exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Left it running over night.... So over 8 hours run time so far...


Will see how it goes on throughout the day as "room temp" will get hotter..

I have changed some resistors on the board.. oddly in x10 mode on my probes the 40MHz goes to 6V, on x1 mode, it goes to 4V.. So I think the scope is loading the signal a lot more than I had thought and giving me incorrect voltage readings. So I've "calibrated" the board this time on x10..

Small update..

Got to loop 250ish, so runtime was approx 13 hours. I think the ambient temperature was the tipping point.. The machine has been restarted.. So see how it goes.. but clearly my last fix has worked wonders as it ran for a long time this time...

Only just got home, but left it running for about 15mins then heated it all up with my gas soldering iron.. it crashed to desktop pretty quick..

So I added in another 33R onto the CPU clock.. didn't boot, so added 33R more onto the OSC clock output (to GAL input) and heated the board to around 110C! The thing is literally smoking and its still running so far.. Will have to leave it on for endless hours again and see what happens..

On a probably related note:

In the last couple of weeks I had a lot more crashes with my V1.5 boosted STE than usual. Mostly RAM related. And it was and still is quite hot here... Maybe a general issue?

IngoQ wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:44 am In the last couple of weeks I had a lot more crashes with my V1.5 boosted STE than usual. Mostly RAM related. And it was and still is quite hot here... Maybe a general issue?

I had Jonnie test his booster , I forgot how long, but going several hours.. Not saying there isn't a issue, its never been this hot here before so ambient temp is a lot hotter than normal.

Do you have laser temperature gun to measure CPU temp ?

I can suggest some things to try, I mostly have a general idea what's going on with it all now... might be worth stating a new topic as others could run into same issues..

EDIT:

Oh V1.5 booster you had not the proper STE booster, forgot sorry! Could be trickier to diagnose as other than your machine and my test machine, nobody else fitted it to a STE AFAIK.

exxos wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 11:20 am
I had Jonnie test his booster , I forgot how long, but going several hours.. Not saying there isn't a issue, its never been this hot here before so ambient temp is a lot hotter than normal.

Mine ran for nearly 24 hours and hit loop 427 if I recall correctly. It didn't stop, I stopped it.

Outside temp was 25-26 Degrees C on the day, and the room the machine was in has very poor ventilation (It's in the roof of my house), so although I had no way of testing, I'm confident it was at least 30 Degrees C in my room. The machine had its case on, but no upper metal shield.

When I lifted the lid at one point,the CPU was warm, but cool enough to touch. Not even the PSU was particularly hot.

rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 11:56 am Mine ran for nearly 24 hours and hit loop 427 if I recall correctly. It didn't stop, I stopped it.

I realised after posting Ingo has V1.5 (STFM booster) fitted in his STE.. It was never intended for use on STE, but is basically same circuit as STE booster. Though of course never had much testing on the STE as wasn't a official upgrade for it.

exxos wrote: ↑Mon Jul 23, 2018 12:39 pm I realised after posting Ingo has V1.5 (STFM booster) fitted in his STE.. It was never intended for use on STE, but is basically same circuit as STE booster. Though of course never had much testing on the STE as wasn't a official upgrade for it.

Could be the reason why he's had instability then.

Current update, Being going overnight and all morning, currently on loop 284.. Really hot today as well..

Floppy case (using as ambient temp) is 29c. GAL 42c, OSC 41.5c. CPU 39c. Buffer IC & PCB temp 37c.


EDIT:

(LOOP 304 13:50pm)
Floppy case (using as ambient temp) is 30c. GAL 42c, OSC 41.5c. CPU 40c. Buffer IC & PCB temp 38c.


(LOOP 323 14:50pm )
Floppy case (using as ambient temp) is 30c. GAL 42.5c, OSC 41.5c. CPU 40c. Buffer IC & PCB temp 38c.

(LOOP 343 15:50pm)
Floppy case (using as ambient temp) is 30c. GAL 42.5c, OSC 40.5c. CPU 39c. Buffer IC & PCB temp 37c.