Last updated 5/12/2000 - JWB
Kinetic Cards

• Memory: Why does my machine report 4Mb less memory than is there?
  4Mb is used to speed up the kernel ROMs. This is not user accessible, so is not included in the reported total.
  

• PC card: fails to allocate memory.
  Please download the memfix module and place it in your !Boot.Choices.boot.predesk folder. This repairs a fault in the memory allocation SWI called by the PC card software.
  New version 0.11 uploaded 15/Jun/00.. now does all its expected to..

• PC card: allocates memory but fails to boot.
  You will need to be running PCPro v3.06. If you are not yet running this version, please contact Aleph1.

• PC card: Fails to boot fully, but the original StrongARM boots it OK.
  A diagnostic sequence is useful. You will need to try various options to ascertain what needs to be done. Castle are confident there are no software incompatibilities between the Kinetic's RISC OS 4.03, with memfix 0.11, and PCPro 3.06. Any failure to operate is down to hardware.
  
  • 1. Try the Kinetic as a simple StrongARM card. Place a jumper on the third pair of pins from the left, at the top, of the Kinetic card, as viewed from the computer front. This will disable the extended features of the Kinetic. In the unlikely event that the PC card boots in this mode, but not in full Kinetic mode, please contact Castle.
  • 2. Check your VRAM.. cards with samsung KM428C256T chips will frequently stop the PC card. Try booting with the VRAM absent. If the PC card boots successfully with the VRAM absent, a replacement VRAM is indicated. These are available from Castle and other good suppliers.
  • 3. Try any mix and match of motherboard ram present, which socket(s) its in, and VRAM present or absent. If the PC card boots with a particular ram absent, then removal or replacement of that ram is indicated. If the PC card won't boot with any option, please check if C32 is still in place on your motherboard. Click here for a picture to help locate C32.
  • 4. If C32 is present, and you feel competent to remove it.. then do so at your own risk. Otherwise contact Castle or any competent repairer. If after removing C32 you have no success, having repeated the 3 steps above, then again please contact Castle.
  • 5. If all the rest fails, and the Kinetic machine still freezes a second or two after the PC card software has turned the PC screen black, it will be necessary to add a resistor, R73, value 220 ohms, to the rear of the Kinetic close to the configuration pins (R73 is not normally fitted during production). If you feel competent to install R73.. then do so at your own risk. Otherwise contact Castle or any competent repairer. In the unlikely event that you still have a non working PC card after all this, then again please contact Castle.

• Why does DMA not work?
  The DMA manager will only permit a DMA transfer if the source/destination memory is in motherboard ram. As most ram you use is in the kinetic's SDRAM, DMA is usually not possible.

• Why was the DMA Manager not rewritten to work better?
  It is possible that the DMA Manager could be extended to create temporary buffers in motherboard ram, DMA to/from these, and copy between these and the intended place in SDRAM. The performance hit would drop a card capable of transferring at 4+ MB/sec down to less than 2 MB/sec. As the cards that Castle had all operated at around 2 MB/sec non dma, this seemed an unnecessary complication. Modifications to the DMA Manager would need to be done by RISCOS Ltd as Castle do not have access to the DMA manager code.

• What advantages does the Kinetic give?
  Apart from running its main memory rather quicker, there are a couple of features built into the Kinetic's logic that lead to faster cache cleans (an overhead that happens whenever there is a task swap), and conditional screen cache flushing, which reduces unnecessary screen update when nothing has changed.

• Why don't all memory accesses speed up equally?
  This is complicated:
  The memory on the motherboard is controlled by the IOMD chip. Whilst this is clocked at 64MHz, and has a 32MHz state machine, it operates the DRAM with a 16MHz clock (i.e. 32MHz / 2).
  Data Read into the StrongARM is read optimally as an 8 word burst to fill 1 cache line. IOMD fetches this from DRAM with a 2.5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 clock sequence.. i.e. 9.5 cycles of 16MHz (593.8nS) for 32 bytes.
  Data Write from the StrongARM is optimally written with a 2.5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.5 clock sequence. i.e. 10 cycles of 16MHz (625nS) for 32 bytes.
  For the Kinetic reading SDRAM, data is optimally read with a 7-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 clock sequence. i.e. 14 cycles at 66MHz (212.1nS) for 32 bytes.
  For the Kinetic writing to SDRAM, data is optimally written with a 5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 clock sequence. i.e. 12 cycles at 66MHz (181.8nS) for 32 bytes.
  
  This shows that Kinetic has a burst read time that is optimally 2.8 times faster, and a write time optimally 3.4 times faster.
  This speed increase is not seen to the limit as there is a 1 cycle sync delay (max) whenever the kinetic swaps from internal to motherboard access, or back again. Additionally display VRAM, sound ram and other IO are on the motherboard, so all accesses to these are at the slower rate.

• NetBSD/arm32: NetBSD will not boot.
  The NetBSD/arm32 bootloader requires the memfix module to be installed otherwise NetBSD will not boot.

ver: 051200
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