So my ACA500plus seems to work flawlessly, but... No matter if I hit F1 or F2, the CF card will only boot after I Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga the machine after the Kick was flashed. Is this expected behavior? After the first reset, it will work fine until power cycle.
ACA500 plus - Boot only on second try...?
- root42
- Thread is Unresolved
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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
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Might be a problem specific to your CF card, but it may also be a setting in your global setup: If you are allowig more than 14MHz, the card will go to top speed for the duration of unpacking the Kickstart, and only then go to the selected speed. This is why a "speed limit" can be set, and should be set unless you know for sure that the card is stable at any higher speed than 14MHz.
Jens
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I double checked and the max CPU speed is set to 14MHz, so it should be fine, no?
And I double checked: on first bootup even after three minutes of waiting nothing is booting. When I Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga it will auto boot after 40 seconds. This also seems quite long, but at least it works.
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Yes, that setting is correct. Again, this may be related to a timeout that the IDE/CF card driver is running into, so it's worth trying out a different CF card brand or just a different config (with/without an AUX card inserted).
Just out of interest: What's the PSU and monitor solution you're using there? Is this the CRT I have seen in one of your eMail pictures?
Jens
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Transcend and Sandisk are both very expensive and reputable brands, hence, they have been target for counterfeit products since day one. It may be that the Transcend card is a fake card, some cheap Chinese controller inside, merely identifying as Transcend. Or it's just very old - 512MB is a good size for an Amiga, but truly outdated. I wouldn't say that it's a huge loss if you need to replace it with a new one
Hint: Don't buy CF cards on eBay, as you are practically guaranteed to get fakes there. Instead, go to your local electronics store(-chain) and buy your flash media there. The buyers of those big chains can't afford to go with shady Chinese sources, as their reputation would suffer a lot if one of their cards is identified as a fake card.
Jens
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PSU is a modern replacement by c64psu.com
BTW, c64psu.com does not offer "modern" - they offer tinkering, sold with false advertising. Their offerings "for Amiga" are plain and simple not Amiga PSUs. They only happen to work in some cases, but have been the cause for many of the support cases in this forum. Please read our PSU FAQ - my personal recommendation is to send back the unit for a full refund due to false advertising. Their units violate three out of three key specifications that Commodore has put out for Amiga PSUs. All linked from the FAQ page.
Jens
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It may be that the Transcend card is a fake card, some cheap Chinese controller inside, merely identifying as Transcend. Or it's just very old - 512MB is a good size for an Amiga, but truly outdated. I wouldn't say that it's a huge loss if you need to replace it with a new one
I think I bought that particular card last year at Revision from consolekabels.be, if I remember correctly. 512M-1G are the usual sizes I use for the old machines, especially the MS DOS machines as they are picky about disk sizes at times. As it’s „only“ the AUX card I don’t mind and I can easily use the 256M card instead. Enough space for data exchange with the A500….
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BTW, c64psu.com does not offer "modern" - they offer tinkering, sold with false advertising. Their offerings "for Amiga" are plain and simple not Amiga PSUs. They only happen to work in some cases, but have been the cause for many of the support cases in this forum. Please read our PSU FAQ - my personal recommendation is to send back the unit for a full refund due to false advertising. Their units violate three out of three key specifications that Commodore has put out for Amiga PSUs. All linked from the FAQ page.
I didn’t have any issues so far with the supply. I can probably have it checked, a friend of mine is certified to test mains equipment. I was under the impression that c64psu was simply putting Meanwell PSUs in a case, basically, maybe with an additional DC-DC converter for some voltages. Haven’t opened up my PSU though…
I think I still have an original PSU somewhere… Question is if that is any better, I haven’t ever done maintenance on SMPS and probably won’t do it.
However I heard about a new DC-DC PSU based on USB-C. Might check that out. Just have to get a decent USB-C wall wart then. The Apple iPad one is probably okay for tests, I think it goes up to 35W.
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I can probably have it checked, a friend of mine is certified to test mains equipment.
No need to test from the primary side. It's enough to measure voltage at no/low-load and at full rated load, then ripple. You'll find the error with a cheap multimeter.
I was under the impression that c64psu was simply putting Meanwell PSUs in a case,
Right, and that's exactly what you should not do. The PSU regulates 5V for it's output. It does not know about the long cable, it does not know about the connector (which also has a resistance) and it does not know about the input filter. These three components cause losses, which add up to several tenths of a volt, possibly resulting in 3.3V regulators having not enough margin. These may go into oscillation as a result, causing severe damage to the hardware they drive.
However I heard about a new DC-DC PSU based on USB-C.
I heard about that, too, and offered them to put their product through the same paces that I've been doing with my own and other second-source PSUs. So far, they have chickened out on the offer. As a result, I still claim that the CA-PSU is the only PSU on the market that fulfills all specs that have been put out by Commodore. Price-wise, you're even better off with the CA-PSU, as you get the mains unit in the same package. It's a bit more powerful than the USB-C unit. And the biggest difference: It's covered by a German product liability insurance. Oh, and we have it in stock
Jens
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