HxC2001 Rev C. does not load disks

[LionSGI]

hello!

Recently got 2 of them with other old Amiga hardware, but i know nothing about these particular ones. I am trying to make it work on an Amiga500 with Kickstart3.1. I also had a C= A590 SCSI HDD and 2M RAM connected, but i disconnected it, to make things more simple ( i do not thing its is stopping the HxC2001 from working). I am using a straight FDD cable and HxC is jumpered as DF0 (right side of jumper block) The Amiga500 works with its original floppy drive, but the drive (or the disks) has/have issues (many read/write/checksum errors), only a few disks load OK.

One of them asks for SD card all the time, it seems that it does not recognise it. Once i got it to show Reading FAT on the LCD. FW is 1.6.0.0. Any tips what could be wrong with that? (maybe a contact bug on the SD socket?)

Other one is more interesting: It reads SD cards, i can browse the files, it also makes the drive clicking noise (which is cool ). so when i load a file, i get "RA T:000/084 S1" then it gets a few tracks and thats it (it gets back to display the T:000/084). In Workbench the floppy drive shows up as "DF0: ???" (the ADOS formatted ones also) It had the same FW as the other one, i updated the FW yesterday to a new one (1.8.2.40) successfully, but it did not make it work. It basically does the same thing as before FW update. Everything looks fine, but no disks will load...

I am using Linux, I formatted the SDcard like this: mkfs -tvfat /dev/sdb1
I also compiled the software for convering ADFs to HFEs and converted some disk, but they will not load
SDcard is a 1G Kingston microSD with adapter. I also tried a 8G Kingston microSD with a different adapter, but does the same.

I hope somebody has an idea what i am doing wrong or what the problem could be.

Thank You!
Regards,
Richard

[Jeff]

Hello,

I recommend you to check the machine 5V voltage. I bet that the PSU is dying and is providing something above 5.5V.

[LionSGI]

Thanks for replying!
I just measured, it is 4.82V
The Amiga is run off a 180W laptop charger->ATX PSU. the charger is a 80W one. Is this voltage too low?

Thank You!

[Jeff]

Thanks for replying!
I just measured, it is 4.82V
The Amiga is run off a 180W laptop charger->ATX PSU. the charger is a 80W one. Is this voltage too low?

Thank You!

Please try the non working HxC (the one not detecting the sdcard) on another power supply / machine. (Just need the power supply).

[LionSGI]

Thanks for replying!
I just measured, it is 4.82V
The Amiga is run off a 180W laptop charger->ATX PSU. the charger is a 80W one. Is this voltage too low?

Thank You!

Please try the non working HxC (the one not detecting the sdcard) on another power supply / machine. (Just need the power supply).

i connected them to another PSU, this one has 5.07V. unfortunately both do the same as before. One does not see the SDcard, the other does not load anything. is it normal that the track display changes several times (like 2-4) its value quickly when it does try to boot a disk image?

another question: where can i download a .hfe disk image, that is 100% working? I converted ADFs (that did work after writing them on real floppies) with the hxcfe utility on Linux. maybe the image has some problems (although it compiled OK, and did not show errors during the conversion)

thank You!

[Jeff]

i connected them to another PSU, this one has 5.07V. unfortunately both do the same as before. One does not see the SDcard, the other does not load anything. is it normal that the track display changes several times (like 2-4) its value quickly when it does try to boot a disk image?

This may be "normal" but please show me it in a video if possible.

another question: where can i download a .hfe disk image, that is 100% working? I converted ADFs (that did work after writing them on real floppies) with the hxcfe utility on Linux. maybe the image has some problems (although it compiled OK, and did not show errors during the conversion)

The file selector HFE is for sure working :
https://github.com/jfdelnero/HXCFE_file ... anager.zip

BTW have you tried another sdcard and floppy ribbon ?

Have you an oscilloscope to check some signals ?

[LionSGI]

i connected them to another PSU, this one has 5.07V. unfortunately both do the same as before. One does not see the SDcard, the other does not load anything. is it normal that the track display changes several times (like 2-4) its value quickly when it does try to boot a disk image?

