MPC2000 Slow Booting

Hello!

I repair electronics and just got a MPC2000 handed in by a customer (very interesting case).

I can't seem to find any schematics on the MPC2000, but I see some for MPC2000XL. Unfortunately its not giving me any guidance towards the problem, I hope some in this forum could point me in the right direction.

Problem:

Machine tunes on, but boots extremely slow (20-30min). The LCD is loading in small bits (line by line). When booted every command takes 30 min to load and the test (seen in the manual) takes 3-4 days to run.

What I've done:

- Tested power supply - I have 5V, 5V, 11,8V and 11,4V going out (looks ok to me)
- Changed EEPROM
- Disconnected drive
- Tried booting without floppy

Nothing seems to help the issue.

Really hope anyone can point me in the right direction, so we can save this beautiful machine.

Thanks!

Did you remove the ram?

Booting without a floppy won't allow the 2000 to boot at all as it loads the operating system from the floppy drive. The alternative is if you had the OS on a SCSI drive to boot from.

If it has the 8 out expansion, disconnect the ribbon cable and see if it still has the same issues with taking forever to boot.

richie wrote:Did you remove the ram?

Booting without a floppy won't allow the 2000 to boot at all as it loads the operating system from the floppy drive. The alternative is if you had the OS on a SCSI drive to boot from.

If it has the 8 out expansion, disconnect the ribbon cable and see if it still has the same issues with taking forever to boot.

Thanks for your reply!

It came to me without RAM, so its only tested without.

without the floppy and OS I think it should still boot to logo on LCD, but is still slow there.

I've tried without the 8 out expansion also, still slow.

Im leaning towards some kind of hardware issue, but without the schematics its really difficult to move further.

All you'd see if you tried to boot without a floppy is a message on the screen "Insert MPC 2000 Boot Disk" and then try to cycle through the SCSI ID's to find a bootable drive.

Since you have no RAM, that means it's attempting to boot off of the on board RAM which could be a culprit too.

I'd suggest sourcing some RAM to see if it yields any difference. Doing so will tell the FPGA to bypass the on board memory.

72 pin SIMM memory of any size will be detected on the 2000 however I cannot remember if they need to be in pairs or not.

Write back and share your results!

Hi

I got a 2000 with the same problem. Please write i you find the solution. I'll do the same if i find out how to fix it.

Best wishes

richie wrote:All you'd see if you tried to boot without a floppy is a message on the screen "Insert MPC 2000 Boot Disk" and then try to cycle through the SCSI ID's to find a bootable drive.

Since you have no RAM, that means it's attempting to boot off of the on board RAM which could be a culprit too.

I'd suggest sourcing some RAM to see if it yields any difference. Doing so will tell the FPGA to bypass the on board memory.

72 pin SIMM memory of any size will be detected on the 2000 however I cannot remember if they need to be in pairs or not.

Write back and share your results!

I’ve not tried with both RAMs and with new floppy disks (with V1.7). I still have the slow boot, nothing have changed. I have 5V going into the drive, so power to the drive should also be good.

At the moment I’m leaning towards drive issue.


Any ideas?

nm_pick wrote:

richie wrote:All you'd see if you tried to boot without a floppy is a message on the screen "Insert MPC 2000 Boot Disk" and then try to cycle through the SCSI ID's to find a bootable drive.

Since you have no RAM, that means it's attempting to boot off of the on board RAM which could be a culprit too.

I'd suggest sourcing some RAM to see if it yields any difference. Doing so will tell the FPGA to bypass the on board memory.

72 pin SIMM memory of any size will be detected on the 2000 however I cannot remember if they need to be in pairs or not.

Write back and share your results!

I’ve not tried with both RAMs and with new floppy disks (with V1.7). I still have the slow boot, nothing have changed. I have 5V going into the drive, so power to the drive should also be good.

At the moment I’m leaning towards drive issue.


Any ideas?

Correction: I’ve now tried*