5 Jan
2015
5 Jan
'15
11:20 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard
Loken
Sent: 05 January 2015 18:37
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Understanding DECsystem 5100 Self Test Failure
On Mon, 5 Jan 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote:
system
time
I have kept the original, but I am not sure that
it was faulty in the
first place. I think the fault is something else, but I am not sure
what. I did find some pages on how to "repair" one, but I would rather
be sure it is faulty now before trying to do anything to it. For the
record the RTC self-test passes successfully.
I agree that you might want reserve judgement on the RTC.
The RTC problem in my Alphaserver a very strange (and well documented)
case.
If the battery is dead, which it is after 20 years on the job, then the is not what OpenVMS expects so it refuses to boot. I
have not found a way
around this except to reinstall VMS which I did on two occasions and then
it will
run just fine (for VMS anyway) until the next time the
power is
disconnected.
That business gets old really fast - especially when
the guy in the next
office
trips the circuit breaker less than 24 hours after I
have brought it back
on line.
I like this big noisy box and I like VMS so I must fix the RTC.
Have you tried buying a DS12887 as a replacement? They are supposed to be
drop-in replacements, and if yours is already socketed then it should be
pretty simple to try.
Regards
Rob