Hello gurus,

I've got a Sun Sparc 5 workstation in my lab. This machine has no monitor
attached to it.

Well, to make a long story short, I screwed it up and I had to power
cycle the whole thing.

However, the machine is not booting up as I can't ping it from my
station.

The Sparc 5 has a Sun keyboard attached to it. I read the service manual
and it claims that we can skip the test phase pressing 'Stop' when
powering on.

But this seems not to work. Is there any magic procedure to boot up the
machine "blindly"? Type 'boot' in the OK prompt or something?

I think I could fix the problem if I had a screen and was able to see
what's going on, but this is not possible right now.

Any input?

Thanks.

Mark

mark writes:
>I've got a Sun Sparc 5 workstation in my lab. This machine has no monitor
>attached to it.

>Well, to make a long story short, I screwed it up and I had to power
>cycle the whole thing.

>However, the machine is not booting up as I can't ping it from my
>station.

>The Sparc 5 has a Sun keyboard attached to it. I read the service manual
>and it claims that we can skip the test phase pressing 'Stop' when
>powering on.

>But this seems not to work. Is there any magic procedure to boot up the
>machine "blindly"? Type 'boot' in the OK prompt or something?


Unplug the keyboard. Get something running terminal emulation software
(ie. HyperTerm or SecureCRT in windows) and connect it serial port to
serial port with a null modem into ttyA on the SPARC.

Watch it boot and see where it is erroring out.

Most likely it needs some fsck action to make it boot the rest of the way.

Doug McIntyre dixit:

> mark writes:
>>I've got a Sun Sparc 5 workstation in my lab. This machine has no
>>monitor attached to it.
>
>>Well, to make a long story short, I screwed it up and I had to power
>>cycle the whole thing.
>
>>However, the machine is not booting up as I can't ping it from my
>>station.
>
>>The Sparc 5 has a Sun keyboard attached to it. I read the service
>>manual and it claims that we can skip the test phase pressing 'Stop'
>>when powering on.
>
>>But this seems not to work. Is there any magic procedure to boot up
>>the machine "blindly"? Type 'boot' in the OK prompt or something?
>
>
> Unplug the keyboard. Get something running terminal emulation software
> (ie. HyperTerm or SecureCRT in windows) and connect it serial port to
> serial port with a null modem into ttyA on the SPARC.
>
> Watch it boot and see where it is erroring out.
>
> Most likely it needs some fsck action to make it boot the rest of the
> way.


Well, finally I got an HyperTerm connection and was able to see the boot
process. This is the dump:

ok
ok
ok
Power-ON Reset


MB86907 POST 2.2.3 03SEP96

Probing system memory: 32 32 32 32 0 0 0 0
Config = 880000AA
512Kb ecache detected
1.1.1 mem ram walking ones Pass
1.1.2 mem ram address Pass
1.1.3 mem ram post r/w
1.1.4 mem ram obp r/w region Pass
1.2.1 mem control parity Pass
2.1.1 srmmu regs read/write Pass
2.2.1 srmmu ram io-tlb Pass
2.2.2 srmmu ram d-tlb Pass
2.2.3 srmmu ram pdt cache Pass
3.1.1 iommu reg read/write Pass
3.1.2 iommu reg flush individual Pass
3.1.3 iommu reg flush all Pass
3.2.1 iommu timeout ebus Pass
3.2.2 iommu timeout sbus Pass
4.1.1 fpu reg regfile Pass
4.1.2 fpu reg misalign Pass
4.1.3 fpu reg single precision Pass
4.1.4 fpu reg double precision Pass
4.2.1 fpu exceptions single precision Pass
4.2.2 fpu exceptions double precision Pass
5.1.1 cache dcache ram Pass
5.1.2 cache dcache address Pass
5.1.3 cache dcache tag Pass
5.1.4 cache dcache clear Pass
5.2.1 cache icache ram Pass
5.2.2 cache icache address Pass
5.2.3 cache icache tag Pass
5.2.4 cache icache clear Pass
5.3.1 cache ecache ram Pass
5.3.2 cache ecache address Pass
5.3.3 cache ecache tag Pass
5.4.1 cache snoop ram Pass
6.1.1 i/o counters processor user timer Pass
6.1.2 i/o counters processor counter Pass
6.1.3 i/o counters system counter Pass
6.2.1 i/o lance getid Pass
6.2.2 i/o lance csr Pass
6.2.3 i/o lance rap Pass

Allocating SRMMU Context Table
6.2.4 i/o lance rdp Pass

Mapping ROM

ttya initialized
6.3.3 i/o esp fifo access Pass
Probing Memory Bank #1 32 Megabytes
6.3.4 i/o esp command reg Pass32 Megabytes
Probing
6.4.1 i/o pp register access Pass
Probing Memory Bank #4 Nothing there
6.4.2 i/o pp io readback Passre
Probing Memory Ba
6.4.3 i/o pp tcr readback Passrobing Memory
Bank #7 Nothing there
6.5.1 i/o tod regs test Pass
Setting NVRAM parameters to de
6.5.2 i/o tod nvram access PassSetting diag-
switch? NVRAM param
7.4.2 intr timer process counter Passps SONET MM FIBER
Carrier Not Det
8.1.1 dma apc bypass Passm Checksum OK, =
d9ad


