A2100 Hangs on boot machine mode will not load

[REBCOMACHINE]

'96 arrow 500 A2100 has recently been shutting the control down with a blue screen dump- says to contact your system admin. I have been recovering from this by reseating the boards and the control would come back and work properly, sometimes for a month. Now the control hangs in the diagnostic screen on realtime ws- it will pass, then move on to the main control startup screen and hang up on machine mode (3 of 12). The control then shows application startup timeout error - cnc.exe and mwlist.vbx value size is 0. Click ok on those errors and continues to load. Machine mode is not available- diagnostic screen is accessible and shows passed on everything, when I expand the bridge board ws it shows dma failed. Just cannot fire up machine and run it. I even tried the original clone drive and it does the same.
Has anyone encountered this, is it the bridge board, power supply, connections, motherboard, other? Any ideas would be appreciated.
power supply is 3 years old 450 w and seems to check good voltage.
cmos batteries are 3v

thanks
eric

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[dsh1001]

'96 arrow 500 A2100 has recently been shutting the control down with a blue screen dump- says to contact your system admin. I have been recovering from this by reseating the boards and the control would come back and work properly, sometimes for a month. Now the control hangs in the diagnostic screen on realtime ws- it will pass, then move on to the main control startup screen and hang up on machine mode (3 of 12). The control then shows application startup timeout error - cnc.exe and mwlist.vbx value size is 0. Click ok on those errors and continues to load. Machine mode is not available- diagnostic screen is accessible and shows passed on everything, when I expand the bridge board ws it shows dma failed. Just cannot fire up machine and run it. I even tried the original clone drive and it does the same.
Has anyone encountered this, is it the bridge board, power supply, connections, motherboard, other? Any ideas would be appreciated.
power supply is 3 years old 450 w and seems to check good voltage.
cmos batteries are 3v

thanks
eric

If reseating the boards used to work then you might try cleaning the contacts on the board. This simply means pulling the boards and using a common pencil eraser on the gold or silver colored contacts that make connection with the motherboard. It's worth a shot.

[maver1ck]

It sounds like you are describing two separate issues.

1) The Blue Screen sounds more like a hard drive issue, but could possibly be a WS or Power Supply issue. Or, since you indicated reseating the boards helped, could simply have been poor contact as dish1001 suggested.

2) The later issue you are describing sounds very similar to what will happen if you have a bad DV5 card or if the RT board lost the BIOS with release 2 software. The only thing missing from your description which people usually describe in this situation is a System Fail alarm. If you look at the A2100 control (in the electrical cabinet) when this fault is happening, do you have a fault light on your DV5 (or DV7) card? This could indicate either a bad DV5 card, or an issue with the RT board.

Different software/hardware combinations react differently in this situation, so it's hard to be sure, but my first guess would be loss of RT BIOS. On a '96 machine, the RT battery would not be at 3 volts unless it has been replaced already, and I have seen a lot of these batteries failing on the WS and RT boards in the last couple years. If anyone replaced the battery, or removed the battery (or even momentarily interrupted the battery's contact) while checking the voltage, the BIOS was lost and needs to be re-flashed.

I can check this out for you, and re-flash it if necessary. If you are interested, send me a PM and we can discuss further.

[greg b]

I found the plugs on the motherboard to powersupply/hard drive were loose and caused similar problems to what you have had and those were around for 2 years on my machine and when I tightened them up it seemed to have gone or at least Im hoping so its been 6 months now and alls good.

[REBCOMACHINE]

Thanks for the great replies. I let it sit for a week cleaned all the contacts again, I checked the power supply -12v was at -11.0v so I swapped it out. I changed the ws battery last year and the rt board must have been changed a few years ago before I bought it, it is at 3v. Checked isa slot pins and cleaned them with air. Still doing the same thing. There are no lights at all on the i/o board or the dv5 board while the machine is powering up. The red and green lights on the bridge board all light up and appear correct. I did notice the heatsink is stuck to the processor on the ws board - it is glued and will not be moved, I added a fan to it. Still don't know where to go from here.
Thanks again.
eric

[REBCOMACHINE]

Update:
Turned out to be bios settings in ws board. Service tech found audio and plug and play settings were off. Probably reset to defaults during poor connection of power supply.

[KIAF]

Hi,
I have a boot problem with A2100 after replacing CMOS 3V batteries. The message during boot is <nc base engine failed>. I believe RT bios must be re-flashed. I am experienced service engineer, so please send me any information and required procedure in order to re flash RT bios info. My mail is <skiafas@otenet.gr>
Thank you
Kiaf

[tib33]

Hello,
Can you help me please with an image system (ghost) for CNC Acramatic 2100 for Cincinnati Milacron Lancer 1500 or installation kit for application?
The application is corrupt, starts with errors!
Windows NT starts and works correctly.
Could someone put the image to a ftp server or to a transfer sites? I’ll be very gratefull!
Thank you!
tiberiu.sari@gmail.com

[gordonwhite]

I am having the same problem, can you help. RT BIOS WS BIOS as well.

my email is: gwhite@hwimfg.com

[meckardt55]

The RT BIOS and the settings for the BIOS on the WS board iare sustained by a 3.3VDC battery on each board. If you remove the battery on the REAL TIME board on the far right board you will lose the RT BIOS and it must be sent back to SIEMENS 1-800-879-8079 to be re-flashed. If you remove the WORK STATION board battery you will lose the settings for the BIOS. The settings can be re-installed by getting into the BIOS setup page if escape,or F1, or delete is held down during start up ( depending on WS board#). The batteries last between 10 to 15 years or more but will eventually go bad and need replacement.

