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GVP Impact Series II A500 issues


Sinphaltimus

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So I decided to pull the old Amiga 500 out and fire it up again.
It powered up just fine confirming I have a 3.1 rom chip installed and after booting to WB1.3 I confirm almost 8mb ram.
Great. Power it off. Connect my GVP Impact Series II A500HD+, turn it on by itself and it powers up, platters spinning.
Turn it off wait for HDD to go silent.

Power the amiga and GVP up at the same time. Amiga does not boot. Caps lock comes on then goes off, no power or activity light shown.
GVP powers up just like before.

Power everything off, disconnect GVP, boot up amiga to the WB3.1 insert floppy screen again. Seems fine.

 

I remove all ram from the gvp and reset the jumpers to their no mem setting. Reconnect, same thing. Amiga does not boot, it does power on but the power light and activity light do not stay on. I only know it is on by tapping the caps lock key and seeing the light go on and off.

Rinse and repeat.

It was working when I packed it away. At least I recall it was working. Any tips, known issues, possible part replacement?

What about this foot note I found on this website? Would that make sense of this was all working at some point? And where do I find the info about a trace cut? I used to do the cpu removal and replace trace cuts back in the day for the additional ram so I'm not afraid to do another HW project.

"problems may arise with the combination of A500, 8372A Agnus and an internal memory expansion with CPU or Gary adaptor - a trace has to be cut to solve the problem"

Source:http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact500mk2

User Manual: https://computerarchive.org/files/comp/hardware/amiga/GVP_Impact_Series_II_A500_HD_Users_Guide.pdf

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So I dismantled this thing and everything seems in order. Without any ram installed and all jumpers set accordingly, the A500 will not boot if the GVP is connected. Doesn't matter what position the game/auto boot switch is in, doesn't even matter if the gvp is powered on or not.

The A500 doesn't crash or lock up, it just never makes it to boot (purple screen is all) or the insert floppy screen. The power light and activity light do not come on but the caps lock will blink at power on and will illuminate when pressed. Pressing A+A+Ctrl reboots the machine as I can see the caps lock blink.

I've checked the side bus where everything connects and it all seems perfectly fine. No sign of damage or dirty contacts or anything.

It seems non destructive as disconnecting the gvp allows the A500 to operate normally. Just suck not to have a work hdd system.

So I went out and ordered the GOTEK floppy emulator for the time being.

Are there any products or hacks or kits to make a working disk controller for the A500? scsi or ide doesn't matter. What about some flashrom kits or projects? CF? Another floppy replacement to allow hi speed read/writes at greater capacity than a floppy? As a boot device?

It's been so many years I had to look up the basics again, like why was there a trace lead on my 3.1 kickstart chip? Oh yeah, there it is. I've got a lot of mental dusting off to do..... Just looking to get my A500 back up and running again as if it were booting from hdd.

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I think one of the bigger Amiga forums might be able to offer some advice RE: the GVP. I've had a few and they have worked well but have not had good luck getting them running when something goes wrong. I suspect their PSUs are not very robust and that they have some ESD sensitive bits.

 

Have you checked out Kipper2k's web site? He's got a combo RAM/IDE board that fits into the 68000 socket which is an ideal basic upgrade. He's also going to be the one producing the Vampire 500 board which has digital video out, massive RAM expansion, ultra fast IDE, and a 68060 class processor.

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I think one of the bigger Amiga forums might be able to offer some advice RE: the GVP. I've had a few and they have worked well but have not had good luck getting them running when something goes wrong. I suspect their PSUs are not very robust and that they have some ESD sensitive bits.

 

Have you checked out Kipper2k's web site? He's got a combo RAM/IDE board that fits into the 68000 socket which is an ideal basic upgrade. He's also going to be the one producing the Vampire 500 board which has digital video out, massive RAM expansion, ultra fast IDE, and a 68060 class processor.

 

Oh, uhm. Wow. That all sounds great. I will go check those out. Thank you for this info. I'd love to get the GVP working again but I don't think it is a problem with the GVP per se'. As I mentioned, even with the GVP powered off (no power connected) my A500 will not boot if it is plugged in. I check as best I can but I don't see any shorts or anything. When the two units are separate they both power on independently and sound like they are in perfect working order (well I can play games and boot WB on the A500), the GVP spins up the HDD and I even hear it initialize after. So those are all good signs, just not together.

 

After reading what you shared, I care less. And am more inclined to go with a more modern upgrade.

 

 

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I FIXED IT!

 

Wow. I took a closer look at the board (After completely removing it from the plastic shell and disconnecting the 50MB HDD) and found 2 oaths bent.

 

The far right and far left metal trtaces that come from the external connector were both bent inwards towards each other and touching the traces next to them.

Doesn't appear as though any damage was done. WB3.1 booted right up for me! Now I need to find a spae HDD someplace because I suppose 50 MB SCSI I drives would be hard to come by.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...

OK, This project got put on hold because I screwed up my PROM chip when I plugged in the SCSI connector backwards.

However, I can confirm after purchasing an eprom programmer and the correct eprom, my SCSI controller is back in action. So I will most likely resume this project this weekend. :)

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