[kln_nurv]

My quad 1Ghz Tezro seems a bit sick and I'm wondering how much it would cost to fix. It last worked about 3 months ago and I suspect the power supply is getting weak, but I'm sure that's not all.

Symptoms:
When I first turned it on this week, it shut down after a few seconds complaining about a low voltage rail on one of the VRMs, but not a VRM failure. After that, it has been consistent. 
Fans spin slightly and the machine powers off pretty much instantly with the message "power up error" on the L1 display. The front red LED blinks once.
The internal LED on the backplane is yellow, then red, then stays yellow when AC power is connected. The LEDs on the node board connectors are both constantly amber.
Sometimes L1 says fan 8 is doing 0rpm, but I have confirmed that all fans do spin when trying to power up.
If this was a normal PC I'd be 99% sure there was a short somewhere.

I have swapped the power supply for a 1000W SuperFlower ATX power supply, with identical results. I have also removed all PCI boards, leaving only the IO9 board installed. