#GVP GForce 040
Fellow Amiga Users and Usees: 26 Oct 93
Can anyone help out with a GVP GFORCE 040 question? I elected
to keep my A2000 due to it's WB1.3 compatibility, and the fact that a
GVP 040 accelerator would give me the speed of an A4000, plus an
additional serial and parallel port. I've been running an older,
33mhz-030 GVP board, with a GVP series II controller for some time,
and it's been a bulletproof system! I installed the 040, and my
Amiga empire came crashing down! Initial boot-ups crash with memory
Gurus, and when I do get the flaky board working, intuition locks up
during memory intensive processing — like hard drive optimizations,
DOpus calls, etc. I've been working with GVP, and they've got the
board now, trying to figure out why it won't work. Here's my system
info:
Amiga 2000, 6.3 motherboard, Quantum 1.2 GB hardrive,
flicker-free video 2, Megachip 2000, Omni-Rom multistart board for WB
2.1 and 1.3, and full ECS chip set. I'm running two, 720K floppy
drives, and an external 44MB Syquest off of the series II board.
Yeah, I know that's a lot of "non-standard" stuff, but it all ran
flawlessly with the GVP 030. The 2MB Agnus is a standard scapegoat
with fast boards, but I think, in today's grapics-oriented market,
the standard A2000 NEEDS the additional chip ram.
Besides, I've tried removing all of this stuff, and the 040 board is
still flaky. The other whacky thing is that, if I remove the 32-bit
simms from the 040 board, the sytem boots and runs like a top!
(Granted, without the 32-bit memory, its speed is about like an 020
board.) But it runs great! If I install new 32-bit simms, it starts
crashing again. I've changed the memory-mapping calls in my
user-startup to reflect all posible configurations, (GVPCPUCTRL), and
it makes no difference. To make matters worse, I've already sold my
old 030 board, and GVP doesn't make the 50mhz versions anymore! Their
only alternative is the 40mhz 030, with the EC030 chip — which
doesn't offer memory mapping!
I'd really like to have a chance at getting the 040 to work! Can
anyone see through this mess, and make a suggestion that GVP and I
have missed? I've been without ANY accelerator for over a month now,
and SPRINT has just given me their "Customer Of The Year" award,
waiting for GVP tech support to open up a line! Help! Please!