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A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:56 pm

can someone please confirm that they have a FastaATA4000 MKVII card working in their A4000 with OS3.2 roms installed.

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rzazar
Northern Virginia

Posted Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:37 pm

I had an issue installing OS 3.2 on my A4000 with FastATA 4000 MK-VII and HDtoolbox. I had to use WinUAE to install OS 3.2 on my CF card. Do not install drivers for FastATA 4000 MK-VII otherwise, you will get Guru Meditation and corrupt filesystem. I believe for some reason the FastATA is not compatible with OS 3.2.
My A4000 working now but sometimes I get Guru Meditation.

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A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:15 pm

@ rzazar

thanks for the info :) My issue is my brand new board won't be seen by early startup at all..even with it being the only card in my Zorro Daughterboard? Elbox is telling me they tested the board before sending it out but it looks like its DOA..Amigakit wanted me to test with 3.1 roms which I no longer have so I've reached out to other owners and I've confirmed that there are users with 3.2 roms that have working FastaATA4000 MK-VII boards so looks like I need to send my board back sadly

User avatar
stevelord

Posted Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:15 am

I think I've already spoken to OP on EAB, but by way of a heads up FastATA Mk-VII definitely *does* work on 3.2. I didn't need to do anything fancy for it to show up and loaded FastATA.driver before prepping and installing.

If it's not detected in Autoconfig the OS is irrelevant: The card isn't initialising, and an autoconfig card will have drivers and tools based on autoconfig initialisation. There's always an outside chance that a specific KS version might stop autoconfig initialising for a card but it'd have to be very weird to not mark the card as disabled, let alone to have an otherwise stable-ish system.

One thing that did lead to general instability (across the board but often resulting in drive corruption) was the combo of my A3660 and ZZ9000. In full HD my ZZ9000 seemed to cause stability problems. I suspect this was the onboard Z3 RAM being used, while the screen and Ethernet were also being used. This happened less on lower resolutions at lower bit depths, but it only stopped when I installed a Cyberstorm (that had on-board RAM of it's own).

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rzazar
Northern Virginia

Posted Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:01 pm

@stevelord

Thanks for the info. I have ZZ9000 in my current configuration. Do you think if I disable Z3 RAM on ZZ9000 and use Big RAM+ instead, it will help stability problems? Currently, I am using the FastaATA4000 MK-VII without the drivers installed and not getting full read/write speed.

My A4000 Config:

* 68040 at 25 MHz
* 12MB onboard Fast RAM
* DKB 4091SCSI II Controller
* ELBOX FastATA 4000 MK-VII CF/SATA Zorro III
* ZZ9000 (Firmware 1.9.1)
* IDE CD-ROM Drive

User avatar
stevelord

Posted Sat Nov 27, 2021 9:47 am

rzazar wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:01 pm
Do you think if I disable Z3 RAM on ZZ9000 and use Big RAM+ instead, it will help stability problems?
I wasn't aware you could disable the Z3 RAM. It's worth seeing if there's a difference in stability between 1920x1080-16-bit and 800x600-8-bit or 640x512-16-bit.
rzazar wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:01 pm
Currently, I am using the FastaATA4000 MK-VII without the drivers installed and not getting full read/write speed.
You really should use the drivers, you could risk corruption issues if you don't (from docs I've read, can't remember where though). After installing the drivers and testing in different PIO modes can you remove the 4091 and see if that makes a difference?[/quote]

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rzazar
Northern Virginia

Posted Sat Nov 27, 2021 2:01 pm

stevelord wrote:
Sat Nov 27, 2021 9:47 am
I wasn't aware you could disable the Z3 RAM. It's worth seeing if there's a difference in stability between 1920x1080-16-bit and 800x600-8-bit or 640x512-16-bit.
You really should use the drivers, you could risk corruption issues if you don't (from docs I've read, can't remember where though). After installing the drivers and testing in different PIO modes can you remove the 4091 and see if that makes a difference?
You can disable the Z3 RAM by using the ZZ9000 Firmware 1.9.1 BOOT.bin for Zorro 3 (No 256MB Z3 Mem) here is the link: https://source.mnt.re/amiga/zz9000-firmware/-/releases/

Image

When I install the drivers The Amiga freezes constantly. I am going to use the firmware with no Z3 RAM and install the drivers. I will post the updates.
My Amiga was stable prior to updating to OS 3.2 and adding ZZ9000. I do not know which one is causing the issue.

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A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Mon Nov 29, 2021 10:15 am

Thanks for the feedback guys as I wanted to confirm to Elbox that the OS3.2 roms weren't an issue...I'm still waiting to hear back from them after sending them pics of front and back of my card...

btw, I have VA2000 and CX video cards in my A4000 working fine and happy with them though I get some minor artifacts on some demos still

User avatar
A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Fri Dec 10, 2021 7:25 pm

well Elbox finally told me to send the card in for warranty BUT I wish they would have just sent me over the replacement chips as the board looked great....Canada Post wanted $50 to send the card over so regular parcel it was and just hoping it doesn't get 'lost' :roll:

User avatar
A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Tue Aug 30, 2022 2:54 pm

ok so finally got a new card from Elbox and same damn issue? Only difference is this time chips feel warm on the card and the HD LED lights up.


Elbox's only input so far was to make sure the A4000 CPU jumper settings were correct which they obviously are for CS-MKIII to be working great for 22+ years.

Card just isn't seen at all in any Zorro board slot MB & PSU were both recapped a few years back and all other boards working fine so doesn't look like a Zorro board issue? Elbox confirmed the card was tested at their shop before sending it out





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