Hello, all!
First of all, let me thank all the people that responded to my query - too
numerous to list - you know who you are!
My questions, as submitted:
> Chaos seems to have hit our three SPARCstations here (IPC/ELC/2) - what
> started as an innocent attempt to sync the fs before removing a tape drive
> ended in my serious doubts about the integrity of our setup.
>
> To ennumerate:
>
> 1) the sync was done from command-mode, not from user-mode - and resulted
> in a panic zero (with subsequent dump). A command-mode sync from
> the other two systems had the same result.
>
> 2) after a reset, the SS2 seemed to hang during the fsck. One power-cycle
> seemed to "fix" this.
>
> 3) I guess I never bothered to look before, but the SS2 and the IPC state
> "16 [24 for the IPC] Megs installed", but then say "Testing 1 Megs"!
>
> 4) a command-mode "test /memory" on the SS2 revealed (supposedly) that two
> of our SIMMs returned an incorrect longword. I switched them with
> the other two; test /memory found the "1 Megs" it was testing to
> be okay after this.
>
> 5) the ELC told me "Power-on SelfTest FAILED... Replace Module MEM1 (U0407)".
> doing a command-mode reset seemed to "take care" of this (hasn't
> appeared since)
>
> So here are my questions:
>
> Q1) Are the power-up/boot-up messages on SPARCstations (i.e.: "1 Megs
> installed") inconclusive/irrelevant so that I may safely ignore
> them?
>
> Q2) if the answer to Q1 is "no", then what the heck is going on???
>
> Just to addend: All three stations dumped their backups just fine over the
> weekend - my collegue was using the ELC w/o problems, I used both the IPC
> and the SS2 intensely without any complaints from either system.
It appears that Q1 (and thus Q2) is easily answered: Yes, these messages
(except perhaps the ELC) can be safely ignored. There is a setting in the
boot-eeprom that is factory-default at testing only 1 Meg.
This is done for the simple reason that Sun's memory test routines are
extremely slow. To save time on bootup, only 1 Meg is tested.
This can be altered by getting into command-mode (press L1-A, then type
"n<CR>" to get into command-mode) and typing "setenv selftest-#megs xx",
where xx is an integer representing the amount of memory that is to be
tested. To get out of command-mode, type "go<CR>".
As for the memory errors on the SS2 (and perhaps also on the ELC), it may
just have been a freaky coincidence - perhaps the contacts on the SIMMS weren't
making a good electrical connection...
Thanks again, folks!
Regards,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
#### ###### Hans D. Baumeister
### ######## Office Imaging, Software & Integration Group (SIG)
## ########### Kodak AG, Hedelfingerstrasse, Stuttgart, Germany
# ### KODAK ### Telefone: 0711/4062853, FAX: 0711/4062888, KNET 6312853
## ########### Internet: baumeist@vsun02.ag01.kodak.com
### ######## Quote : "I have no illusions... I lost them on
#### ###### my travels!" Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons
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