17 Sep
2011
17 Sep
'11
3:37 a.m.
I powered up my AlphaServer 1000A last night and it looks like it has
problems too. It powers up and the drives & fans spin up. The lcd
showed 'ec.' only once, every other time it is blank. Nothing out of
serial port 1 and the onboard VGA never initializes.
I tried setting the 'failsafe boot' jumper and I put a blank floppy in
the drive just to see if it would try to read the floppy and it didn't
even try :(
Any ideas at all?
Check the keyboard. I've had a AS100A that hung completely at test EC and
the problem turned out to be a book resting on the keyboard holding down a key.
Also check the mouse. If you disconnect both, it should beep and complain but
get past the problem.
I think test EC also includes onboard VGA but mine don't have that option.
Isn't there a jumper to disable onboard VGA? Maybe that might be worth trying
in case your onboard VGA is hosed?
I vaguely remember putting a graphics card in an Alphaserver 800 that does
have onboard VGA but I think doesn't have a jumper to disable it. AFAIR
nothing worked until I changed a jumper on the graphics card to disable VGA
there.
It brings me to a question: are the alpha systems inherently fragile?
The dead DECStation is an obvious hardware issue due to (probably) a
leaked capacitor which is understandable due to its age, but the Alphas
are just hosed in a software kind of way.
I've had a fair amount of grief with DEC 3000/600s and Alphaserver 1000As
as well as my VAX 4000/100A.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.