X-Surf/ACA500plus not working Accelerator Card ACA-1232 25 Mhz

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • I have the same issue with ACA-500+ and 3.2.


    X—Surf-500 and AmiTCP works fine with no A1200 accelerator plugged in, but stops working with either Blizzard 1230 or 1260 plugged in. Have tried with and without ram on both of the Phase 5 accelerators.


    Before coming here I tried MiamiDX (known working setup from me A1200) also to rule out hardware/driver or AmiTCP as the issue. Cannot prove MiamiDx without accelerator as it needs 68020 minimum, but could not get it to work with the accelerator.


    Will this new driver work for me also?

  • Will this new driver work for me also?

    This sounds like you have an ACA500plus (the "+" in your text is somewhat unusual, but must have a meaning). So you probably just have a contact problem - push the card all the way down and see if the X-Surf-500 is shown in the menu when pressing TAB.

  • Hi Jens - Yes I have the ACA500plus.


    X-Surf is shown in the menu and works perfectly without an A1200 accelerator plugged in, but as soon as I plug in the Blizzard 1230 or 1260 it stops working.


    I've been away from the Amiga for the best part of 20 years and only recently (September last year) got my A1200 out the loft and up and running again with a fresh 3.2 install. My A1200 still has a Catweasel Mk II and HyperCOM 3 plus installed.


    Since end of last year I've acquired a few other Amiga's including an A500 and since then the ACA500plus and X-Surf-500 from someone who had purchased a Vampire V2 for his A500.


    As I had 3.2 on my A1200, the only install I've ever had on the A500 is 3.2 having added the ROM to the ACA500plus.


    I can try 3.1 (or 3.1.4) to try and prove a point if that helps?

  • Try the Blizzard 1230 without mmu library first - just to see if it's a similar issue. There *should* be an autoconfig entry for the X-Surf-500 if the ACA500plus finds it, so the MMU *should* not get in the way, but you never know...

  • When you say without mmu library, do you mean to delete/rename mmu.library in libs:? What about all the 68xxx libraries? 3.2 will complain if I remove these, but can comment that out of the startup-sequence if needed.


    Also how should the MMU and VBR move be set in ACA500plus menu?

  • At install time, you had the choice of using mmu libs or not. Most people choose to use them, however, they often don't even know what they need the MMU for. I know that 3.1.4 and 3.2 are attempting to shoehorn some memory protection into the system (although this only works for non-memory spaces), and in my opinion, it fails miserably. The OS works great without the MMU stuff (at least on CPUs up to and including the 68030), and our experience is that it gets in the way of things, rather than helping in any way.


    So yes, please comment the MMU stoff out, switch off the MMU lib in the ACA500plus menu (that's the default in the latest update anyway, in preparation of removing the mmu lib from the ACA500plus flash for good).


    VBR move should not have any effect on network.

  • Hi Jens. Tried all that and still could not connect to the network with A1200 accelerator connected.


    So I wiped CF card and with 3.1 rom and no A1200 accelerator connected I installed 3.1 from the virtual floppies built into ACA500plus. Then I installed AmiTCP from the virtual floppy and the X-Surf-500 worked fine.


    Powered down, connected Blizzard 1230, powered up and no network 😩


    Tried a few reboots and still nothing.


    Powered down, disconnected Blizzard 1230, powered up and network was working again.


    I’ve installed nothing else other than 3.1 and AmiTCP from your virtual floppies.


    So my problem does not seem to be 3.2 related, but something else.


    My A500 is rev 6A with 1/2MB slow ram expansion in trapdoor. No hardware mods to enable as chip ram, but have this option enabled in ACA500plus. Nothing else connected to A500 other than mouse and monitor.


    Any ideas please?

  • Powered down, disconnected Blizzard 1230, powered up and network was working again.

    Could you please check the hardware/CPLD revision in the ACA500plus TAB screen?

    My A500 is rev 6A with 1/2MB slow ram expansion in trapdoor. No hardware mods to enable as chip ram, but have this option enabled in ACA500plus.

