aca500plus boots to green screen exc36 'E0'

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • Hi, i purchased an aca500plus for a mate. He last used it around nye but having a 7 month old baby and a full time job he hasnt had the time to play on his A500. It has been in his spare room. He tried to play it on wednesday but it kept booting to a green screen with exc36 at the top followed by two banks of hex numbers and E0 on DisMo. I originally set it up and saved his settings to his profile. I went round on saturday to see if i could get it going but nothing i tried worked. I tested two 4gb cf cards and also tried to do a vanilla install on wb3.1 via the card but nothing works. In the tab menu it says MapROM area empty or checksum error. I cleaned the zorro contacts with an eraser and meths but still nothing. So i brought it home and tested it on my A500+ and nothing works other than the GSOD. Its 1 year old approx. Can anyone help?

  • Is this the new version of the ACA500plus with the "big" DisMo and 68sec000 CPU, or the older version with the smaller display and the 68ec000 CPU?


    Congrats on the Baby :-) Kids change everything.

  • Hi Jens, my confirmation email was sent on the 7.2.2018 to my old email. I've no way of knowing what board I have because there isn't any of this info on the board, the email is in German and I can't compare the dismo but the card says 2013-2016 on it. There's a warranty sticker on it that says dT29g. I hope this helps.


    Darren

  • That's the old version with 68ec000 CPU and small Dismo.


    We've had quite a few returned cards recently because people have connected the card the wrong way round to an A1000 or with one of those funny adapters inside an A2000. They all did show the behaviour you describe.


    The old card - which you have - suffers bad damage if connected the wrong way round. The new cards have protection diodes and the "resistors of shame" that burn when the diodes do their job. "resistors of shame" can then be exchanged by anyone skilled anough to do simple SMD soldering, but the old units have to be returned to Germany for exchanging the 9572 CPLD and the DisMo (both chips on the DisMo are defective in that case, and exchanging the whole thing is cheaper than repairing it).

  • hmm OK, for the record it has only ever been connected to an OCS and ECS

    500. He is using a PSU from centurion.EU which are supposed to be built with brand new components. Could it be that that has caused it to fail?

  • Sure, a power supply can easily destroy everything that's connected to it.


    If you buy a PSU, the first question you should ask is: Is it covered by a product liability insurance?


    Further, we've had a number of cases with that Polish Amiga PSU where the voltage was just too low, because the PSU does not use any compensation for the voltage drop on the cable between PSU and the Amiga. The "sense wire" technology is rather old and has been used in the field ever since ATX power supplies were introduced, but it appears like it's quick money instead of proper engineering that these PSU makers are after.

  • voltage that's low won't blow the board. It'll make its operation buggy sometimes.

    Not correct. A voltage drop can cause latch-up on any CMOS device.



    If the psu is sound is the board covered under warranty?

    Your card is well over a year old, and reversal of the burden of proof is after 6 months. So warranty is now only for errors where you can prove that they have been in the product ever since it's been shipped (that's EU distant-selling regulations).


    That said, it's not even sure what caused this defect, and if it's a defect at all. We need to see what happens if you connect a different PSU, or if there's a totally different reason. I really can't tell that from a distance.

  • Hi Jens, on my aca1221ec box it states it has a 2 year warranty, does the 2 year warranty not apply to my friends aca500plus? ive tested his card on my ecs500+ which is returning the same error. I have my own psu which runs my blinged up 1200 ok, therefore i think my psu is a good one. Ill test the voltage readings of his psu this week and compare them to mine. Im not sure what you mean by 'reversal of the burden of truth' means, it sounds like its only a 6 month warranty thats provided.

  • In a Nutshell (this is a complicated topic, and the following may only apply 100% to europe, or even germany):


    - There are two kinds of "Warranty". The first ("Gewährleistung") is imposed by the law, the second ("Garantie") is something the vendor promises.

    - "Gewährleistung" happens between the seller of the product and the customer. When you buy a product, the seller must make sure the product is not defective, and in the first 6 months the customer can exchange a defective product free of charge without having to prove anything. In this case the seller would have to prove the customer destroyed it in order to not make the exchange. In another 18 months the customer may exchange the product when its defective, but now the customer will have to prove there was a problem with the product from the very start.

    - "Garantie" happens between the customer and the vendor of a product. The terms and conditions can be freely decided by the vendor. If you dont see these terms and conditions in the documentation of the product, there probably is no such thing.


    now, the problem is that both of these are translated to "warranty" in english (also the german wikipedia page "gewährleistung" turns into "warranty" when switching to english... this is really unfortunate)


    that said, i have no idea if there is extra "garantie" for any of the mentioned products - but jens can answer that :)

  • Hello everyone,


    this is Pavel Salac of Centuriontech.eu enterprise. I have just joined this forum for one and only reason and that is I have been pointed to this specific thread by a customer, because one of my products has been mentioned in this specific thread, in an inadequate way.

