[jander31]

There are three reasons you can have this message:

1. Your fan is actually dead, this is very easy to check, is your fan not working?
2. Your fan is actually running fine but the system can't tell it's running at all, this is a failure of one of the environmental monitoring chips if this is the case, the chip would need to be replaced, not impossible job I do it all the time, but not easy for someone who's not familiar with professional soldering.
3. Your fan is not running, the system knows it's not running, but when you plug in a new fan it still won't run, this would be a failure of the MOSFET at the area of the fan connector that literally gives the fan 12V power. Only reason this should occur is if someone plugged in a replacement fan not knowing that the pin out has changed and they destroyed the boss, requiring board repair.

Most of these systems have several stages of start up. First stage is L1 start up, you could also consider this idle standby power. When you plug in a modern SGI it immediately starts its L1, just buy pulling in wall AC power.  Normally using the 5V standby power on the motherboard to trigger this process.  The motherboard is not technically active during this time but the base level environmental monitoring firmware and inventory program is active. This allows you to use a terminal signal to communicate with the L1 to start up the system and also control how the system starts up, diagnostic switches, and such.

I really appreciate the detailed response!  I started up the system briefly to see the physical location of the problem fan, and sure enough, I saw the left fan (not PSU) rattling a bit when it spun, then it stopped spinning after about 20 seconds.  I ruled out #3, as I swapped plugs with the center fan and the left fan, and the center fan ran with no issues while plugged into the left fan's spot.

I know you don't recommend it, but I am curious to see if PROM will load before I begin replacing the fan.  What is the command to ignore the environmental monitoring system?  It wouldn't be running for long, as I definitely want to avoid damaging this system.  I'd like to know if PROM comes up with any issues, that way I can purchase replacement parts in one pass.  After running the ignore command, I assume this command is not retained by memory, and the next startup will NOT ignore the monitoring system?

I found a replacement fan (3110KL-04W-B79), already bought it because it was cheap, but the only issue now is swapping the new fan's plugs with the broken fan so it'll fit on the motherboard.  I did find some old forums, including some on archived Nekochan forums, regarding fan pinout and whatnot, so I'll have to closely read those once my fan arrives, that way I don't fry my board.

How will I know if my system is in good condition?  Once PROM successfully loads and whatnot?

Thank you again for your response, I really appreciate it.  I feel reassured that my system is in good shape for now.  One last question (unrelated) though, do you know if this SGI fiber optic card (P/N 9210169) will work in my Origin 300?  I really want to experiment with fiber optics on this server.  The manual for that fiber optic card mentioned the Origin2000/200 and Onyx2, but it is PCI-X (I believe it is PCI-X at least, looks like it).