black box version. Pretty sure I was using that originally. I do have the later grey box version but I could give that a try. I tend not to use it because the case seems live :roll:

Both mine are boosted and have HC CPUs I'm afraid.

I'll check the CPU & DMA in my 3 working ones but can only test the external ACSI bus with spinning rust media if that's any help?

The 4th STE still needs the SIMM sockets repairing so probably not an option for the short term

JezC wrote: 22 Sep 2022 16:39 I'll check the CPU & DMA in my 3 working ones but can only test the external ACSI bus with spinning rust media if that's any help?

Worth a try.