alienkidmj12s FireBee

[Mathias]

alienkidmj12 has various and unsolvable problems with his Firebee that he has for more than one year now at his place. I suggest that we try to solve every issue here together and publicly. For me it would make a lot more sense to have this publicly, as other may have similar issues, and I am tired of writing the same stuff again and again to different people. Also others could help and more thoughts about issues can perhaps lead more quickly to solutions. Also you could see what happens usually by mail, and in awareness that I never signed up for any "support" or "Atari usage basics", ...

Finally it may help a lot to have it online later for the case other people have similar problems. Perhaps we could even make a support article of what we find out here.

So alienkidmj12 if you agree please let's start to solve your problems from the beginning here!

[Knezzen]

So what is the problem?

[Mathias]

That's the question. But first alienkidmj12 has to agree that we talk about it here.

[vido]

alienkidmj12 already posted some questions and as I see his main problem is CF card.
Seems to me like he has to solve that first. Or I am wrong about that?

[Mathias]

He also has an usolved Keyboard issue. Also I think he still does not understand TOS (in ROM), and MiNT (at mass storage). But let´s wait for him. The last info was his FireBee does not boot anymore, and he never could use it.

[alienkidmj12]

Hi folks,

Im at the end of my tether with this firebee,

The device would not boot, see pic of what what was showing on boot from cf card,

removed cf card, booted to desktop ok,

no control via keyboard or mouse via eiffel,

so changed dip to emutos and back again, mouse and keyboard now works fine.

The 32gb card i got with this device is now dead - looks like it overheated, with the heat from the board beneath - wont even format in pc. its dead,

I opened the case to check the cf card which is at the point i discovered my 2x batteries were hanging off. snapped off completely. clueless ???

so now i have added a craddle - see pic - positive and negative correct way around - batterys wont charge at all though

so, i connected my 24v psu - sometimes when i turn fb on i get image fast, other times i wait forever

im unable to get dvi image to screen, can only get image with dvi to hdmi adapter - wierd

next,

i partitioned a 4gb cf card, making 1gb part, i formatted this with fat and copied files to it for mint etc, it crashed on bootup.

i supplied this image to mcs - they say looks like my ide faulty

ive had this a year and not used it, no one to help , my head is in a mess with it, i have falcon and ste - no issue like this at all.

dave


used the last charge in the battery to diagnose - after that they wouldnt charge back up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFK9YrE ... e=youtu.be

[alienkidmj12]

i know the eiffel works now. i think batteries are completely dead though.

cant boot cf card as it crashes.

dave

[alienkidmj12]

when it crashes i also have to wait 10-15 minutes and turn it back on, it does not turn on straight away - its like its cooling off or something.

its the standard build from mcs - why would that crash. hmmm

[alienkidmj12]

when i sent the image for mcs they said



Medusa Computer Systems mcs at kingx.com
09:17 (12 hours ago)
to me
Hello

The CF-Card dosent work. I think the driver is brooken. Please send me back the machine for repair,
mit freundlichen Grüssen
MCS Aschwanden
Buchhaldenstr. 16
8610 Uster
Tel.: 044 940 92 54
Email: mcs at kingx.com

Am 04.08.2018 um 20:57 schrieb david sives-rutherford:
scrap that, im back to square 1,

crashing, cf is boiling, component with WE 200 on top is also boiling, batteries dont appear to be charging either

there is something seriously wrong with this, ive had no use since new,

i replacement would be a good gesture.

dave

(Edit Mathias: changed the mailadress agains spambots)

[vido]

when it crashes i also have to wait 10-15 minutes and turn it back on, it does not turn on straight away - its like its cooling off or something.

I think you need some time to wait that batteries get charged enough enough. Seems like your power supply do not provide enough power.
What hapens if you disconnect the batteries?
Can you post a label from your power supply?

[alienkidmj12]

psu.jpg

the psu is more than powerfull enough, ive measured with a meter also as it was being powered, had 24v

it has the right adapter on the end for the connector.

will upload a picture

disconnect batteries, well the psu still powers the device, im not sure what your checking here ?

i left it connected and charging for 2 hours, the batteries were still flat afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if0ideo ... e=youtu.be

[vido]

Yes this psu has more than enough power!
But from what you describe your FireBee consumes to much power and it overheats because of that.
It is like Fredi wrote it to you. Your FireBee is broken and the only solution to send it back fo Fredi to repair it!
I think this is the only solution. He will repair it, test it and send it back to you.
I also sent my FireBee to Fredi once to repair it. But it was not the tehnical problem. I broke it with flashin a new firmware

[Mathias]

OK Dave,

You know I exchanged a lot of mails and PMs with you. Any time we communicate, you mainly postulate your speculations what might be the cause of your problems. We talked very long about your keyboard. I asked you to get a cheap USB one (without built in USB Hub), ... Than we talked about boot problems, and now it turns out that the battery was off (perhaps it happened while shipping?). Of course you get boot problems. Also you should start at the beginning and boot without CF Card into TOS, ...
But it makes no sense to try to help. Please just send the machine back to MCS like Fredi told you.
BTW it is not nice to contact different people without telling that you did so. Also publishing a mail here is not nice. And there is no need to demand a replacement when Fredi already asked you to send in your board! I always told you that you will get a replacement if there is any hardware issue.

[wongck]

For me it would make a lot more sense to have this publicly, as other may have similar issues, and I am tired of writing the same stuff again and again to different people.

You can always create a FAQ for these type of writing the same stuff again and again

[wongck]

I am not sure but may be if you put a small SD card ( 2GB or less) in your drive A, it may boot faster.

