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

[PacificState]

I have a Falcon that works fine - but the cabling is kind of a mess. It has:

- a Pico PSU connected to the CT60 via a 24->20 pin ATX adaptor
- a long cable connected to the DC socket
- another mess of wires and adaptors that break out the floppy connector
- An SD -> IDE adaptor connected by a 6 inch cable and wrapped in electrical tape

Is there a recommended 20 pin Pico PSU that will plug straight to the board without startup problems? It already hiccups a bit at first boot, so it'd be great to avoiding making that worse. I guess the same goes for the IDE adaptor - is there a DOM that works?

[alexh]

Centurion Tech sell one. I'm on the waiting list at the moment. Join the list and as soon as it gets to a certain level he makes a new batch.

https://centuriontech.eu/product/ct60psu/

People have confirmed the Kingspec DOM and Transcend DOMs work but I suspect any 44-pin DOM would work. There are some cheap Hyperdisc ones on AliExpress at the moment.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003548648501.html

[PacificState]

Thanks - DOM ordered, and I'm on the waitlist for the PSU.

While I'm here - there was <but no longer> a jumper wire on the right hand side of the Xilinx chip next to the CT60 fan, in a u-shape bridging two pins. Needless to say it wasn't too sturdy and has come off, but the card works fine - does anyone know what that'd be for? I think I can reattach it from eyeballing the two solder blobs, but I'm not sure I can see it in other pics online.

[PacificState]

Sorry - I've started two threads here on this machine, so let me stick to one. So far, I've:

- Replaced the PicoPSU power supply and ended up with much neater cabling
- Replaced the DIMM socket on the CT60 due to a broken clip (came out pretty easily with the Hakko desoldering gun)
- Reflashed the latest CT60 boot rom and firmware
- Fitted the 16MB disk-on-module suggested above (thanks, alexh!), rather than the SD card adapter that was flapping around against the main board
- Tidied up the capacitors on the back of the board
- Fitted a new clock patch and flash

...and I really should have taken pictures along the way, although I guess I can grab one of the finished(ish) board. I have two problems remaining:

- The machine can't read the (rev 5) 68060 temperature; it comes out as null in both the 1.05 boot menu and the TOS control panel.

- I occasionally get the odd error message on boot that 'this machine isn't a Falcon 030', and the machine boots to a black and white desktop. That said, I'm still booting from the drive image that came with the machine - and a reboot then fixes the issue.

While I'm not sure these are major issues at this point, it would be nice to fix them - can anyone suggest what might be going wrong? Thanks!

IMG_2401@0.5x.png (1.34 MiB) Viewed 1983 times

[mikro]

That message box is actually indication of a very serious problem: your cookie jar (occasionally, it seems) doesn't contain the _MCH value or it is not equal to 0x30000. This check is done in the CPX, CT60TEMP.ACC and XBIOS itself (where it checks also for _CPU and 68060). Don't ask me how this is possible but most likely you've broken something along the way (DIMM contacts maybe?)

[kohli79]

Regarding DOM storage module:
I had a good experience here and ordered some more. Was original and worked without any problems on the Falcon.
https://www.ebay.de/itm/304958780006

Greetings Uwe

[PacificState]

Thanks - it was doing this before I replaced anything. In hindsight, if I'd have known it was a more serious error I'd have tracked it down first. Edit: when the machine came to me, it reported a 'Bad Rom CRC in Chip E' error at boot (not quite sure of the exact wording), which was cured by refreshing the boot rom.

How does the cookie jar get set - especially with a CT60 installed? Is it in the rom? It's a *very* intermittent problem. For what it's worth, the temperature reading never works, even when the machine boots fine and that error does not appear.

[PacificState]

kohli79: that's the DOM I got! I had problems ordering from AliExpress for some reason, but the eBay order turned out great.

[exxos]

when the machine came to me, it reported a 'Bad Rom CRC in Chip E' error at boot (not quite sure of the exact wording), which was cured by refreshing the boot rom.

Sounds like the CPU might be overclocked too much going by all what you stated so far. I suggest running THIS on ST and TTram to see if your machine is even stable before trying to debug applications.

[mikro]

The cookie jar is initialised by the TOS and placed in low RAM by default. There could be a number of reasons involved but as you had trouble with content of the flash, it isn't a bad guess to start there.

Try what @exxos suggested. Also, when you see such an error, immediately fire up some app to tell you the content of the cookie jar -- SysInfo (there are two). That will tell you whether the machine is wrongly detected or plain empty. Both states would be pretty interesting.