Subject: REVIEW: GVP GForce 030 Combo
From: [email-masked] (Himanshu Gohel)
Date: 17 Sep 1998 10:41:03 -0400
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	GVP GForce 030 Combo.

	Various models are available; the one this review covers is
the 030/25/1, i.e. 68EC030/25 MHz with a 68882/25 MHz, 1MB RAM.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A hardware add-on board for the A2000 that contains a Motorola
68030 (68EC030 in this model), and a 68882 math co-processor both
running at 25MHz.  The board is called a "combo" board because it also
has an on-board SCSI card.  It has 1MB RAM on-board, and has three
empty slots to add 64-pin GVP SIMMs, to allow a maximum of 13MB on
board.  An external 25-pin SCSI connector is available.  Finally there
are internal 32-bit connectors available for additional expansion such
as with the I/O Extender.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Great Valley Products - M Inc. (GVP-M)
	Address:	3580 Progress Drive Suite J, Bensalem, Pa 19020-5899

	Telephone:	+1-215-633-7711
	FAX:		+1-215-633-9288

	E-mail:		[email-masked] (Sales) or [email-masked] (Tech)
	World Wide Web:	http://www.gvp-m.com

LIST PRICE

	Unknown.  Current used prices: $75 (US) and up, depending on
particular configuration.  GVP-M does not list this model, but a
refurbished 40MHz model with 4MB of RAM onboard at $375.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		A2000.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS 1.2 and above.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	A2000, 9.5 MB Fast RAM, 1.0 MB Chip RAM
	Kickstart version 40.63, Workbench 40.42
	AmigaDOS 3.1
	GVP Impact Series II SCSI card
	Quantum 540MB internal hard disk
	Microway Flicker-Fixer
	IBM  8514 VGA monitor
	Plextor 6X internal CD-ROM

INSTALLATION

	Prior to the purchase of this board, my A2000 was equipped with
a CMI Processor Accelerator (PA), a 14 MHz 68000, with an on-board 68881
running at 12.5 MHz.   Since that actually replaced the CPU in the
68000 chip socket, and did not take up the accelerator slot, I had not
bothered removing it.  The combo board goes into the CPU accelerator
slot in the A2000, so I put both of them in the machine at the same
time.

	On boot-up, I was greeted with a black screen with a row of white 
dots on the right side of the screen.  It was a week before I heard
from Amigans on the net who told me that a black screen usually means
CPU problems.  That's when I thought of removing that CMI PA card, and
reinstating the original 68000.  Lo and behold, that cured the
problem.  Now the combo board booted up perfectly.

	If an internal hard disk is to be attached to the board, a SCSI 
cable must be hooked up from the board, and the power to the drive must
be supplied from the power connectors from the Amiga.  Also the hard
disk activity indicator cable from the Amiga must be connected to the
board.  Jumpers must be set correctly if you add memory, or have memory
on other boards on the system.

	Hardware installation is quite straight forward, as long as care
is taken to set the jumpers properly.  For instance, I had to open a
jumper to indicate that I had 8MB RAM installed on my GVP Series II
Impact card so the system would recognize it.

	The board comes with a software disk that has utilities on it, but
doesn't come with an installation utility.  The latest version of the
software can be downloaded from GVP-M's web site.

REVIEW

	Instantly I was very pleased with the speedup of general operations
of my A2000.  All programs showed some snappiness in response time,
which improved the usability of my aging system.

	Eager to try out the 020/030 versions of various software I had
installed on my system, I set out to replace some of the binaries with
the corresponding optimized versions.  That's when the troubles began.

	The first thing I wanted to try out was PPP v1.45 which I replaced
the ppp0.device with the equivalent 020 version.  My PPP setup stopped
working altogether.  So I tried out Miami by the same author, but again
I had trouble connecting with the 020 version installed.  A dialog with
the author ended with the end decision that the software was not
working due the system not being able to adress odd-numbered
addresses.  I had to revert back to the 000 version of PPP.

	When I ran tools from my GeekGadgets installation with the 030
version of ixemul.library, I started having random system crashes,
most of them being due to Guru 80000003.

	Out of frustation with all these problems, I started looking for
some sort of confidence test for this board.  The only thing that was
available was AIBB, the de-facto benchmark standard for the Amiga.  I
installed version 6.5 on my system and ran every single test, which
passed with flying colors; though for some reason when compared to a
030/22MHz system, my system seemed to be slower.  The explanation for
this could be what a popup window told me when running AIBB: "All or
part of AIBB is located 16-bit ported memory.  Since this system is
equipped with a 32-bit processor, test results may be detrimentally
affected by this situation."

