A few SS10 questions

[Earl D. Baugh Jr.]

Folks,

We had, well "many" power outages yesterday with a crazy rain /  
lightning storm.  I came home to find all sorts of stuff down and in  
weird states.
(and yes, Surge protectors and UPS helped numerous machines weather  
the storm so to speak... but pretty much everything ended up turning  
itself off...)

So, all I'm left with now are my 2 SS10's that I'm trying to reboot.  
One seems to come up ok... but it waiting for some NFS shares from the  
other.  The other, well
I"m not sure if it survived as of yet.    Thus the questions.

General info:

1) Green LED on the front of the case, doesn't light up.  Could simply  
be burnt out after oh these so many years.  I know it was spotty a  
couple of times in the past,
so not sure I can rule out either.
2) A keyboard plugged into the machine beeps and the various lights  
light up.
3) Tried to monitor boot process. Got the cabling fine, but come to  
find out, none of the monitors I "THOUGHT" would sync up, do.  For the  
one SS10
that does start to boot, has working green led on the case, and  
triggers the "Mode not supported" on the monitor.  The one with the  
problems,  which is a SS10 LX
(the one with the built in video card, that uses VSIMMs) doesn't even  
trigger the "Mode not supported"... but with the type of video it has,  
not sure if that's apples-to-apples
comparison.

So, I pulled out a trusty null modem serial cable, hooked it up,  
unplugged the monitor and keyboard.   The PC (one of few sadly that  
has a serial port) has HyperTerminal and RealTerm on it.
The PC is the one that I was using for testing out my Sun 3 boxes on,  
but it's not quite in the same state it was when I was doing that  
(that project is on the back burner right now...)  So not 100% sure
about the serial terminal.   Setting either program to 9600-8-N-1, and  
firing it up, I get no output.   I've pulled the 2nd processor to see  
if that was it.  No difference.  Also pulled some extra SBus cards,  
thinking
to try to eliminate what I can. No dice.   I also tried the power  
supply from the other SS10.  No difference.  So it doesn't look like a  
bad PS.

But it's late, and wondering if anybody sees anything glaring I'm  
doing wrong?
That's the first big question.

Second one is, anybody got a spare SS10 board (or preferably SS10 LX  
board) they'd be willing to sell, in case this one has finally died?
(the two SS10's have been in service for, geeze, close to 20 years  
service.... 24x7...)     I did also let them cool down, cleaned out  
all the extra dust,
lubricated one sticky fan.... in the working SS10, of course...    But  
did this all after things weren't working...

Had I finished migrating to the E420R, this wouldn't have been an  
issue... time to move that project up... but need to get back  
functional at least...


Thanks!!


Earl
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[William Enestvedt]

Curt, I have a Sparc 10 next to me. You can have whatever you like from
inside it for your testing.

- Will
--
Will Enestvedt
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Sheldon T. Hall-2]

Quoth Earl D. Baugh Jr. ...
[snip sad tale of lightning, etc. and SS10 that won't boot]
> So, I pulled out a trusty null modem serial cable, hooked it up,  
> unplugged the monitor and keyboard.   The PC (one of few sadly that  
> has a serial port) has HyperTerminal and RealTerm on it.
> The PC is the one that I was using for testing out my Sun 3
> boxes on,  
> but it's not quite in the same state it was when I was doing that  
> (that project is on the back burner right now...)  So not 100% sure
> about the serial terminal.   Setting either program to
> 9600-8-N-1, and firing it up, I get no output.

9600-8-N-1 ought to work, or at least get garbage if the 9600 is wrong.
However, remember to turn off _all_ handshaking on the PC end.

-Shel
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Jonathan Sturges]

> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 02:43:53 -0400
> From: "Earl D. Baugh Jr."
> To: The Rescue List
> Subject: [rescue] A few SS10 questions
> Message-ID:
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> Folks,
>
> We had, well "many" power outages yesterday with a crazy rain /  
> lightning storm.  I came home to find all sorts of stuff down and in  
> weird states.
> (and yes, Surge protectors and UPS helped numerous machines weather  
> the storm so to speak... but pretty much everything ended up turning  
> itself off...)
>
> So, all I'm left with now are my 2 SS10's that I'm trying to reboot.  
> One seems to come up ok... but it waiting for some NFS shares from the  
> other.  The other, well
> I"m not sure if it survived as of yet.    Thus the questions.
>
> General info:
>
> 1) Green LED on the front of the case, doesn't light up.  Could simply  
> be burnt out after oh these so many years.  I know it was spotty a  
> couple of times in the past,
> so not sure I can rule out either.
> 2) A keyboard plugged into the machine beeps and the various lights  
> light up.

