Re: NetBSD for RS6000 7011-250 (or -220)?

Hello Klaus.

On 4 Jul 2004 17:44:55 GMT, Michael <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>> Unfortunately I know nothing about RS6000 machines :-/. If I switch the
>> machine on, the floppy gets accessed twice, the SCSI disk is powered up
>> and some numbers flash on the front display. Using a 13W3-to-VGA adapter
>> for SUN machines the monitor does not get a signal.
Another problem here might be that the machines provides sync-on-green
only, so despite having this adapter not any monitor will work.
You're best of grabbing a Sun monitor somewhere, since they do  
sync-on-green
and have 13W3 connectors (getting 75Hz with them is somewhat tricky).

> Is the keyboard properly plugged in? These machines tend to switch to  
> the serial console when they don't like what they find on the keyboard  
> port.
This is true, there also might be problems with current PS/2 type
keyboards, getting an old IBM one should work (if you don't have the
original RS/6000 keyboard).

> And these machines check their memory before activating any sort of  
> console which can be quite unnerving if there's a lot or memory - just  
> wait a while, maybe it comes up. ( I'm talking about a couple of minutes  
> here, not more )
> Dig through ibm.com, there's a reference for all these codes somewhere,  
> I don't have it here because my box doesn't have such a display.
Well, for the LED codes a quick reference is available on rootvg.net
under Problem Solving - LED codes:
http://www.rootvg.net/ledlist.htm
At least the machine should get to 299 then switch off the LED display
for a short time and then display other codes while booting from a drive.

>> Is there some kind of BIOS/OpenBootProm or serial console? Should the
>> 13W3-to-VGA adapter work?
> Almost certainly, although on some RS/6000 the setup stuff was on a  
> floppy if I remember correctly - never used them myself, only Motorola  
> boxes with proper OpenFirmware that feels just like Sun...
But not on the MCA machines. They don't have any kind of interactive
firmware setup (besides some network boot options), boot device sequence
is set from AIX and that's all. Also the serial console is picky about
the cable one uses...

cu,
Stefan

P.S. judging from the numbers you found on the case and the 80MHz label,
your machine started as 220 and was upgraded to the 25T or W...


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  Stefan Tibus            Fachbereich Physik / Lehrstuhl Leiderer
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