Booting from a dead battery... mine have no issues booting from a dead battery. It was to keep you nvram & clock time. So now you manually set the clock until you can get your network up and running (mint or tos) to sync with a time server. After the 1st time you set the clock, rebooting keeps the time as long as power is connected. I do not need working batteries now.

My FB is also very very hot that I can fry eggs on it. So I removed my CF and use my (ex-)Falcon HDD on it and have the hood (cover) ajar.
All the software and configuration from my Falcon suddenly appear on my FireBee I do not need to setup anything. But of course for maximum speed & compatibility I replace Coldfire programs one-by-one and I now have a coldfire HDD. It does not boot up correctly with the GEM partition but it does recognise it and I can access it. Later on I partitioned another HDD using PartEd with MSDOS partition as C and that auto booted. It is a mess as I do not have the CF to transfer stuff but luckily the SD card speed is very good and just takes a tad longer to do the transfer ( good for a tea break).

I nicked a USB keyboard and mouse from some old scrap pile that ppl threw out. Works well for me, after cleaning the keyboard / mouse.

[Mathias]

About FAQs: I know that I could do so. But belive me, people don´t read them. It was extremely frustrating to write all the support articles and nevertheless get all the questions, which are answered there, again and again. See Daves question in the other thread where he asked for a FreeMiNT copy, which was always at our website, or the question about resolution, which is answered in the support article "Selecting screen resolution". Also I feel that answering "read the FAQ" sounds rude to most people. In this case here I thought the problem was mainly keyboard, PSU and different "firmware" parts. But as it turend out there are more and other issues, plus the contact with and question from Fredi to send it back, so it makes no sense to discuss it anymore, like I thought a few hours ago.

[stormy]

Strange thread, I don't think it is meant for a public forum to be honest.

[Mathias]

Strange thread, I don't think it is meant for a public forum to be honest.

Well, you are not that wrong. But the last days Dave sent messages on every channel and also at firebee.org publicly as I didn´t answer within 48 hours, and also created some public pressure. So I thought we could perhaps track down his keyboard, firmware and booting issues faster together. Especially as several developers and advanced FireBee users read along here with us.
I was not aware about the CF-card or IDE issues and Daves contact to MCS.

[wongck]

About FAQs: I know that I could do so. But belive me, people don´t read them.

Ok, then I am a weirdo.
I will try to find all the information until I cannot find any more, only then I ask.
Like the USB in Aranym, cannot be found and not much info, until just now I was told it is not default build.

Since putting out in the open, I can suggest he try HDD and not CF. I mean that is working for me. Also it does help not trap the heat from the DRAM. In any case, I don't think many ppl using HDD on FB as I do not read about it.

[alienkidmj12]

All (mainly Mathias)

Apologies for the emails, im just so upset.

I seem to have been trying for some time to fix this, i have no pata HD's, only cf for firebee.

Do any of you understand the crash string that i am getting,

I created the 500mb partition on my cf card in MiniTool Partitian Wizard free and formatted fat. The files unpacked without issue to 500mb partitian.

i can delay sending this back to mcs if one of you can assist ?

my main issues look to be

1. Booting CF and Crashing / Wont turn back on immediately after crash, i have to wait some 15 mins
2. Turning on and video - sometimes i dont get signal to monitor and direct dvi does not work on either of my monitors, have to use hdmi-dvi
3. Batteries not charging.

In the early days when i first received the product, it booted fine, keyboard and mouse did work, it looked like key was pressed down, pressing esc worked some, but shortly after it would just crash - dead stop with desktop still showing. This was out of the box. Dont understand that, now its went from locking up to not booting at all, maybe the cf card was dying then - causing the locking of the system perhaps.

thanks

dave

[alienkidmj12]

i think the crashing is serious issue here though - maybe as you say and that mcs has seen image - it is good that i return for inspection,

thanks for your input, i shall try and not be so ignorant/rude next time

[mfro]

...
1. Booting CF and Crashing / Wont turn back on immediately after crash, i have to wait some 15 mins
2. Turning on and video - sometimes i dont get signal to monitor and direct dvi does not work on either of my monitors, have to use hdmi-dvi
3. Batteries not charging.
...

To me, all three of your issues sound like hardware problems (haven't seen any of these on mine, ever).

Send it back for inspection/repair.

[vido]

...
1. Booting CF and Crashing / Wont turn back on immediately after crash, i have to wait some 15 mins
2. Turning on and video - sometimes i dont get signal to monitor and direct dvi does not work on either of my monitors, have to use hdmi-dvi
3. Batteries not charging.
...

To me, all three of your issues sound like hardware problems (haven't seen any of these on mine, ever).

Send it back for inspection/repair.

I am sure that your FireBee crash when batteries becomes empty and voltage of the psu drops as it can not provide enough current for the FireBee. Then you charge batteries for 15 minutes and it works again some time?

It is a hardware problem, I am sure it consumes to much power. Because of that I said that you should try to power your FireBee with batteries disconnected. It should work and if doesnt then my theory should be right.
Eitherway I think you should send your FireBee back to MCS to repait it.

[jfl]

@alienkidmj12: Fredi gave you a very sound piece of advice: send back the machine to him. Faulty hardware does happen. Not everything that can go wrong with a computer is software.

[alienkidmj12]

hi there folks,

im back, freddy has looked at this firebee and gave it a new clean bill of health, well, 80%

1. replaced batteries and resoldered them in
2. replaced cf card.
3. did some kind of dvi video fix, which seems to have cured the signal getting to my monitor - i can see the thin red wire.
4. updated firmware to something, i dunno what.

i have two issues left,

when i boot into mint, it seems it thinks keys are being pressed constantly even after eiffel disconnected. i tried going into draconis ftp and it seemed to fill the boxes up with 1's....

i dont get this at all, if i leave it it will completely freeze after a while,

dave