I don't really deal with sun4m machines anymore, but someone here probably has the Secret Decoder Ring for the keyboard LED flash patterns.  They do mean something, and if you're getting no love on ttya, then at least the LEDs might provide a clue.

> 3) Tried to monitor boot process. Got the cabling fine, but come to  
> find out, none of the monitors I "THOUGHT" would sync up, do.  For the  
> one SS10
> that does start to boot, has working green led on the case, and  
> triggers the "Mode not supported" on the monitor.  The one with the  
> problems,  which is a SS10 LX
> (the one with the built in video card, that uses VSIMMs) doesn't even  
> trigger the "Mode not supported"... but with the type of video it has,  
> not sure if that's apples-to-apples
> comparison.

Many of those frame buffers are fixed-frequency types that you probably need an older Sun monitor for.  For awhile, I was keeping one of those Sun 20" CRTs (the Sony GDM-20E20, IIRC) b/c it worked with the old frame buffers as well as multi-sync PCs and newer frame buffers, and it would be the right thing for what you need.

good luck,
Jonathan
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Mike Shields-2]

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Jonathan Sturges
<jonathansturges@...>wrote:

> > From: "Earl D. Baugh Jr."
> > Folks,
> >
> > We had, well "many" power outages yesterday with a crazy rain /
> > lightning storm.  I came home to find all sorts of stuff down and in
> > weird states.
> > (and yes, Surge protectors and UPS helped numerous machines weather
> > the storm so to speak... but pretty much everything ended up turning
> > itself off...)
> >
> > So, all I'm left with now are my 2 SS10's that I'm trying to reboot.
> > One seems to come up ok... but it waiting for some NFS shares from the
> > other.  The other, well
> > I"m not sure if it survived as of yet.    Thus the questions.
> >
> > General info:
> >
> > 1) Green LED on the front of the case, doesn't light up.  Could simply
> > be burnt out after oh these so many years.  I know it was spotty a
> > couple of times in the past,
> > so not sure I can rule out either.
> > 2) A keyboard plugged into the machine beeps and the various lights
> > light up.
>
> I don't really deal with sun4m machines anymore, but someone here probably
> has the Secret Decoder Ring for the keyboard LED flash patterns.  They do
> mean something, and if you're getting no love on ttya, then at least the
> LEDs might provide a clue.
>
> > 3) Tried to monitor boot process. Got the cabling fine, but come to
> > find out, none of the monitors I "THOUGHT" would sync up, do.  For the
> > one SS10
> > that does start to boot, has working green led on the case, and
> > triggers the "Mode not supported" on the monitor.  The one with the
> > problems,  which is a SS10 LX
> > (the one with the built in video card, that uses VSIMMs) doesn't even
> > trigger the "Mode not supported"... but with the type of video it has,
> > not sure if that's apples-to-apples
> > comparison.
>
> Many of those frame buffers are fixed-frequency types that you probably
> need an older Sun monitor for.  For awhile, I was keeping one of those Sun
> 20" CRTs (the Sony GDM-20E20, IIRC) b/c it worked with the old frame buffers
> as well as multi-sync PCs and newer frame buffers, and it would be the right
> thing for what you need.
>

I had a SS20 recently that I thought was dead, until I left it on for
several minutes in it's "dead" state - I had it loaded up with 512mb of ram,
and diag-switch? was set to true... It just took that long to get through
enough diags to init the console (IIRC, for the first 30% of the wait time,
there wasn't anything on the tty either).

Just a thought. I also have at least one spare SS10 (non-LX) if you need it.
(Michigan, USA)


-- Mike
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.]

