31 Aug
2014
31 Aug
'14
10:54 a.m.
Is there maybe a PRAM battery issue? Usually DEC machines (well,
uVAX/VAXstation/DECstation) were pretty good about running even with dead
battery but AS 300 is new enough that I'd start to wonder... Some
workstations e.g. NeXT machines, SGI Indys, soft-power 68k Macs, etc. won't
start up at all with a dead battery. I've never touched an AS 300, is it
soft power?
Try usual computer troubleshooting tactics: remove any expansion boards,
try to get some confidence in the RAM; get some known good RAM in there
(surely something industry-standard by that time?) or try to get it down to
a minimal complement and swap sets of memory modules, see if that gets you
anywhere.
As above, serial console is also a good suggestion, just try connecting
something at 9600/8/N/1 to serial port 0 and see if you get any output
there.
Best,
Sean
On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 1:30 PM, emanuel stiebler <emu at e-bbes.com> wrote:
On 2014-08-31 11:18, William Barnett-Lewis wrote:
I turned to set up a new to me toy my friend gave
me yesterday, a DEC
Alphastation 300 4/266. 1 ST12400N, 1 ST31230N, floppy, CD, 1 gb ram.
Unknown video.
I've plugged in both a VGA & my DEC VRC16 monitors, PS/2 keyboard & mouse
and I get no video out on either monitor, only a "keyboard error" on the
LEDs on the back of the computer. I've also tried a USB keyboard that is
known good via a usb/ps2 adaptor with no joy as well.
Any other troubleshooting ideas?
Check if you get anything on the serial line.
If it doesn't find a keyboard,
it probably switches over to serial
console. Or it is set up for serial console anyway ...