FluffyRedLobster's build

[terriblefire]

Tried a 25Mhz oscillator. A bit more stable with cpu fastrom enabled - navigating workbench didn't freeze up. However memory tests in amigatestkit still froze when filling fastram.

Ordered the necessary resistors, will try that next

25Mhz is a bit slow for testing a TF5xx card. Go up to 33 or 40.

[FluffyRedLobster]

Cheers for the tip. Got a 40 on the way.

[FluffyRedLobster]

So I tried a 40MHz oscillator and resistors on RP106 and 107, with no improvement. Still all good without cpu fastrom, unstable with it turned on.

I had 4 spare RAM chips (TIN rather than TCN but I believe that the difference is only the operating temperature range) so I removed the existing chips and popped those on to rule out a bad ram chip... and made it worse - it now only boots into diagrom, ks 3.1 gives a white screen

I'm pretty sure it's just a solder bridge, but by this point my patience was wearing thin so my attention turned to the drawer full of 534 components waiting to be assembled

So for now my 530 is sitting on the side while I (hopefully) use the lessons learned from building it in the 534 build. I'll come back to the 530 when the 534 works. I'll start a separate thread for the 534, early signs are good though - both cplds programmed on first attempt

[chue]

Oh that's rough. My 530 build was difficult too. I had tons of soldering problems - most of mine had to do with pins not being soldered; there were only a few bridges. Once I figured out a way to test for unsoldered pins, things went well. To test, I give each pin a little push. If a pin doesn't move it's good; if it does move, I add a little solder. Some kind of microscope is helpful while doing this. To test for bridges, I use a continuity meter and test every single pin with its neighbors.

Anyway, it took me 2 months to get my 530 working.

My 534 went a lot smoother - it worked after a few days. Hope yours is working soon.

[FluffyRedLobster]

Thanks chue - I think I struggle with unsoldered pins more than bridges too.

I got my 530 back up and running today with the new memory - still alliance per the bom but TIN rather than TCN. Since my last post I've acquired another 500 rev6a motherboard so I was able to test on both. Still getting the same behaviour with cpu fastrom / mufastrom on both boards. Interestingly I saw 8 Bit Dreams post in the 534 forum that there might be a known issue (not specific to TF cards) with cpu fastrom on 030s.

I really should leave it alone as it runs pretty nice now it's alive again