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From: bh11+@andrew.cmu.edu (Braddock John Hathaway)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: MacSprint II board
Message-ID: <gc4VGdK00WBME1uEVF@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 91 22:39:37 GMT
Organization: Class of '90, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 39

I have recently acquired a MacSprint II board (essentially a fast-ram cache
for the 68020 on the original Mac II) which I have installed in my Mac II.
The board is made by Orchid Technologies.  Their tech support is helpful but
slow (I've gotten a software upgrade, a hardware upgrade, and spend *HOURS*
on the phone with them over the 1.5 months I've had the card ... lots of
phone tag).

The following problems have cropped up since I started using the board:

1) Seemingly randomly, the system will freeze.  (not crash, just freeze ...
   mouse movement is still there, but nothing else seems to be happening)
   It's like a call to the processor was sent by a program, but nothing
   ever came back.  This is annoying (making the system unusable with the
   card activated), but not so unnerving as the following ...

2) When this hanging happens, restarting the computer causes it to go on
   a search for a bootable volume ... which it doesn't find.  I get the
   "give me a disk, dummy!" flashing "?" graphic.  This is what happens
   if I try to reboot immediately after problem (1) happens.  If I wait a
   while before rebooting (like 5 minutes or more), boot-up goes as normal
   except it seems to take a lot longer during the "happy mac" startup
   graphic.  At this point, we return to problem (1).

I am running quite a few inits (too many to list here) that I have not tried
de-installing yet ... but I don't think that this is the problem.  Why would
an init wait for 5-10 minutes before actually doing anything that would cause
a problem?  After Dark is turned off by the way.

Any/all clues on this matter would be appreciated.  If none are forthcoming,
I will be accepting offers of $50 + shipping on a lovely, hardly used
MacSprint II card (original cheap mail order cost was $259).

Thanks in advance,

Brad

PS: If I do get the thing going again, I *CAN'T WAIT* until system 7.0
    is actually released ... which I'm sure will provide me with many
    more problems.