Help needed with SE/30, Daystar Turbo + Ethernet Card

[ants]

Hi all,

I have an SE/30 and I'm trying to install a Daystar Turbo 040, along with an Ethernet card (DaynaPort E/SI30) by using a Stratos Twinspark adapter.

When I install all three of the above cards, the Mac typically boots up but is incredibly unstable - it crashes randomly and doesn't last more than a few minutes. I get bomb errors such as "Bus Error", "Illegal Instruction" - or the screen just locks up. I also get weird screen artefacts appearing when opening Menus.

However, other combinations work just fine, for example:

• Twinspark Card + Daystar Turbo only = Stable System
• DaynaPort Card only (no Twinspark) = Stable System

For completeness, here's what doesn't work:

• Twinspark Card + Daystar Turbo + DaynaPort card = Very unstable
• Twinspark Card + Daystar Turbo + Excelan Kinetics card = Just as unstable (so I don't think the issue is specific to the DaynaPort card)

I'd really appreciate any guidance, but so far my thoughts are one of the following problems:

1. Faulty Twinspark card (i.e. a fault related to the PDS port)
2. ROM issue on the Daystar Turbo card (it's a 3.x ROM - I was thinking of updating to the v4 ROM?)

Any ideas on next steps?

Other info: I have a IIsi ROM, 128mb RAM and running 7.5.5 (although I had all the same issues on 7.0.1)

Thanks.

 

[K55]

I'd update the rom. You can peruse some older threads where crashing issues with certain display cards were fixed by updating the turbos firmware. Make a backup of the 3x rom first, just in case. }

http://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Firmware/Turbo040/

 

[omidimo]

Which hardware model of the Turbo are you using; the original model with the daughter card or the later single unit? Another factor could be the power supply, as the Turbos can be taxing. Did you try the combo in a IIsi?

 

[ants]

Thank you for the advice. I believe the Turbo hardware is a Revision 2 - that's what it says on the box anyway. The box & manual also say that the card is compatible with SE/30.

omdimo you make a really good point about the power supply - that would make a lot of sense. Alas I don't have a IIsi to test on - are there any known methods you're aware of for checking the voltage?

However as K55 suggested, a quick win would be to try upgrading the ROM. A friend of mine has an EPROM programmer which is what I presume I'll need. I'll be sure to backup the original!

I'll report back once I've done the ROM, so at least we can cancel that out.

Thanks again.

 

[omidimo]

Oh nice you have a manual, if you can you should scan it and upload a PDF, as there is no complete version online at all!

When I got my cards, I was getting the simasimac screen followed by the unhappy boot crash sound. Sakai-san informed me that the simasimac was normal as I had maxed out RAM, and the DayStar does it's own thing with the ROM. I was still not getting past the breaking sound with both cards, which lead me to purchasing the Hyper power supply from Artmix who had a few for sale at the time. I also got another network card, a Farallon model with no pass thru on top, and somehow the combo worked. It is worth noting I am using a SCSI2SD for the hard drive, and the mobo has been recapped with stock SE/30 ROM.

I have recently scrapped this setup and gone with a Diimo 030/50mhz + Xceed Greyscale, and on first go, it booted up. I will recycle the Turbo/Network card on my backup SE/30 when I get the motherboard recapped and acquire another adapter.

Overall it has been trial and error as there are many variations of cards that lead to odd results. 

 

[ants]

I'm more than happy to supply a PDF version of the Daystar Turbo manual for the archives - but it's about 120 pages and really awkward to scan, so what I might do is find somewhere with a book scanner.

Let me see if there's a place locally that'll do it - maybe my local library or something.

 

[ants]

Small update - I finally got my hands on a Programmer and I was able to backup my original Daystar ROM Chip. But when attempting to upgrade the ROM to the latest 4.1.1 version, I was unable because it turns out the the chip is an EPROM and not an EEPROM! (i.e. it's a single-write chip).

A rookie mistake I'm sure - and I'm sure many of you could have told me that! Anyway, I've ordered a new flash chip off eBay which is on the way.

For reference, I *believe* the default Daystar ROM chip is an Atmel AT27040 (PLCC32) - based on the numbers printed on the back matching to a datasheet I found online.

 

[trag]

I'm pretty sure the Daystar ROM is 1 Mb, not 4 Mb.   It takes up 128KB, which translates to 1024 Kb = 1 Mb.   The AT27040 would be 4 Mb.

 

[ants]

trag you're spot on. I now see that the resulting binary file was 512kb based on the settings for an AT27040 which isn't right. So perhaps the chip is an AT27010 - when I read the ROM I now get a 128kb file.

Anyway, the new chip I've ordered is 1mbit so hopefully I'll have some success.

Thanks.