This may be "normal" but please show me it in a video if possible.

another question: where can i download a .hfe disk image, that is 100% working? I converted ADFs (that did work after writing them on real floppies) with the hxcfe utility on Linux. maybe the image has some problems (although it compiled OK, and did not show errors during the conversion)

The file selector HFE is for sure working :
https://github.com/jfdelnero/HXCFE_file ... anager.zip

BTW have you tried another sdcard and floppy ribbon ?

Have you an oscilloscope to check some signals ?

i copied the 2 files (autoboot.hfe, hxcsdfe.cfg) to the SDcard. i formatted it before, so only these 2 files are on it, but no joy. i am using the very same ribbon cable, which is working with the Amiga FDD... it begins loading ( track 3, 2, maybe 1, happens too quickly) and then jumps back to track 0 and stops. could the PIC be damaged despite i managed to update it successfully? there is not much else on the board... would it be a good idea to swap the PICs between the 2 boards? they look the same...
i have an oscilloscope somewhere, but i never used it... tomorrow i will try to make a video of the HxC.

thank You for Your time!

[Jeff]

"RA T:000/084 S1"

Is it fixed to "S:1" ? No S:0 ?

This is the head selection indicator. It should alternate between 0 and 1.

[LionSGI]

"RA T:000/084 S1"

Is it fixed to "S:1" ? No S:0 ?

This is the head selection indicator. It should alternate between 0 and 1.

yes, it looks fixed to s1, i never seen s0... i found it strange, but forgot to mention it.

[Jeff]

"RA T:000/084 S1"

Is it fixed to "S:1" ? No S:0 ?

This is the head selection indicator. It should alternate between 0 and 1.

yes, it looks fixed to s1, i never seen s0... i found it strange, but forgot to mention it.

And when the floppy ribbon is disconnected ? Still "S:1" ?

[LionSGI]

Is it fixed to "S:1" ? No S:0 ?

This is the head selection indicator. It should alternate between 0 and 1.

yes, it looks fixed to s1, i never seen s0... i found it strange, but forgot to mention it.

And when the floppy ribbon is disconnected ? Still "S:1" ?

i just checked it, with the ribbon disconnected it is "s:0".

[Jeff]

yes, it looks fixed to s1, i never seen s0... i found it strange, but forgot to mention it.

And when the floppy ribbon is disconnected ? Still "S:1" ?

i just checked it, with the ribbon disconnected it is "s:0".

So the issue is maybe at the amiga side.
can you check if the side signal is forced to the ground ?

[LionSGI]

And when the floppy ribbon is disconnected ? Still "S:1" ?

i just checked it, with the ribbon disconnected it is "s:0".

So the issue is maybe at the amiga side.
can you check if the side signal is forced to the ground ?

how do i check that? do i need an oscilloscope for that or is a multimeter sufficient? Do You know by accident which pin the side signal is?
if thats the case, could the original FDD still working OK?

Thank You!

EDIT: i dug out another Amiga500 and it is working with it! This one is an older A500 Rev5; the newer one which has issues is a Rev 6A. I will try to figure out what could be wrong with the newer one. (i rather would use the newer as it has 1M ChipRAM instead of 512k ChipRAM + 512k SlowRAM) I connected back the original FDD and it still works on the newer one despite the HxC does not... strange!

Thank You for Your support and patience! I am happy now i got further in this project!

EDIT2: I looked at A500 schematics and i changed the U8 / EVEN CIA 8520 to another one; now it works! Strange thing: this mobo had different revision (not sure, but one was 8520A-1; other 8520PD and has C= P/N 318029-03 also printed on it) of CIAs in it for some reason... now i has 2 identical ones

[LionSGI]

and now - as i am into it already - to the other board, that does not detect the SDcards. i swapped the PICs, they all work. i removed the PICs from both boards and measured voltages on the SDcard slot pins.
the board that is working has 3.56V, but the non-working one has only 2.75V
which component does supply the voltage to these pins?

thank You!

[Jeff]

and now - as i am into it already - to the other board, that does not detect the SDcards. i swapped the PICs, they all work. i removed the PICs from both boards and measured voltages on the SDcard slot pins.
the board that is working has 3.56V, but the non-working one has only 2.75V
which component does supply the voltage to these pins?

thank You!

The U11 LDO regulator. The Rev C HxC schematic is available in this archive :
https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_dri ... Design.zip