13 Sep
2000
13 Sep
'00
9:54 a.m.
Hi Sean;
These Decstations have a window in the back through which you
can see eight small LEDs that display diagnostic info when
the system goes through POST. Is there any activity in the LEDs
on power up? If so, what is the last pattern that you see
in the LEDs?
Note that in many Decstations of this kind, the cpu runs too
hot due to inadequate cooling and they die. I've had this
happen twice.
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 16:58:47 -0400
From: "Sean Caron" <sean(a)techcare.com>
Subject: DECstation 5000/200 battery backed NVRAM failure?
Just wondering if anyone knows if this could be a possible problem with =
this type of machine.
I have two DECstation 5000/200 systems. When I got them, one powered on =
but did not do
anything (no output on serial console on port 3), while one would work =
fine (console output
on port 3, seemed to be functional, etc). I did not have any external =
SCSI storage for them
at the time, so I decided to store them until I could make use of them.
About a week ago, I finally got a SCSI drive enclosure to mount a disk =
in, so I decided to try
getting one of the systems up and running with NetBSD/pmax. To my =
surprise, however, now
both of them do nothing on power-on! I had not touched them since I had =
power-on tested them
a few months previous, so I was at a loss as to knowing what had =
happened.
NetBsd is a good choice for these systems. I have two. I also have
a couple of 5000/33's, but netBSD doesn't support the advanced framebuffers
that they have; it only supports the built-in framebuffer, which won't
talk to the monitors that came with the machines. So they're still
running Ultrix (ugh).
The only thing that I found that I even remotely suspect could be at =
fault is what looked like one
of those Dallas battery-backed clock/NVRAM chips. I was wondering if =
perhaps the battery had
died and this was preventing the system from coming up.
- -Sean Caron (root(a)diablonet.net) | http://www.diablonet.net
------------------------------
--
Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14(a)cornell.edu
428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853