	The problems with PPP v1.45 continue to remain unsolved, and random
guru's from various programs still remain unsolved.  I have installed
GuruLog v1.0 from Aminet to keep a log of all crashes, and will analyze
them as possible to try and nail down the cause.

DOCUMENTATION

	The board comes with a user's manual which unfortunately I did
not have because the person I purchased it from didn't keep them.
GVP-M does sell replacement manuals at a cost of $25-40 (US) according
to their web page.  I had received copies a few pages of the manual
from Amigans on the net to be able to set the jumpers appropriately,
and it seemed to be of a good quality, with a lot of detail.

LIKES

	The main reason I purchased this board was that it was an accelerator
with an on-board SCSI controller.  What I also liked about it was that
it was capable of memory expansion up to 13MB, rather than my GVP
Impact Series II which limited me to 8MB.

	A nice feature of this board is that even though the CPU is really
a Motorola 68EC030 ("embedded controller" version of the 68030, which
means it does not have a memory management unit (MMU) on-board), the
board has additional circuitry built-in to perform the functions of the
MMU.  This CPU can be replaced with a full 68030 running at the same
speed, and then the MMU functionality will be taken over by the CPU.

	Another nice feature is that the on-board math co-processor unit 
68882 running at 25MHz can be replaced by another one running at a
higher speed, if an accompanying crystal is installed.  Only one jumper
must be set correctly to indicate that a separate clock is being used
from the CPU.

	Finally the other feature I liked was that a 32-bit connector is
provided internally that can be used to hook up an additional memory
expansion board.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	I was disappointed by the board because:
	
	(1) the memory is proprietary GVP 64-pin SIMM, which is very 
expensive - March 1998 prices for 4MB are $59 (US) from GVP-M,
whereas standard 72-pin SIMMs are much cheaper, at a going rate of
about $50 (US) for 32MB.

	The only way to get out of this expensive memory upgrade is to
get a description of a hack of a standard 72-pin SIMM from Aminet
(hard/hack/gvpsim64.lzh) and do it yourself.  This is definitely not a
task for a first-timer, but looks like it can be accomplished with some
effort.  In fact, I have already started on the project.

	(2) There is a DMA contention problem which causes the serial
port to not be serviced properly.  If you are using a modem on the
serial port at a speed higher than 9600 baud, you will have severe
problems.  There are two solutions to this:

(a) Upgrade the on-board SCSI ROM (mine was version 4.5) to the newer 
    GuruROM at a cost of about $30-$50 (US).  Note that a newer verson
    of the GVP FastROM 4.13 is also available ($25 (US) from GVP-M),
    but I don't know if that completely solves the problem.
(b) Get GVPPatch version 1.7 and run it to achieve the same effect.
(c) Buy an add-on serial expansion board

I opted for option b, since it was a no-cost option.  I couldn't find
the file on Aminet, but Amigans who responded to my post on the USENET
were kind enough to send it to me.

	(3) I have had random problems resulting in gurus/reboots of
my A2000 since I installed this board, and have been unable to find out
the cause.  Most of the gurus are due to using the 020/030 versions of
binaries which may indicate some sort of problem with the hardware, but
as of yet, I have not been able to track it down.  I suspect the
software more than the hardware, since the board passed all AIBB tests.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	No similar products used, but Commodore's A2630 seems to compare
favorably in terms of performance, without the on-board SCSI
functionality.  It also doesn't seem to suffer from the serial-port
problems from what I have read so far.

BUGS

	The bug discussed in "DISLIKES" about the high priority of DMA
resulting in serial port problems is very severe if a high speed modem
is being used in conjunction with this board.  For patches and
workarounds, see that section.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	I sent email to GVP-M tech support from their web site, but
did not receive any response from them.  If it wasn't for friendly
Amigans on the net, the USENET archives of Dejanews (www.dejanews.com),
and Aminet (us.aminet.net), I would have been incredibly frustrated
with this purchase.

WARRANTY

	Having bought the board used without documentation, I really
don't know what the warranty would be.

CONCLUSIONS

	After finding out about the problems (serial, memory) with this
board, I was quite disappointed in my purchase.  In it's working,
however, it seems to perform well.  I would recommend this card only if
you were very short on cash; otherwise, I would reccomend purchasing
another board that does not suffer from any of the shortcomings
described here.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

		Copyright 1998 Himanshu J. Gohel.

		Himanshu Gohel, [email-masked]

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