[kaigan]

Hey, folks,

I'm working on getting IRIX installed on my Onyx2 and I'm running into two issues.

The first is that I'm not able to get a MAC address listed from either of my IO6Gs. (One wasn't working, so I tried the spare from my "dead" Onyx2. Same issue.) "printenv eaddr" returns no result. There don't appear to be any errors on startup related to the NICs, though, and both show full connectivity lights with an Ethernet cable connected. The system doesn't show up in my router's ARP table, nor can I ping it or ping from it. I noticed that the IO6G has an ST Microelectronics timekeeping battery on it. Given the age, I imagine both of them could have gone bad. Might that be my issue? If so, has anyone had to replace one of these and would you have a part number?

The second issue is that the system doesn't appear to be able to identify the hard drive I have installed. When the system walks the SCSI controllers, it comes back without any results. I've tried reseating the drive, placing it in multiple slots, and using another known-good drive of the same model. The drives I've tried are 300 GB Seagate drives and they work just fine with my Octane, O2, and Tezro. Would the Onyx2 have any additional limitations on drive capacities or types?

Thank you very much!

[kaigan]

I managed to find a lower-capacity drive to test in the Onyx2 and still no dice on getting it to show up during the SCSI adapter walks. That said, I can hear what sounds like the drives seeking during the boot-up process. Hopefully things aren't totally dead.

[Raion]

Hey Kaigan,

For the MAC Address issue, yes, IO6G has a timekeeper battery on it that can go bad indeed. Not sure the P/N, but once you replace it you can replace the MAC.

HDD backplane issue, I use 146G 15k HP Cheetahs and it works, as much as I'm able to power up my system. Not sure why yours aren't being recognized.

[kaigan]

Thanks for the info, Raion! There's a part number on the chip itself. Mine are ST Microelectronics M48T35Y-70PC1 chips, it looks like. Not many US sellers of them on eBay, but they're at least somewhat available.

How do I reprogram the MAC address into the system after replacing the chip, then? "setenv -f eaddr <address>" will cause the address to show back up on a printenv, but it doesn't retain it across reboots, nor does it seem to make the NIC come online properly for actual use. Hopefully it's just a simple command I'm not finding in my own research.

[Raion]

Not quite sure tbh, sorry I don't know the exact answer here.

[kaigan]

No worries, any and all help is appreciated.

It looks like the Onyx2 is retaining its MAC address. From the PROM monitor, I ran a "diag_enet -t nic -v", which came back with a valid SGI MAC address. There's still nothing in the eaddr PROM variable, though, and the NIC still doesn't seem to be binding properly.

No luck on the HDD issue as of yet, either. However, I did notice from looking at the startup log from another Onyx2 online that my machine isn't recognizing the CD-ROM drive either. I didn't even think about that initially. I might try removing the CD-ROM or just swapping out the entire MSC/CD-ROM unit with my spare to see if it makes any difference.

[uunix]

If my o2000 & Onyx2 are anything to go by, you don't get an eaddr. No idea why.

[Irinikus]

I don't know what the issue with your machine is, but this is what you should see when an Onyx2 boots:



This image from the video shows you what you should see, when the machine walks through it's SCSI adaptors: (My machine has a CD-ROM and two hard drives installed)



Maybe try installing an external drive to see if it's not your primary SCSI controller, that's the problem?

[kaigan]

Thanks for the additional information, guys! It's strange, I have no idea why it would be coming back with 0 devices found on the SCSI walk. I do have an old SCSI tape drive that should be compatible with the Onyx2. I can plug it in and see if the system finds it.

Since I do have the machine's MAC address now, I'm going to fire up Booterizer and see if I can get the machine to launch a network boot. Maybe the NIC isn't fully enabled in certain parts of the PROM for some reason? :huh: I'll also load Wireshark in the background to see if I can detect any traffic from the machine at all.

[Irinikus]

Here's the printenv from my Onyx2 if it helps:



There's no eaddr! (As uunix mentioned earlier.)