 

[ants]

I finally had some spare time over the holiday break to upgrade the ROM on my Daystar card to the latest 4.1.1. The upgrade seemed to go successfully - but alas things went from bad to worse on my Mac.

With the new ROM, I now get Bus errors on startup - if I boot with extensions off then it starts up, but trying to access the QuadControl panel just crashes again.

My hunch is because I have a 040i card and not an 040, perhaps I need a different ROM image? There's very little about the 040i floating around the Internet.

Anyway, I'm throwing in the towel for now, and will just stick to my 16mhz machine with Ethernet.

 

[olePigeon]

So it works fine with the TwinSpark + Daystar, but not when you combo it with the ethernet card?

Does your ethernet card have an FPU socket with the FPU installed?  Having 2 FPUs can sometimes cause issues.

 

[ants]

Thanks for your reply. With the original ROM in the Daystar, Yes the accelerator works without the ethernet card but only if 32-bit addressing is also disabled.

The ethernet card has an FPU socket, but no FPU installed.

One other factor I forgot to mention is I'm using a IIsi ROM in the SE/30 (well actually a Mac ROM-inator with a stock IIsi rom image).

I tried switching back to my stock SE/30 ROM but I got even more bus errors (even without any accelerator installed) - I'm wondering if this is because Mode32 is not installed and I'm using system 7.5.3?

I'm thinking of installing Mode32 and switching back to stock SE/30 ROM and see how that goes. To my knowledge this is exactly what the Daystar Turbo would be expecting.

 

[olePigeon]

That'd be a good place to start.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Copy that. A couple or three of us are seeing problems with getting the RCPII/IIsi and dedicated SE/30 vidcards up and running with OEM IIsi and IIfx ROM SIMMs as well as ROM-inator images.

Stock SIMM and Mode32 are lookin' pretty good to me for any reasonable OS installation on the /30. Dirty ROM hostile OS levels seem a bit silly to me for any Mac of this vintage.

 

[ants]

I finally got around to reverting back to my stock SE/30 ROM and using Mode 32 - I also had to do a clean install of System 7.5. I had some success...

The good news is that the Turbo 040 card worked perfectly, even with 32-bit addressing turned on. So I definitely think using the stock SE/30 ROM is important as I didn't even get that far using a IIsi ROM.

I then tried reinstalling my DaynaPort network card in the top-slot of my Twinspark - there were no issues until I installed the Driver Software... now the system bombs at startup - even with Extensions disabled

I'm wondering if the DaynaPort card simply isn't compatible with a 68040. Has anyone else had any success using a E/SI30 network card with a Daystar Turbo?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Sounds like maybe it's incompatible with the OS? Have you had success with that NIC without the Turbo 040 in the picture?

I've been using 7.5.whatever for testing and am planning to do a clean install of 7.1 "for any Macintosh" on another HDD for my next round of testing to see if that's a factor.

 

[ants]

Thanks @Trash80toHP_Mini, yeah the NIC was working fine directly in the PDS slot with my prior install of 7.5.

However I now think that it might simply be a corrupt installation of the driver software - because even when I pulled all the cards out, it's still bombing.

I think I was supposed to install OT before installing - so I'll do another clean install and try again!

 

[joethezombie]

I haven't seen any mention if this has been done, but when using an alternative ROM with the SE/30, the System file need be patched for OS versions greater than 7.1.

gamba, BMOW.

I haven't experimented much myself, but I have the cards and hope to find some time soon.

 

[ants]

OK I've gone full-circle. I managed to get everything installed and running with my stock SE/30 ROM and Mode32 on System 7.5.3. But I have exactly the same problems as when I started: Weird artefacts appearing on the screen and frequent crashes.

The good news, I guess, is that I can cancel out the Mac ROM as the cause of the issue. I have exactly the same problems with a IIsi ROM and a SE/30 ROM (@joethezombie I did need to patch the system file to use the IIsi ROM, and I needed to do a clean install to revert back to my SE/30 ROM)

I can also cancel out the ROM on the Daystar Turbo - as I have exactly the same problems with the original ROM and the 4.1.1 ROM.

I also know that both the Ethernet card and the Daystar Turbo work perfectly by themselves, so there's no hardware or software issues here.

So I think the issue can only be one of the following:

1. The power supply on the Mac is not up to the task of powering both cards. I tried a stupid test where I turned the brightness right down on the screen in the hope that I might see a different result - but no change.
   
2. My Twinspark Card is faulty - i.e. there is something wrong with the top PDS port, or some other issue with the card
   

I'm thinking of ordering another Twinspark card - which is expensive I know. If it fixes the problem then I should be able to get my money back on the first card, and if it doesn't fix the problem then I can offload my extra Twinspark card to one of you good folk.