ACA 1221lc problem

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • Hi. I've recently received my ACA 1221lc accelerator with RTC module.:love: It had been working fine on my A1200 OS 3.9 machine until last week. Everything seemed normal, but when I inserted a floppy disk there was static on the screen doubling the size of the top display bar and the mouse pointer and Amidock gave bar-code style red and pink graphical bars. The A1200 even guru'd the first time it happened.:cursing:

    I tried turning the machine off and on and also re-seating the accelerator card. The card seemed to be on an angle which it wasn't when installed. :rolleyes:After doing this there was No change. I thought I must have a failed CIA chip;( but later swapped out the 1221lc for a 1233n and all was back to normal. :saint:

    What could be awry with the 1221lc card I've bought?:/

    Thanks.:whistling:

  • The A1200 is running OS 3.9 with Visualprefs and FBlit.

    If you are still using FBlit, although common knowledge is that it's a bad idea to do so, I'd expect more software trouble with his machine. If there are things like MCP or other system patches by a known-bad French guy, I'd first do a clean re-install.


    At what speed are you running the ACA1221lc?


    Next, please let us know what kind of power supply you are using. Many problems are caused by the PSU, especially since MeanWell-based PSUs have reached the market a few years ago.

  • Hi Jens Thanks for the reply. I can remove FBlit easily enough. I'm running BlazeWCP, FBlit and FText from the Startup-Sequence. Should I remove these calls? What other patches would there be on ClassicWB OS 3.9 apart from Boing Bags 1,2,3+4 which are installed?


    The System is currently running fine with an A500 heavy PSU and a DKB Cobra Accelerator. It was also running fine with an ACA 1233n. It just seems to be the ACA 1221lc which was ok but now not. Great little card the 1221lc but I also couldn't work out why it's a 16MB card and only 11.2MB avail? apart from the 1MB maprom. What of the 3.8MB left?


    Anyway Thanks :)

  • BlazeWCP, FBlit and FText from the Startup-Sequence. Should I remove these calls?

    Yes, please do. I have my doubts about these, and the best compatibility will be there if you have the original system installed.

    What other patches would there be on ClassicWB OS 3.9 apart from Boing Bags 1,2,3+4 which are installed?

    I have really no idea what "ClassicWB" adds, and I consider such distributions non-standard. If you want to be sure that you have the originally-intended files, please make a clean install from the original media.

    The System is currently running fine with an A500 heavy PSU and a DKB Cobra Accelerator. It was also running fine with an ACA 1233n. It just seems to be the ACA 1221lc which was ok but now not.

    "now not" hints at "something changed in the system" - did you add or change anything? Did you make a change in ACAtool? Note that 40MHz operation is blazingly fast for a 68020, but it will only run stable if the power supply has top-notch regulation (CA-PSU would be my recommendation).


    Great little card the 1221lc but I also couldn't work out why it's a 16MB card and only 11.2MB avail? apart from the 1MB maprom. What of the 3.8MB left?

    The CPU of the ACA1221lc is a 68ec020. This has a total address space of 16MBytes only. You need to deduct ROM, Chip ram and register space. No other vendor before has managed to provide this much memory with this small CPU. However, memory is cheap in 2020, and I consider it more valuable to have more than 11MBytes usable memory space instead of only 9 (that was with the predecessor card ACA1221ec), and reduce the available space for special software to access the unused parts of the physical memory. This special software never materialized for the ACA1221ec, and I have my doubts that anyone will create it for the ACA1221lc. We did have a "special RAM disk" for the ACA620, but got hardly any report about anyone using it. I still decided to provide a possibility to access this unused memory (see register description), so in case someone gets bored on a lonely winter evening, maybe he/she will implement a RAM disk.

  • I haven't changed anything. I did have a ram problem with my Cobra earlier, that's why I ordered the 1221lc. But it turns out I had corrupted system files from using my PCMCIA CF adapter. I have no idea what happened but re-installing DH0: fixed that. The A500 PSU has been really good, I haven't noticed any other glitches, as the 1233n and Cobra are working fine. Thanks for the info regarding available ram on the 1221lc, I'm not really tech or code minded so that's very interesting. The 1221lc was set at the standard 29mhz or whatever it was. I hadn't changed anything with ACATool. I was interested in the synchronous 14mhz function. I wondered if that would be a better system? I like running demos so I thought the higher 29mhz would be better. I did try Scenery Animator and it rendered very close to the speed of the Cobra with a 40mhz FPU which was quite good.

    Thanks.

  • The A500 PSU has been really good, I haven't noticed any other glitches, as the 1233n and Cobra are working fine.

    If you can, please try with a different PSU. The ACA1221lc is probably the most delicate one in terms of voltage: A bit too high, and the CPU gets too hot for "no fan near it", and a bit too low, and the CPU doesn't like the 26.6MHz any more. So yes, you can try to reduce the speed to 20MHz or even the sync 14MHz and see if it makes a difference. If it does, then your power supply might be ageing, and the output caps may need to be replaced after all these years.

  • I've just used ACATool to save and Flash the Clock Speed at 14.xMHZ with not other changes to the standard settings. Now the A1200 won't load Workbench giving an AmigaDOS message "Invalid Resident Library". I looked in DH0:S at the Startup-Sequence as your program says it writes to it but couldn't see any additions other than ;ACATool ;Disabled at the top. I then looked at the User-Startup. There's an ASSIGN >:NIL VRAM call which I'm not familiar with and down further Copy S:Ram.info RAM:Disk.info and RUN >:NIL RamSnap. RamSnap is also in the :C directory. Has ACATool added these? there's no mention of them being added to User-Startup? What is the Invalid Resident Libary. I'm OS 3.9 KS 3.1.

