Trouble with the GGLabs RAMGS/8 in ROM3 machine.

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Trouble with the GGLabs RAMGS/8 in ROM3 machine.

So I just got a new haul of IIgs loot, and put my ROM3 board in a case.

 

I pulled the 8Mb RAMGS out of my ROM1 box and installed it in the ROM3.  System became very unstable.  Once had a "bad input queue" error (I don't remember the numerical code off the top of my head, but that's what google said it was), but the rest of the time it was screen garbage and lockups like you expect from bad memory.

 

Thing is, that card works fine in both of my ROM1 boards.  I've also tried two Apple memory cards and an AE 2Mb card in the ROM3 board, and all of those work fine.  It's just that RAMGS card that gives problems.

 

I also tried swapping power supplies, but that didn't help.

 

I don't see any incompatibility notes on their website, and their ebay listing says that it'll show up as a 7Mb card in a ROM3 machine (though I can't get far enough to see about that before the machine starts acting up).

 

What do y'all think is going on?  My first thought was that it was shadowing some of that extra ROM3 system RAM, and they were both driving the bus at the same time and making things unstable.  But after seeing that it's supposed to magically turn into a 7Mb card in a ROM3 box, I don't know what to think.

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Mine is unusable in a ROM 3.

Mine is unusable in a ROM 3. There's also occasional issues in a ROM 1 doing things like copying an entire hard drive partition to another

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Design bugs ;) Despite its

Design bugs ;) Despite its good price that should have motivated the author to polish his errors. 

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Well fiddlesticks!

Well fiddlesticks!

 

Maybe the problem stems from it not having a bus driver on it.  Maybe I can make my own 8gb board with some of those 1Mb Alliance chips, if I can find a protoboard with the right size edge connector.

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Or rather, 8mb, not 8gb!  Lol

Or rather, 8mb, not 8gb!  Lol.

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What would be nice is 8
What would be nice is 8 megabyte ram/1 megabyte flash rom. Cheers, Andy
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handyandy wrote: What would

[quote=handyandy]What would be nice is 8 megabyte ram/1 megabyte flash rom. Cheers, Andy[/quote]

 

Not sure if you know, but A2 Heaven has this:

http://www.a2heaven.com/webshop/index.php?rt=product/product&path=75&product_id=143

 

But I haven't seen it on sale for quite a while. I wouldn't mind picking one of these up too.

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

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There appears to have been

There appears to have been many revisions of these cards, with only the latest version not having the bus driver.

 

Mine is a 4M version with a SIMM in it. It lacks the bus driver chip also, but I haven't ever noticed an issue with it on my ROM0, 1 or 3...  Does it pass the GGLabs RAM test? Is the issue only with the 8M version?

 

 

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rittwage wrote:

[quote=rittwage]

There appears to have been many revisions of these cards, with only the latest version not having the bus driver.

 

Mine is a 4M version with a SIMM in it. It lacks the bus driver chip also, but I haven't ever noticed an issue with it on my ROM0, 1 or 3...  Does it pass the GGLabs RAM test? Is the issue only with the 8M version?

 

 

[/quote]

 

I'll stick it back in a rom1 mobo and try to run a test on it here at some point.  In the rom3 it won't even boot far enough to try to test it.

 

I tried to ask about it on the GGLabs forum (along with if their SCSI card recognizes zip drives as removable media, unlike the Apple card that it's an "updated copy" of), but they're moderating all posts and my posts seem to have been ignored.

 

In the meantime I've gotten a different 8mb card (ByteBoosters) that is advertised specifically as rom3 compatible.  It just arrived today though, so I haven't gotten a chance to try it.

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Lee Adamson wrote:

[quote=Lee Adamson]

[quote=rittwage]

There appears to have been many revisions of these cards, with only the latest version not having the bus driver.

 

Mine is a 4M version with a SIMM in it. It lacks the bus driver chip also, but I haven't ever noticed an issue with it on my ROM0, 1 or 3...  Does it pass the GGLabs RAM test? Is the issue only with the 8M version?

 

 

[/quote]

 

I'll stick it back in a rom1 mobo and try to run a test on it here at some point.  In the rom3 it won't even boot far enough to try to test it.

 

I tried to ask about it on the GGLabs forum (along with if their SCSI card recognizes zip drives as removable media, unlike the Apple card that it's an "updated copy" of), but they're moderating all posts and my posts seem to have been ignored.

 

In the meantime I've gotten a different 8mb card (ByteBoosters) that is advertised specifically as rom3 compatible.  It just arrived today though, so I haven't gotten a chance to try it.

[/quote]

 

For what its worth, I use a ByteBoosters 8Mb card in my ROM03 and it works flawlessly. 

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

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Polymorph69 wrote:

[quote=Polymorph69]

 

 

For what its worth, I use a ByteBoosters 8Mb card in my ROM03 and it works flawlessly. 

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

[/quote]

 

German superior quality.

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Design Bugs
I don't exclude the possibility of incompatibility with some specific configurations. I am happy to offer free hardware to anyone who helps identify and solve a design bug. In general if you are experiencing issues, please contact me and I will replace/repair your card.
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Hey guys. I just wanted to

Hey guys. I just wanted to post an update to this thread.

 

GGLabs sent me a replacement, but I forgot all about it while I was putting off tearing that machine apart again..... If you read this, GGLabs, I sincerely apologize, and one of the cards is on the way back to you now.

 

Anyway, I don't have any idea what could have changed, other than the power supply (though I tested it with two different supplies before), but the card that I believed to be faulty seems to be working fine now.

 

It must have been my own dumbness somehow all along. I feel bad about casting aspersions at Mr. Gorla's product in that case, so please don't let this thread affect your opinion of the product.

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