17 Nov
2013
17 Nov
'13
3:58 p.m.
(I think I asked this once before, but I can't remember the result and I can't
find the thread in the archive)
I have an Alphaserver 1000 that I would like to resurrect. It periodically
hangs or reboots. When it reboots the error is usually "Machine check while
in palcode". When it hangs, the hang is so severe the halt button does not
work. Either way, it always happens within 20 minutes of booting. I ran all
of the diagnostics you get by moving the CPU card jumper (cache memory tests,
RAM tests) and they run for an hour or so with no error. (I am assuming the
diagnostic halts on error instead of just looping again, is that correct?)
During the course of these I moved the jumper to the wrong place and wiped
out SRM, so I had to reload SRM from floppy using the failsafe loader. That
worked. The SRM diagnostics will also run for as long as I want without
error. Does anyone have any idea what's wrong here or is there some kind of
XXDP-like thing I can run that will better test the machine?
I have three Alphaserver 1000A machines all of which have problems.
The bcache failed on all the CPUs - there is a jumper on the CPU card to
disable it and run with reduced performance (one of the SRM memory diagnostics
then fails spectacularly as it divides something by the size of the cache...)
On of the CPUs failed entirely. One of the machines used to randomly halt
and progressed to randomly powering itself off, possibly due to it thinking a
fan is faulty when it is not.
On the rare occasions when I've had one working, I found that the correct
positioning of the CPU in it's slot can be very critical.
I've also had problems with memory failure and found (by doing lots of swapping)
that the SRM can report the wrong memory slot as being the one with the problem.
The power supply sits there getting hot and consuming lots of power when the
front panel power switch is off making it necessary to disconnect it from the
mains when not in use.
I've had so much grief with mine I've lost interest in trying to fix them.
Opinions of the 1000A do not seem to be very high. I think the main
difference between it and the 1000 is that the 1000 has more (E)ISA slots and
the 1000A has more PCI slots. I don't know if they suffer from similar
reliability problems.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.