ACA-1233n & A1200 Issues

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • After being out of the Amiga world for a long time, I finally acquired an A1200 in pretty decent shape (case yellowed, but in good shape otherwise) and it works as it should. I also acquired an ACA-1233n (I believe it is a -40), code gT3fb. I went to put this in my system and... nothing. The power light comes on but nothing else happens. I tried cleaning the expansion port card edge with a little Deoxit. It didn't help.


    So I did a little reading around and found where the Xilinx might fail and to measure the output of the 3.3V regulator. A good solid 3.3V DC. The chips on the board are barely even warm. Also checked the power rails (5V, +12V, -12V) and they were all right on.


    So I am assuming there is something wrong with the card, and I do not have another machine to test it on - So it will have to be sent for repair... or is there anything else I can check before packing it up and sending it across the world?


    Also, since this device doesn't have the FPU on it, is it possible to have this added if I do have to send it back?

  • 3T3bf is a 40MHz card without IDE-speeder, so a pre-2019 model (delivered February 2018 to AmigaKit).


    Try to pull back the card by 1mm and see if that helps - next thing to check is bent pins inside the white connector, or even at the back of the connector. Although the manual clearly says "do not push on the open contacts", some people still do...


    Measuring a power supply is tricky business. First of all, please read our PSU FAQ - then judge if your power supply is suitable for an expanded Amiga.


    We recommend not to add the FPU, and certainly don't offer the service. There's just too many fake parts around, and it's just not worth it. 99.9% of the software works without.

  • Yeah, I read later that the FPU was not a good idea, and even so it's not commonly used.


    The power supply is one of the switching A-500 supplies, the one without the huge transformer. Rated at 4.5A on the 5VDC rail. I'm going to go pick up my oscilloscope from storage and check the supply for ripple. I visually inspected the inside of the supply and found no leaking caps.


    So I thoroughly inspected the card connector to board connections - noticed nothing bent or out of the ordinary.


    I put the card back in the machine and backed the card out slightly - that didn't help. System still does the same thing.


    Is there anything else I can check before condemning the card? I'm trying to eliminate everything I can before it makes the trip overseas for repair... though it would be nice if it came back with IDE speeder added to it! 😆

  • Is there anything else I can check before condemning the card? I'm trying to eliminate everything I can before it makes the trip overseas for repair... though it would be nice if it came back with IDE speeder added to it! 😆

    If you have a scope, you can of course see if the 80MHz oscillator outputs a clock - crystal parts must be considered mechanical parts and are sensitive to shock. If the card has been rattled around in it's prior life, it may show with a defective crystal oscillator.


    We do have a procedure to add the IDE speeder - and it has a price tag as well :-) However, we should first make sure that the card can be repaired at all. Note that we do not charge for unsuccessful repairs. It may help A LOT if we knew the exact circumstances that the card failed first, so if you contact the previous owner and ask that question, it may shorten diagnosis a lot.

  • The card was sold to me as working from a reputable seller, so I don't have any reason to suspect that he sold me a defective card. The card was boxed well, packed in it's original box and then inside another box. The packing in the original box wasn't the greatest, so there could be shock damage.


    I will do a little probing and see what I find.

  • We ship our accelerators in a black anti-static bubble foil. That's a key ingredient of the inner packing - if that's missing, you're not only missing mechanical protection!


    As for reputable sellers, we currently see a rising number of cases where parts have changed hands, and it turns out that there's hard evidence of malfunction at the seller's side in form of visible repair attempts or burned components. Not sure if that has to do with the current economic/social circumstances of people doing more stuff online, meeting less people in person and changing their ethic principles in the process.


    Naturally, these cases end up in this forum. We try to help where we can, and over the course of a dialogue with another customer, I had a viable idea of how to offer programmed CPLDs for repair purposes. I'd like to confirm once again that I am a fan of the "right to repair" idea.

  • This wasn't packed in that package, but was in a anti-static bag wrapped in thin foam.


    I read through that thread about the CPLD service... it is why I'm trying my hand at troubleshooting. I'm a fairly good hand at soldering, but I'm not sure I'd trust myself swapping one of the Xilinx chips.


    I brought my o-scope home yesterday but will have to wait until this weekend before I have time to disassemble my 1200 again for testing.


    I could probably save myself a lot of time and just ship it over to be fixed, but I want to try my hand at troubleshooting. I'm a follower of Louis Rossmann and watch his videos on MacBook repair. I'd love to be able to at least say I found the problem with the card...

  • Well, I did manage to get my oscilloscope out but starting to look at the pins and my old eyes... I didn't think it would have been a good idea to start poking around on the card.


    So I took a little Deoxit to the contacts on the expansion bay and cleaned them very well and then applied Deoxit Gold to the contacts to keep them clean. Did the same to the 1233n card.


    Plugged it in and nothing... I reset the machine and got sidetracked from the machine. I come back and it was in Workbench and showing that the 1233n was working! YAY!


    So... since I'm always looking for the best performance, I'm wondering if it's worth the money to send my card back and have the IDE Speeder option added.

  • Good to see that it works - so the seller remains reputable :-) I'm always very careful with contact sprays, as most of them contain extra lubricants that ultimately have a negative effect on contacts that aren't moved very often. I therefore prefer IPA and a micro fibre cloth, as that's cheaper and longer-lasting.


    The IDE speeder is a nice gadget, certainly worth the money - you get more from it with a faster CPU. The 40MHz card is sufficiently fast to give you a bit more than a 2-fold increase in IDE speed. The theoretical maximum transfer rate is a bit faster than the IDE speeder of the forthcoming ACA1234, but that's because I have decided to go a bit more conservative for the ACA1234.


    With the average CF card and the ACA1233n-40 IDE speeder, you get a good bit over 4MB/s, while a physical harddrive might give you up to 8MB/s - that's because a fast harddrive often works with cache and does not waste any time giving you "the next block" - CF cards and IDE-SSDs don't use cache at all. We do have customers who are using an IDE->SATA adapter and then a full-blown SATA SSD for it's short access time, which beats any CF card hands down - you might want to see what the IDE speeder gives you with your existing setup before you sped that money.


    The ACA1233n with IDE speeder has two speed settings for the IDE speeder, and the ACA1234 goes with the "slower" of the two settings. So the ACA1233n with IDE speeder does have an edge over the forthcoming ACA1234 - in addition to having more memory configurations to choose from. I hope to publish all specifications of the ACA1234 next month, that will surely help you make a decision about upgrading the ACA1233n, going with a new ACA1234, or not spending any money at all :-)

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