(ACA1233n) Missing FAST RAM and ACAMapROM doesn't boot

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.

    Greetings, i'm having some trouble with the ACA1233n accelerator card. I have an Amiga 1200 with the card attached and i've installed a fresh copy of WB3.1.4 (I have the physical kickstart rom chips on the motherboard). It boots up nicely and I install the aca1233n software which also goes well. But after the reboot there is still less than 1mb of FAST RAM (2mb CHIP as normal). If I run sysinfo it says i'm running on 68030 CPU and the speed test confirms that i'm running many times faster than a stock Amiga 1200. So that seems to be working. I thought i'd try and run the ACAMapROM command in the startup-sequence (because it's complaining about that). But when I add that line to the top of the sequence the Amiga never is able to get back into workbench. It seems to get stuck (probably where it's trying to upload the ROM to the accelerator?). I've waited for several minutes. The floppy drive ticks but the screen is just black. ?( Any tips? thanks!

    It's actually 1mb of slow RAM. No fast RAM is available. :( So I have 3mb in total including the chip RAM. I read another thread here (ACA1233n /26 issues.) and wondering if I could be experiencing something similar (need to re-program the CPLD)?


    Another possibility is the 2 capacitors E123C and E125C. I have a Rev. 2B board. I guess I will check if I have the capacitors, but i'm not sure I want to start removing capacitors for the off-chance that it helps.


    I'm at a loss what else it could be, as the acceleration seems to be working, i'm just missing the RAM.

    I've removed the mentioned capacitors but as expected it did nothing. The computer still works though (phew). It was a long shot. There is nothing else I can think of that could be wrong. I've not seen anyone else have this problem. Maybe the card is damaged or something? It seems pretty odd to me that the acceleration would work but not the memory expansion. If something was damaged I would probably get a black screen, right?

    Quote from Zoulz

    But after the reboot there is still less than 1mb of FAST RAM (2mb CHIP as normal). If I run sysinfo it says i'm running on 68030 CPU and the speed test confirms that i'm running many times faster than a stock Amiga 1200.

    The ACA1233n uses Z3 auto-config for adding the memory to the freemem pool. The 1MB fast RAM you see is added by Kickstart, it's the $c0-trapdoor area, same mechanism as the A500 uses.


    So what's most interesting is the "boards" output of Sysinfo. Please check that.


    Also, is it a standard A1200, or are you using some kind of Zorro/PCI board with it? This may also be a cause for non-working Z3 autoconfig.


    Please also mention your warratny ID, so I can take a look at the QC picture.

    Hey Jens! I misspoke in the initial post, it's actually 1mb of slow ram and not fast. If that makes a difference. :) I checked sysinfo under boards and it just says no auto config boards found. CPU says 68030 40mhz. Otherwise it's a pretty stock A1200. I have no other kinds of expansions except a IDE compact flash adapter and the 3.1.4 ROMs. The PCB is of Rev. 2B make and the warranty ID is: GT3hY. Thanks for your help! :)

    Quote from Zoulz

    it's actually 1mb of slow ram and not fast.

    What you call "slow ram" is only called that way because it's located at $00c0.0000. However, our accelerators are mapping real bust-capable memory to that location, so it is true fastmem. You can easily prove that by running the "Bustest" program (see Aminet): It will show that access speeds are way above the typical "slow ram", which has chip ram performance only. The reason for this wrong label is mostly programs that make assumptions about the memory speed purely by the location. This is plain wrong.


    Quote from Zoulz

    I checked sysinfo under boards and it just says no auto config boards found.

    OK, that's where we need to look into. It definitely not your A1200 board, not the Kickstart and not the memory chips, as the 1MB memory chunk is working. If the "memory controller" or "memory chips" were affected, then the 1MB memory chunk at $00c0.0000 would not work, and your computer would not start (well, it would, but with a blinking power LED and a yellow screen only). Further, the problem you've found in the other thread is not related at all - your card is not seen during the autoconfig process, which is all happening locally on the ACA1233n.


    The QC picture of your card does not show anything unusual. For a comparison, please take a high-resolution picture of the card and post it here.

    The second picture shows a bad scratch on the back of the card that's not visible on our QC photo. The scratch may be deep enough to cut a trace, and that specific trace carries a main signal that is required for autoconfig to work. This signal is the only one that is crossed by the line of the crossed-out-trashcan symbol, should be easy to locate.


    The behaviour of "no autoconfig" would be explained by this signal being interrupted - and it would be back to working if you repair it. Just take a very close look at it.

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