    After reading through all the messages, I have no choice but to respond to some of the misleading informations and make them factual.

    Let me begin with

    Further, we've had a number of cases with that Polish Amiga PSU where the voltage was just too low, because the PSU does not use any compensation for the voltage drop on the cable between PSU and the Amiga.....

    First of all, I really hope that your mention of "that Polish Amiga PSU" is just an unfortunate way you generalised aftermaket PSUs,without any real and factual connection to centuriontech.eu made AMIPSU Nuovo, mentioned before. And why I know there are disputable quality replacements available elsewhere, I kindly demand you not to connect AMIPSU brand with any of these. The fact AMIPSU is not polish made, but assembled in Czech, only illustrates you even have not had a decency to find anything about it, prior to making your post.

    The "sense wire" technology is rather old...

    What does this even mean? Is it something lost in translation? While there is a plenty of real technical parameters we could discuss about hours and hours, this "sense wire" does not make any sence to me.

    Anyway, in order to avoid any kind of confusion for a future, I would like to state for the record, that AMIPSU Nuovo is built around MeanWell RPT-60B open frame module. This taiwanese designed/built module is about 6 years old, medical class unit. In IPC terms, this is class 3 device, which means its suitable i.e. for automotive and/or human life related applications, such as medical screening devices.

    It has all the mandatory certification required for the application I use it for as well as it has (from a legal point of view optional) TUV, in example.

    In proper terms of performance, this module is on pair with swiss made Traco, which I happen to use as well. I suggest you at least read the datasheet:

    https://cz.mouser.com/datashee…0/RPT-60-SPEC-1292047.pdf

    I have been qualifying this module for a weeks, before it went to the first Nuovo, and before you make another bold calim about any of the AMIPSU Nuovo factual parameters I suggest you buy one yourself, hook it up on scope and support your impressions with a facts.

    Actually, feel free to let me know, I will supply you one free of charge, if you are so desperate.

    ...appears like it's quick money instead of proper engineering that these PSU makers are after.

    Again, what are the facts you have based this statement of yours on? Please explain. Making a false statement like this in connection to my product is a having a bad impact on my reputation and that is something I do not let to happen just like that.


    With best regards, Pavel


    And a sidenote to another misleading information, not related to topic I have came here for:

    Not correct. A voltage drop can cause latch-up on any CMOS device

    While this phenomena that could be described as CMOS part latch-up caused by either positive or negative voltage spike on a I/O pin causing a component to either latch-up or rather short a pint to either Vcc or groung, was very common in late 90s, only fraction of the current component lineup is suffering of the same issue nowadays, thanks to well known engineering changes to the substrate structures. Moreover, the latch-up, IF it ever occures, is hardly ever permanent, but resets on power cycle. In any case, using components still vurnelable to this issue seems like a design flaw to me.

  • so, is this PSU safe to power an accelerated A500? I would have thought having a cable 1 metre in length wouldn't be an issue regarding voltage drop, but Pavel knows nothing about it which is worrying because it was me who recommended the PSU to my mate.

  • so, is this PSU safe to power an accelerated A500? I would have thought having a cable 1 metre in length wouldn't be an issue regarding voltage drop, but Pavel knows nothing about it which is worrying because it was me who recommended the PSU to my mate.

    WIth Pavel attempting to put things "factual", but knowing nothing about electric engineering (just a copy&past post about latch-up can't make anyone believe he's up to the task), I'd say that the PSUs offered on the market are not safe to use from an engineering point of view.


    From a user point of view, they may be OK in terms of "computer works for some time with them". If you trust that the supplier will help you if the unit damages your equipment, then feel free to use it, but I won't recommend them. The original Commodore PSUs had a regulation circuit that attempts to compensate for cable drop by increasing the voltage under heavy load, but the MeanWell chassis that those aftermarket PSUs are using do not have such a circuit. So essentially, while the chassis may be up to the task, the whole PSU as a product is not.

  • So, do you know of any that are up to the job, from an engineering point of view? Because my old PSU (brick) put -18v through my A1200 opamp. All the original psu's are 30 years old now and cannot be trusted. so as far as I can tell we have no option but to use an after market one and this one was recommended to me, I have 2, and I pointed my mate to it who isn't happy now.

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