Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!druwy!med From: med@druwy.ATT.COM (Myron Drapal) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Flaky ST! Message-ID: <3907@druwy.ATT.COM> Date: 13 Mar 89 17:06:34 GMT References: <8901150021.AA01172@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO Lines: 109 in article <8901150021.AA01172@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, V067MAJP@UBVMS.BITNET (Arion) says: > > Help! > I'm not sure watch to do with my ST. Anyone have any suggestions? > (Before you start, let me list some symptoms.) > VERY erratic behavior. Sometimes, it works perfectly, others it refuses to > boot. > When it does boot, sometimes it will refuse to recognise that my disks are NOT > blank! Other times, it will just continuously reboot by itself over and over. > Sometimes, the screen literally goes crazy and the ST crashes (or small blobs > will appear on the screen and then the works) > Sometimes a program which works fine (such as Uniterm) will end execution and > return to the desktop at random (sometimes right after it loads!) > Just to put things in perspective, this has been happening since I've gotten > the computer (and I was zealous, from what I can make out on the motherboard is > dated 1985 rev. A) and has been "repaired" quite a few times. > Any suggestions? > John > Bitnet: v067majp@ubvmsd > (the others, who knows? I'm still new at this stuff, I'm still not sure what > USENET is.) One easy solution... Gentle lift the ST up about 4 inches and drop *sharply* on the tabletop. This actually works much better than it sounds. The chip sockets for most of the ST's, especially the old ones, were absolutely the *CHEAPEST* ones that Atari could buy. My ST used to exhibit many of these symptoms, and I got fed up with it and brought it in to a de-solder station and removed all of the sockets and replaced them with new, (and more expensive ;-() sockets, and have had very little problems with it since. It's a little radical, but it sure fixed it up proper. Myron Drapal att!med@druwy.ATT.COM From vn Mon Jan 16 15:58:47 1989 Subject: Re: Flaky ST! Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st References: <8901150021.AA01172@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> in article <8901150021.AA01172@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, V067MAJP@UBVMS.BITNET (Arion) says: > > Help! > I'm not sure watch to do with my ST. Anyone have any suggestions? > (Before you start, let me list some symptoms.) > VERY erratic behavior. Sometimes, it works perfectly, others it refuses to > boot. > Any suggestions? > John > Bitnet: v067majp@ubvmsd > (the others, who knows? I'm still new at this stuff, I'm still not sure what > USENET is.) One easy solution... Gentle lift the ST up about 4 inches and drop *sharply* on the tabletop. This actually works much better than it sounds. The chip sockets for most of the ST's, especially the old ones, were absolutely the *CHEAPEST* ones that Atari could buy. My ST used to exhibit many of these symptoms, and I got fed up with it and brought it in to a de-solder station and removed all of the sockets and replaced them with new, (and more expensive ;-() sockets, and have had very little problems with it since. It's a little radical, but it sure fixed it up proper. Myron Drapal att!med@druwy.ATT.COM From vn Mon Mar 13 10:05:33 1989 Subject: Re: Adaptec controller boards Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st References: <2312@van-bc.UUCP> in article <2312@van-bc.UUCP>, rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow) says: > > NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > > Please, people, check your facts! This thread could result in a lot of > people buying the wrong card. I quote from the Adaptec "ACB-4000 Series > User's Manual": > > "The ACB-4000A Controller ... supports SCSI features and controls two > Winchester drives. The ACB-4000A also supports both hard-sectored and > soft-sectored removable drives, as well as all ST506/412 type fixed > drives. The ACB-4000A was previously known as two separate products, the > ACB-4000 and the ACB-4010. It is fully compatible with these products." > > The inescapable conclusion I come to after reading that is that the Adaptec > 4000 (no 'A') is NOT complete, and that you would need the 4010 as well to > get a working system. If this is wrong, someone with a 4000 (no 'A') should > break their silence and put us straight about the differences. DO NOT BUY > AN ADAPTEC 4000 unless you know how it differs from the 4000A, because the > 4000A is the one people are running. > Right quote, wrong conclusion... I have both ACB-4000 and ACB-4000A and they work *exactly* the same. In fact, the only difference that I could find is that the board layout is slightly different, and the mounting holes in the 4000A match the mounting holes on the bottom of a 5.25 hard disk, where the older 4000 board does not. The way I would then read the above quote from the ACB-4000 manual is that the 4000A is a (newer) replacement for the 4000 *OR* the 4010. So, buy the 4000 if you "get a deal on it" (Time Line has the 4000 in their ad for $60, but it's really a 4000A), otherwise buy an OMTI (its faster ;-)). Myron Drapal AT&T Bell Labs Denver ========================== Disclaimer: These are my own opinions.