Re: Dying net6501 servers

On 2016-02-22 6:33 AM, Martin Dahlem wrote:
> I think I have had about 25-30 net6501 during the last 4 years. About 10 of those where from the first time of life, with the very simple heatsink that where only a black plate. 
> I have had massive issues with them failing, so we have chosen to abandon Soekris since. I have also seen the same error on never models with a bit more advanced heatsink that is not black but plain metal.
>
> There is also a model with a much larger heatsink with holes in the plate. I have not seen any errors on them though.
>
> And the error is normally the same, where the error led stays red, and it does not boot. And sometimes they get back to life, after a long time off. 
> There is normally no output to console port, but can press +++ and then get a response. Looks like it somehow fails to boot the cpu. 
>
> Regards Martin
>
>
When I looked last year I think that one of com bios' board init tests
was failing. 

One could disassemble the com bios and no-op that check out of the com
bios software load, at which point you might get it to boot  your
software load (linux or bsd)  but then not have any available/usable
network devices. At that level though the devil is in the details and
might not be as simple as that.   I've thought about doing this because
then maybe I  might be able to attach a pci-e network card and
re-purpose my 6501 'brick'.