New flash ROM issues

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.

    Hi, I received the updated flash ROM for the Buddha IDE card and I'm having some issues getting it to work. I replaced the original following the correct orientation of the notch. Upon power on, the IDE drives did not boot. Figuring that it needed to be flashed, I booted up a floppy with the buddhaflashtool on it, taking care to hold the right mouse button down to disable the write protection.


    The tool loaded the flash file correctly with checksum f1eed6c4 and then I pressed uppercase Y to begin flashing. It reported the following:


    Press Y to start, CTRL-C to abort

    Flashing now ...

    Verify failed - Possibly flash protection is on?

    buddhaflashtool failed returncode 10


    Any suggestions on how to resolve this?


    *edit* One more thing, if I boot with both mouse buttons and look at expansion board diagnostic, no cards show up at all. I have a couple of other cards in the system. When I remove the buddha or put the original ROM back in, everything shows up properly.


    Thanks.

    We did program the chip prior to shipping - this was from the box of spares that we pre-programmed in order not to set up the equipment everytime we need a spare. However, we even ran a verify before we shipped this, so it's especially unbelievable that the chip has lost it's contents. I Have to assume that there's something really weird going on in your computer, and that's most likely the power supply. I suggest to measure startup and power-down ramps, ripple and of course step response before you continue to use it. It may only affect this flash chip for now, but it may reach through to more expensive parts in the (near) future.


    Jens

    It's not so much that the chip lost its contents, because I can't re-flash it. The fact that it causes the Zorro bus to crash strikes me as highly unusual. It's worth pointing out that I'm testing this without the power-hungry A2630 board installed. Swapping back the original chip returns the system to a working condition with no issues with or without all cards reinstalled.


    I'll hook up the scope to check if there's anything funky going on but I did recap the PSU last year with high quality components. My instinct is that it's not the PSU as nothing else is showing any issues in the system but I'll double-check to be sure.

    I brought out the oscilloscope and measured 5 and 12V rails. Startup is snappy at 19ms. Shutdown a bit longer at 69ms. Very stable DC (5.08/12.14) on both rails during normal operation with all cards installed. I'm not sure how to measure step response, but given the other measurements do you think I need to?


    I double-checked the chip as well, taking the old one out and putting the new one in. Same result of a non-booting system. No effect on voltages or startup/shutdown. I put the old chip back in and it returned to working.


    Any other measurements you'd like me to do?

    Quote from hawkman

    Any other measurements you'd like me to do?

    The 5V rail is best measured with a 20MHz bandwidth limit for ripple/noise. If you just measure voltage, you will practically always end up with some good reading, as you don't see how the signal changes over time.


    Your inability to re-flash the chip in the controller may be because our programmer has sent the write-protect feature of the chip itself, which the flash tool can't lift.


    We can of course send another known-good chip, but we can't possibly do this for free, like we did with the first one. If you have something on your iComp wishlist, you can place the order and we can include the chip for free.


    Jens