    Sounds weird - if the trapdoor expansion is anything else than 512k, the ACA500plus should not offer enabling ChipMap at all. Maybe I am understanding your description of the trapdoor expansion wrong.

  • Hi Jens, please see image.

    HW ID $08 is known-good - that's not the cause. Also, the networking card is properly recognized. Next step: Can you show the same screen with the B1230 connected?


    And now I finally understand what you mean with 1/2MB expansion: It is not "one or two", but "one over two", just a different way to write a fraction.

  • That shows that basic hardware access is working with the accelerator, otherwise the MAC address of the X-Surf-500 would not be shown.


    Now I need the help of Timm , as I don't remember if he has ported the xsurftest tool to the X-Surf-500 version. I'd be interested in the output of that with the accelerator connected.

  • xsurftest is somewhat adapted to the X-Surf-500, but not all outputs make totally sense. Attached. The output I get here:


    nic=ee0000

    Searching for RTL8019 at 0x0...not found! (ID0=255, ID1=255)

    Testing 16bit memory...ok!

    Ethernet address = 28:cd:4c:ff:f4:9d

    Chip is in PnP mode

    Chip is using half-duplex mode

    Chip is using IOBase 0x300 and IRQ 2/9

    Board address = 0xee0000


    IRQ / Loopback / cable connection test in progress:

    IRQ received ok.

    Packet send......via 100Mbit/s full duplex!

  • Thanks!


    Note: The "not found!" message is expected and should not worry anyone. Reason is that this tool was originally written for the first X-Surf, which used the RTL8019AS Ethernet chip. The new X-Surf-100 uses an Asix chip, which of course will not identify as RTL8019.

  • Without B1230 connected


    X-Surf TestPrg V1.10 (Feb 18 2022)


    nic=ee0000

    Searching for RTL8019 at 0x0...not found! (ID0=255, ID1=255)

    Testing 16bit memory...ok!

    Ethernet address = 28:cd:4c:ff:f3:ba

    Chip is in PnP mode

    Chip is using half-duplex mode

    Chip is using IOBase 0x300 and IRQ 2/9

    Board address = 0xee0000


    IRQ / Loopback / cable connection test in progress:

    No IRQ received !!!! Transmit timeout!

  • With B1230 connected


    X-Surf TestPrg V1.10 (Feb 18 2022)


    nic=ee0000

    Searching for RTL8019 at 0x0...not found! (ID0=255, ID1=255)

    Testing 16bit memory...ok!

    Ethernet address = 28:cd:4c:ff:f3:ba

    Chip is in PnP mode

    Chip is using half-duplex mode

    Chip is using IOBase 0x300 and IRQ 2/9

    Board address = 0xee0000


    IRQ / Loopback / cable connection test in progress:

    No IRQ received !!!! Transmit timeout!


    As far as I can see these are the same 😩

  • I have made progress, but cannot 100% be sure what’s going on.


    I mounted the iComp share/drive and had a read of the docs in the x-surf folder about the config file. Created this is envarc/sana2 with the AmiTCP optimisations disabled, powered down and reconnected the B1230. Suddenly with the B1230 connected the network started working. What’s strange is that now if I delete the file/dir in envarc and reboot it still works. Even after a complete power cycle. I appreciate this makes no sense. I wish I could explain, but I can’t and have spent so much time on this already this week.


    With the B1260 WB3.1 crashes on boot unless I enable MMU library in the ACA500plus menu and then the X-Surf fails and the tool you provided shows the MAC as all zero’s. Should B1260 and X-Surf work if I install the MMU/68k libraries?


    Tomorrow morning I plan to re-install 3.2 and get myself back to where I was earlier in the week.


    Yours very confused and frustrated!


    Rob

  • Have been battling with this on and off all weekend. I’m now starting to think it’s a connection issue between the A500 and the ACA500plus. Earlier I unplugged everything as I needed to move the A500. The network then stopped working again with the B1230 connected. I found if I pull the ACA500plus out a couple of mm it then it works! I’m going to spray all with contact cleaner and will report back again!

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