  • Further Update. I just booted without a Startup-Sequence and ran ACATool again. This time set speed to 20mhz, PCMCIA preserved. WB loads. But memory corruption on screen if I insert a floppy is still there. It guru'd 8100 0005. Would the PCMCIA preserved space be conflicting with the floppy drive?


    Thanks. :)

  • I've tried a couple of PSU's and no change, so to recap: my A1200 3.9 gets screen artifacts and gurus when a floppy is inserted from WB? 8100 0005. Which I believe is a FreeMem Alloc() error. The floppy doesn't read properly from WB either. This only happens with my new ACA 1221lc card and HDD boot-up on WB. SYSTest tests CIA's and Floppy fine. With a floppy-boot it's fine; floppy reads ok. It's also fine with other accelerators. Thanks :|


  • Hi Jens. It would be nice to use the 1221lc as you've made it current and up to date. I like the older accelerators as collectable and authentic, maybe preferring a Blizzard which I don't have. The 1221lc works fine from OS 3.1 floppy which feels fantastic! I don't know enough about the OS 3.9 BB 4 CF install. It seems something is wrong with the way it is setup. I had problems earlier as I said where RAM: was full and WB wouldn't load globally. I re- copied the DH0: folder and it was fine. This happened after using the PMCIA. Now it is only with the 1221lc and floppy use on OS 3.9. This also happened after using the PCMCIA. I read in a blog about a program like SnoopDos that tracked memory events and reported errors and corresponding file calls. I don't believe AmigaOS is like Windows where it re-configures itself continuously so I'd like to know what event is causing this conflict. Or how PCMCIA use can cause a file to call an out of range memory address all of a sudden and which file it is. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Regards.

  • I don't know enough about the OS 3.9 BB 4 CF install. It seems something is wrong with the way it is setup.

    I don't even know if BB4 is official - I only remember BB2 to be an official release, so this may already be the problem. However, I'd like to point out that the ACA1221lc is a hardware product, and e can't possibly give support for cleaning up a WB installation. Please try a clean install from installation media, not from some half-official pre-installed images.


    PCMCIA might cause a conflict in terms of drivers and of course power. Your "couple of PSUs" are still not specified, and I'd expect none of them to have cable drop compensation. Given the age of the original ones, and the extremely low quality of anything that is offered "new" but doesn't have cable drop compensation, you might really be looking at a power problem. Not in terms of "amount of power", but "quality of power" (regulation, ripple).

  • Hi Jens. I've put the 1233n in the Amiga and it's working fine so I think the 1221lc is more susceptible to timing issues. I'm not sure if the timing fix had been done or not. I was told it was but ? I'll keep the 1221lc anyway, it's a nice little card.

    I would like to ask about the MMU on the 1233n if there is one. I installed ACA1233nLib. Does it need a library call in startup-sequence? I'm not sure if there is an MMU on the card, SYSInfo says 68030 CPU and no speed reading & MMU 68030 (NOT IN USE). As far as card ID; ACATool says NEW 55MHz version while ACAInfo says 33Mhz also 40MHz so I don't know.... any pointers? On the box it says ACA1233n-55. Thanks

  • ACAinfo and the library are not maintained any more. Only the new ACAtool really knows about the 55MHz card, so the old tools are bound to output wrong info.


    Yes, the card has an MMU. If you have an application that uses it (such as enforcer), it'll work. If you haven't missed an MMU until today, you won't need it.

  • Jens this thread can be resolved. I think timing issues with the 1D4 mobo was the issue. As I've installed a 1233n -55 I'm considering buying another A1200 with an acceptable mobo revision for the 1221lc.


    Thanks.:thumbup:

  • Jens this thread can be resolved. I think timing issues with the 1D4 mobo was the issue. As I've installed a 1233n -55 I'm considering buying another A1200 with an acceptable mobo revision for the 1221lc.


    Thanks.:thumbup:

    Maybe removing the passives from the bottom part of the mobo would be a cheaper solution for you and 1D4 is the best revision for A1200.


    http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA1221lc


    Go down to "Possible required modifications."

  • I still believe that this customer had a power problem; the ACA1221lc does use the new timing model that I have developed with the ACA1233n back in 2016. It is much more tolerant against the timing errors introduced by the passive components on the bottom side of the board (E123C and E125C). I do maintain the "possible required board modifications" for all accelerators because the original Commodore memos about the Budgie chip include removal of these components "no matter what".


    I have even back-ported this model to the very first sync accelerator that I've ever made (the ACA1230, released in 2010), and that made it work with all the "extremely piccy" boards, without the need to remove said components.


    While it became very unlikely that a new accelerator completely crashes because of these caps still being installed, I still recommend removing them, because other parts of the system (such as SHires graphics) may become instable, too.


    The prime source of trouble remains power supplies. Especially for the ACA1221lc, which many people show to be working great at 40MHz, will only work reliably at that speed of the usable voltage inside the machine is between 4.95V and 5.05V. You are either an engineer and can adjust an off-the-shelve chassis to output that exact voltage for your system (and you should re-adjust that every time the temperature in the room changes, and every time you add/remove something to/from the system), or you use a CA-PSU.

  • The last reply was more than 365 days ago, this thread is most likely obsolete. It is recommended to create a new thread instead.