Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!cica!travis!greg From: greg@travis.cica.indiana.edu (Gregory TRAVIS) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: More info on A2091 woes Message-ID: Date: 30 Jan 91 16:33:56 GMT References: <9696@cica.cica.indiana.edu> <1991Jan14.193336.13387@convex.com> <1991Jan15.155835.5230@javelin.es.com> <14480@june.cs.washington.edu> <2627@excelan.COM> <2642@excelan.COM> <10051@cic Sender: news@cica.cica.indiana.edu Lines: 58 Here is some more information for Commodore/Randell. As I posted before and as Randell suggested, turning off reselection on the A2091 with 5.92 ROMS and the WD "A" chip is NOT sufficient to avoid the lockup problem. First of all, my configuration: 1 A2500/30 with 4 Meg of 32-Bit RAM 1 A2091 with ROM V5.92 and the WD "A" chip. 2 Meg of 16-bit RAM on the board. 1 flickerFixer 1 Internal Quantum ProDrive 40Meg 1 External MiniScribe (forgot the model #) 300Meg 1 External CDC Wren, 300Meg Last night, due to the fact that I had trashed the Miniscribe (would not validate - Key already set) during a previous lock-up I copied off the data on the Quantum and the Miniscribe to the CDC Wren. I then: a) Made sure the drive types in HDtoolBox all had reselection turned OFF. b) Low-level formatted the Quantum and Miniscribe drives. c) Changed their partitions and wrote the new information out to disk. d) Copied the data back from the CDC drive to the Quantum and Miniscribe drives. e) Disconnected the CDC drive. f) Sat down and tried to do some work. At some point during the night, I had a program bomb on me (no big deal) while it was writing to the Miniscribe and it locked up the system (but not the controller) so I had to do the Control-Amiga-Amiga dance. I rebooted. However, since the Miniscribe was "dirty" at the time of the crash, the validator started trying to validate it AS my Startup-Sequence was being executed from the Quantum (my SYS: disk). As I'm sure you can all guess, the system locked up solid and was unable to complete the boot sequence. I was able to get it running again by hitting control-A/B/C right after the initial CLI window comes up - it stops execution of Startup-Sequence and the validator goes on and does its thing - if you're lucky. The worst is to have validators try and run on both the Quantum and Miniscribe at the same time - I have to turn off the Miniscribe before re-booting to get around that possibility. Leaving the CDC drive on-line (it was also formatted with reselection turned OFF) dramatically increases the likelyhood of the A2091 locking up. It can lock up during normal power-up just going out and looking at all those drives and trying to stick their icons in the workbench at the same time. I posted this to give Commodore (and Amiga users) some more data on the symptoms and system configurations under which the A2091 locks up. I sure hope those new ROMS become available soon and I can use my Amiga without fear! -- Gregory R. Travis Indiana University, Bloomington IN 47405 greg@cica.cica.indiana.edu Center for Innovative Computer Applications Disclaimer: Everything I say is true and I never lie.