Jonathan Sturges wrote:

>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 7
>> Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 02:43:53 -0400
>> From: "Earl D. Baugh Jr."
>> To: The Rescue List
>> Subject: [rescue] A few SS10 questions
>> Message-ID:
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> We had, well "many" power outages yesterday with a crazy rain /  
>> lightning storm.  I came home to find all sorts of stuff down and in  
>> weird states.
>> (and yes, Surge protectors and UPS helped numerous machines weather  
>> the storm so to speak... but pretty much everything ended up turning  
>> itself off...)
>>
>> So, all I'm left with now are my 2 SS10's that I'm trying to reboot.  
>> One seems to come up ok... but it waiting for some NFS shares from the  
>> other.  The other, well
>> I"m not sure if it survived as of yet.    Thus the questions.
>>
>> General info:
>>
>> 1) Green LED on the front of the case, doesn't light up.  Could simply  
>> be burnt out after oh these so many years.  I know it was spotty a  
>> couple of times in the past,
>> so not sure I can rule out either.
>> 2) A keyboard plugged into the machine beeps and the various lights  
>> light up.
>>    
>
> I don't really deal with sun4m machines anymore, but someone here probably has the Secret Decoder Ring for the keyboard LED flash patterns.  They do mean something, and if you're getting no love on ttya, then at least the LEDs might provide a clue.
>
>  
>> 3) Tried to monitor boot process. Got the cabling fine, but come to  
>> find out, none of the monitors I "THOUGHT" would sync up, do.  For the  
>> one SS10
>> that does start to boot, has working green led on the case, and  
>> triggers the "Mode not supported" on the monitor.  The one with the  
>> problems,  which is a SS10 LX
>> (the one with the built in video card, that uses VSIMMs) doesn't even  
>> trigger the "Mode not supported"... but with the type of video it has,  
>> not sure if that's apples-to-apples
>> comparison.
>>    
>
> Many of those frame buffers are fixed-frequency types that you probably need an older Sun monitor for.  For awhile, I was keeping one of those Sun 20" CRTs (the Sony GDM-20E20, IIRC) b/c it worked with the old frame buffers as well as multi-sync PCs and newer frame buffers, and it would be the right thing for what you need.
>  

Any decent PC monitor from the mid 90s and up should work... if it will
handle 1280x1024
non interlaced it should handled the Sun's 1152x900 OK.  I even sync'd
up my old
viewsonic 7 which I think had a rating of 1024x768 non interlaced and
1280x1024
interlaced.... I was pushing it beyond spec... but it worked... (and I
used it infrequently
on the Sun's as I had one of the Sun (Hitachi) 19" color boat anchors
(was I sure glad to
lose that thing)).

Have to have the right adapter... Sun and SGI (and others that used
13W3) used different
pins for the sync lines.

I've had no problem using 'PC' class monitors on Sun's.... although I'm
sure there are
some monitors out there that might not like it (there has to be
considering there are
so many :-) ).

-- Curt

> good luck,
> Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: "Curtis H. Wilbar Jr." <rescue@...>
"
" Jonathan Sturges wrote:
" >> ------------------------------
" >>
" > Many of those frame buffers are fixed-frequency types that you
" > probably need an older Sun monitor for.  For awhile, I was keeping
" > one of those Sun 20" CRTs (the Sony GDM-20E20, IIRC) b/c it worked
" > with the old frame buffers as well as multi-sync PCs and newer
" > frame buffers, and it would be the right thing for what you need.
"
" Any decent PC monitor from the mid 90s and up should work... if it will
" handle 1280x1024 non interlaced it should handled the Sun's 1152x900
" OK.  I even sync'd up my old viewsonic 7 which I think had a rating of
" 1024x768 non interlaced and 1280x1024 interlaced.... I was pushing it
" beyond spec... but it worked... (and I used it infrequently on the
" Sun's as I had one of the Sun (Hitachi) 19" color boat anchors (was I
" sure glad to lose that thing)).
"
" Have to have the right adapter... Sun and SGI (and others that used
" 13W3) used different pins for the sync lines.
"
" I've had no problem using 'PC' class monitors on Sun's.... although I'm
" sure there are some monitors out there that might not like it (there
" has to be considering there are so many :-) ).

iirc it has to accept sync-on-green.

i ran for many years off sbus cg3s and cg6s with a sony 15sxII at
1152x900x66; stable and crisp and within its 1280x1024x60 limit.  more
recently i've also used an hp-branded tube which may well have been a
rebranded sony.  i'm currently using a sony e200 on a creator fb.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@...                       and think what none thought
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Thu, 9 Jul 2009, Sandwich Maker wrote:

> " I've had no problem using 'PC' class monitors on Sun's.... although
> I'm " sure there are some monitors out there that might not like it
> (there " has to be considering there are so many :-) ).
>
> iirc it has to accept sync-on-green.

For SGI systems, yes.  Suns, however, want composite sync.

--
Jonathan Patschke < "There is great satisfaction in building good tools
Elgin, TX          > for other people to use."
USA               <                                     --Freeman Dyson
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue