Locked up RiscPC

Hi – I seem to have killed my RiscPC. I ‘Killed’ some SCSI modules in an effort to get SoftSCSI to run from Boot on my 4.39. It would run OK after Desktop was up and running, but not when added to PreDesktop. Now there isn’t a display, and the keyboard doesn’t respond. (I’ve tried my backup hard-drive clone, same problem)- Have I blown the interfaces?

I doubt it. Try powering up with ‘R’ held down as this will reset the CMOS clearing any unplugged modules. It will also reset a lot of other stuff such as the default filing system, and the monitor type which could prevent you getting any display – but you seem to be in that position anyway. If there is a speaker connected, once its booted up press F12 then Ctrl+G, if it beeps you are at a command line, and can enter commands such as:-

Configure Monitor Type 1
Configure Mode 28

No luck – there’s no bleeps starting up, or pressing Ctrl+G , and no disk activity HD nor floppy. +12 & +5V seem OK, but I’ll dig deeper on Friday when I get some time to check other supplies.

Very unlikely that you’ve damaged the computer by just unplugging software modules.
Does the RiscPC power light come on? Do you get a double flash of the keyboard LEDs when switching on, or just one?
What podules do you have installed? Try physically unplugging them to get to a bare system.

Try physically unplugging them to get to a bare system.

And make sure to reseat the CPU and memory.

*Andrew – just one flash on the keyboard LEDs at switch on. I’ve no podules installed

*Stuart – Tried reseating the CPU and memory – still no joy :(

@ David

Another suggestion may be (if you haven’t tried this yet): try to remove all Podule expansions from your RiscPC. Turn it on while pressing [DELETE] key on the keyboard (and keep it pressed for a very long time).

It is unlikely that you have damaged your hardware by unplugging a module (as others have stated), however you may have a podule in a confused state OR simply just one of your podules decided it’s time to stop working.

I’ve no podules installed

sorry just saw this.

So, if you have no podules installed, if you have RiscPC compatible memory replacements, you could try to swap the memory sticks and try again.

Or, if you have 2 memory sticks installed, try to remove one and then try to remove the other and replace it with the first one.

*Paolo – just tried swapping/removing the two memory sticks – still no joy

Try:
Remove backplane
no VRAM, and only one DRAM SIMM
Swap to other DRAM SIMM
Do you have another CPU card you could try?
OS ROMS do very rarely die
If you’ve tried all of the above then a faulty motherboard is all that is left:-(

If you have 4.39 ROMs installed do you still have the RISC OS 3.x ones to try?

Has the battery leaked?

*Stuart just tried the old ROMs – no luck. Battery replaced years ago with rechargeable AA battery.

*Chris I don’t have another CPU, so I’ll dismantle the RiscPC on Friday and look over the motherboard for anything obvious

Your tests seem to rule out all but CPU card and motherboard, you can buy on ebay or from us an ARM610 card for £30 or we could hire you one to test for half that.

Doesn’t the RPC put out a diagnostic series of flashes on one of the drives – CD or floppy?

Doesn’t the RPC put out a diagnostic series of flashes on one of the drives – CD or floppy?

Not from 4.x ROMs I think, and not from StrongARM by the sounds of it.

Comment on stardot just now: “You’ll need to fit an Arm610 or Arm710 card along with a RISC OS 3.x to get POST output.”

@Alan/Stuart no activity on the floppy. Another fault last year did give me the coded flashes. (It’s a Kinetic CPU)Cheers

@ David

Kinetic? One thing that comes to mind is the Kinetic has switches to try to load RISC OS into RAM at boot, if you still have the manual with the switches combinations you can try to check for those and make it use your RISC OS in ROM.

Quick tip, before changing the switches combination take a picture of their position with your phone.

The absence of the POST process and error coding using the Floppy suggests that the CPU may not be initialising correctly.

@Paolo No ROM on Kinetic, but I did revert the links to StrongArm, which brought the RiscPC back to life :) I subsequently replaced the link and the Kinetic fired up – curious? Now I get the error message ‘Bfont missing’ and the TaskSwitcher fails to show (I had done an ‘R’ and ‘del’ power-on reset previously. (Tried my clone hard-drive with same effect)

No ROM on Kinetic,

The kinetic should have a FlashROM.

but I did revert the links to StrongArm, which brought the RiscPC back to life :)

Glad it worked :)

I subsequently replaced the link and the Kinetic fired up – curious?

It must have refreshed or re-loaded or still using the RISC OS in ROM.

Now I get the error message ‘Bfont missing’ and the TaskSwitcher fails to show (I had done an ‘R’ and ‘del’ power-on reset previously. (Tried my clone hard-drive with same effect)

Does this happens also when you use the StrongARM links only?

No, my Kinetic doesn’t have the flash ROMs. Yes both S/A and Kinetic have ‘bfont missing’ messages. PS I’ve managed to get RISC OS 5.25 softloading – this works fine with TaskSwitcher
working correctly?

No, my Kinetic doesn’t have the flash ROMs.

Sorry, I have got confused by your comments. My original post correctly said Kinetic tries to load RISC OS ROM into its RAM at boot (and yes Kinetic does have RAM and yes it tries to load RISC OS into it’s RAM at boot, this can impact softloading another RISC OS release from disk, because the Kinetic may not replace it correctly in it’s RAM area)

Yes both S/A and Kinetic have ‘bfont missing’ messages.

Humm this is odd, have you tried to resettle your ROMs? maybe use some contact cleaner spray on both the socket and the ROM pins. BFont (AFAIR) is part of the RISC OS ROMs, so you should have it. Unless some related module has been unplugged, but you mentioned that you have reset the configuration, so I am not sure what’s happening.

Do you have a clean disk where just to put a clean !Boot sequence (don’t copy the !Boot you already have, create a new one, clean and from either riscos.com or retro-kit.co.uk) and try to boot from that disk?

PS I’ve managed to get RISC OS 5.25 softloading – this works fine with TaskSwitcher, working correctly?

AFIR, if you disable the Kinetic from loading RISC OS ROM into its RAM, then softloading should work fine. I have never tried with the Kinetic set to load RISC OS ROM into its RAM and then softload another RISC OS version.

Finally sorted it. I had to do a Delete-power on,
after moving Link 5 to 1-2 (just to the left of the VRAM) to clear the CMOS RAM (Found the hint on The Icon Bar) Thanks for the help :)