Allocating SRMMU Context Tableae
Setting SRMMU Context Register
Interrupts Level = 4
Setting SRMMU Context Table Pointer Register
Test Passed
Allocating SRMMU Level 1 Table
Test Passed
Test
Mapping RAMimer
Mapping ROM
Test Pass

ttya initializeding Fragmentatio
Probing Memory Bank #0 32 Megabytest Passed
Testing Reassem
Probing Memory Bank #1 32 Megabytes Passed
Testing SUNI
Probing Memory Bank #2 32 Megabytes Test Passed

Probi
Probing Memory Bank #3 32 Megabytes at 0,0 Nothing there
Probing Memory Bank #4 Nothing there
screen not found.
Probing Memory Bank #5 Nothing there
Keyboard no
Probing Memory Bank #6 Nothing thereutput.
Probing Memory Bank #7 Nothing therery Bank #0 32 Megabytes
155 Mbps SONET MM FIBER00/sbus@0,10001000 at 4
Carrier Not Detected-management
Test Passed
Flash Rom Checksum OK, = d9ad
Probing /iom
Current MAC Addr = 0 0 77 86 60 ae0 NI,GPIB-SBus
Factory MAC Addr = 0 0 77 86 60 ae
Probing /iommu@0,10000000
Intr Level = 40 at 2,0 SUNW
Interrupts Level = 4
4615 Serial Number = 417966/stc FCode initialization c
Test Passed
Testing Addgen

Probi
Test Passed10000000/sb
Testing Addgen Timer ia Testing ATM Adap
Test Passed
Testing Fragmentation FRED

Test PassedET MM FIBER
Testing Reassembly FREDCarrier Not Detected
Test Passed
Test
Testing SUNI
Flash R
Test PassedOK, = d9ad
Self Test Passed
Curr

Probing /iommu@0,10000000/sbus@0,10001000 at 0,0 Nothing thereFactory
MAC Addr = 0 0 77 86 60 ae
screen not found. 4

Can't open input device.

Probing Memory Bank #3 32 Megabytes
Test Passed
Self
Probing Memory Bank #4 Nothing there /iommu@0,10000000/sbus@0,10001000 a
Probing Memory Bank #5 Nothing there
Probing Memory Bank #6 Nothing thererd
ROM Re
Probing Memory Bank #7 Nothing thereial #15705008.
Incorrect configuration checksum;
Ethernet address db:ac:70:83:ab
Setting NVRAM parameters to default values.


The IDP
Setting diag-switch? NVRAM parameter to true

Boot device: /iommu/sbus/ledma@5
Probing CPU FMI,MB86907ile and a
Probing CPU FMI,MB86907ile and a
4615 Serial Number = 417966
Test Passed
Testing Addgen
Test Passed
Testing Addgen Timer
Test Passed
Testing Fragmentation FRED
Test Passed
Testing Reassembly FRED
Test Passed
Testing SUNI
Test Passed
Self Test Passed

Probing /iommu@0,10000000/sbus@0,10001000 at 0,0 Nothing there

SPARCstation 5, No Keyboard
ROM Rev. 2.29, 128 MB memory installed, Serial #15705008.
Ethernet address db:ac:70:83:ab:7b, Host ID: dbefa3b0.


The IDPROM contents are invalid

Boot device: /iommu/sbus/ledma@5,8400010/le@5,8c00000 File and args:
Internal loopback test -- Did not receive expected loopback packet.

Can't open boot device

Type help for more information
ok




Once this point is reached, I can't make it boot with boot command.

Tried:

boot -s
boot disk0:a

Any ideas?

Mark

> SPARCstation 5, No Keyboard
> ROM Rev. 2.29, 128 MB memory installed, Serial #15705008.
> Ethernet address db:ac:70:83:ab:7b, Host ID: dbefa3b0.
>
>
> The IDPROM contents are invalid
>
> Boot device: /iommu/sbus/ledma@5,8400010/le@5,8c00000 File and args:
> Internal loopback test -- Did not receive expected loopback packet.
>
> Can't open boot device
>
> Type help for more information
> ok

My guess is a bad NVRAM.
However, the MAC and Host ID look good.

Maybe try:

ok set-defaults
ok setenv auto-boot? false
ok setenv diag-switch? false
ok reset

If it gets to back to the 'ok' prompt without reporting that the IDPROM
contents are still invalid then do:

ok probe-scsi

to see if you can find your disks.

Trinean

"Trinean" dixit:

> My guess is a bad NVRAM.
> However, the MAC and Host ID look good.
>
> Maybe try:
>
> ok set-defaults
> ok setenv auto-boot? false
> ok setenv diag-switch? false
> ok reset
>
> If it gets to back to the 'ok' prompt without reporting that the IDPROM
> contents are still invalid then do:
>
> ok probe-scsi
>
> to see if you can find your disks.

Well, I tried what you suggested and it worked out.

You saved my ass, dude. I owe you a beer.

Thanks a lot.

Mark