Mike cncmachineservices(dot)com

[Bob Rudella]

You can flash the mother boards yourself, I've done it before but you'll need an old style ISA video card, floppy drive, keyboard and power supply. Mark Nichols at MAG sent me the files to do it with and it SUCKED so I put wire leads on a loose battery socket for the CR2032 battery and tack soldered it in parallel with the socket on the board. Now we change them yearly by putting a new battery in the extra socket to sustain the CMOS while changing the mother board battery. When I'm done I tuck the dangling socket into a little zip lock bag to keep it from shorting against anything. No way I would trust those batteries to last 10-15 years, three at the most. Those batteries are so mainstream these days you can get them at any drug store so who knows how good they are. I also take cell phone pictures of all the BIOS (setup) screens to log any goofy factory settings specific to the machine. We also have a Herco CNC in addition to two Arrows with A2100 controls and the Herco uses custom (user) hard drive settings that would be lost if auto detect was ever turned on. The setup screen pictures will keep you from chasing your tail at a later date.

[Tonikol]

Hi, so is it possible to get those files??? I have the same issue, my machine cincinnati just wont start because of software issues, thal also happened when the batteries dried out, or can you tell me where to get those files???

Thanks a loot

[Lyolik]

Hi,
I have a boot problem with A2100 after replacing CMOS 3V batteries. The message during boot is <nc base engine failed>. I believe RT bios must be re-flashed. I am experienced service engineer, so please send me any information and required procedure in order to re flash RT bios info. My mail is <oooolem@yandex.ru >
Thank you
Lyolik

[Lyolik]

You can flash the mother boards yourself, I've done it before but you'll need an old style ISA video card, floppy drive, keyboard and power supply. Mark Nichols at MAG sent me the files to do it with and it SUCKED so I put wire leads on a loose battery socket for the CR2032 battery and tack soldered it in parallel with the socket on the board. Now we change them yearly by putting a new battery in the extra socket to sustain the CMOS while changing the mother board battery. When I'm done I tuck the dangling socket into a little zip lock bag to keep it from shorting against anything. No way I would trust those batteries to last 10-15 years, three at the most. Those batteries are so mainstream these days you can get them at any drug store so who knows how good they are. I also take cell phone pictures of all the BIOS (setup) screens to log any goofy factory settings specific to the machine. We also have a Herco CNC in addition to two Arrows with A2100 controls and the Herco uses custom (user) hard drive settings that would be lost if auto detect was ever turned on. The setup screen pictures will keep you from chasing your tail at a later date.

Hi,
I have a boot problem with A2100 after replacing CMOS 3V batteries. The message during boot is <nc base engine failed>. I believe RT bios must be re-flashed. I am experienced service engineer, so please send me any information and required procedure in order to re flash RT bios info. My mail is <oooolem@yandex.ru >
Thank you
Lyolik

[phonic6]

Hi, we have an Acramatic A2100 and the rt bios battery failed. Battery has been replaced but now the rt bios needs to be re-flashed. Does anyone have the files needed to be able to re-flash the bios? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

[am.mohammadi]

Hi dear.
I have a Cincinnati Milling Machine. With Acramatic 2100 control. I had a bios battery message. And the clock was constantly erased. I changed the battery on the ws board. Unfortunately, I have ws fail alarms. And does not work.
This ws board model is: aa 670917-310
Do you have bios settings?
please guide me .
my email : amir.mmhb@gmail.com
Thanks

[runmandontstop]

It sounds like you are describing two separate issues.

1) The Blue Screen sounds more like a hard drive issue, but could possibly be a WS or Power Supply issue. Or, since you indicated reseating the boards helped, could simply have been poor contact as dish1001 suggested.

2) The later issue you are describing sounds very similar to what will happen if you have a bad DV5 card or if the RT board lost the BIOS with release 2 software. The only thing missing from your description which people usually describe in this situation is a System Fail alarm. If you look at the A2100 control (in the electrical cabinet) when this fault is happening, do you have a fault light on your DV5 (or DV7) card? This could indicate either a bad DV5 card, or an issue with the RT board.

Different software/hardware combinations react differently in this situation, so it's hard to be sure, but my first guess would be loss of RT BIOS. On a '96 machine, the RT battery would not be at 3 volts unless it has been replaced already, and I have seen a lot of these batteries failing on the WS and RT boards in the last couple years. If anyone replaced the battery, or removed the battery (or even momentarily interrupted the battery's contact) while checking the voltage, the BIOS was lost and needs to be re-flashed.

I can check this out for you, and re-flash it if necessary. If you are interested, send me a PM and we can discuss further.

Having a similar issue, I have a 1999 arrow 1250c witht he A2100 started having Realtime Timeout error 8004d I have parts from another machine I parted out 6 years ago and swapped out the RT board that causes this issue and the new card blue screens like the bios is missing on the RT board. I checked the battery voltage before putting this card into the mill and it measures 3v so I figured I would be in good shape. How can I re flash this BIOS?