Re: 14MHz 65816??

[ballweb@PEAK.ORG (Brian Ballweber)]

Tony Cianfaglione (tony@ccn.cs.dal.ca) wrote:
:    Both cards give me grief, especially the socket model.  I've tried 
: using a 28, 50 and a 55 oscillator, with no great success.  Even with a 
: System Saver, the system overheats within a half-hour and hangs.  I have 
: to cool everything down for about 8 hours before using it again.

:    Even pulling everything except the TWGS and the Vulcan doesn't help.  
: Still the overheating problem.  I have 3 GSs and they all react the same, 
: and both TWGS cards have the same experience which is why I don't care 
: for accelerators.

I had a similar experience a few years back when I owned a TWGS.  
Basically the card ran fine for a while, then invariably the card would 
overheat and lockup.  I tried switching cables, moving it to a different 
slot, and letting it cool down, but nothing ever helped in the long run.  
It all ended one day when the TWGS overheated and managed to cook part of 
my motherboard.  I got the motherboard repaired eventually, and dealt 
with the TWGS by taking it and a pistol into the back yard and blowing it 
into a million little bits...

Since then I've upgraded to a Zip.  As bought it was a 9/32, but 
suprisingly it shipped with a 10mhz '816 so it was trivial to upgrade it 
to a 10/32.  I've never had a problem with the Zip <aside from the buggy 
CDA ... superzip works much better>.

So although some people will attest to the integrity of the TWGS, my 
opinion and the opinion of several others I've seen post, is that the 
card <or at least a batch of the cards> has serious hardware flaws.
My guess is that the card layout or one of the chips <not necessarily the 
'816> can't handle the heat.  The Zip is a much cleaner layout <most of 
the logic seems to be in a large gate array>, unlike the TWGS which is a 
full-length mountain of chips...


- Brian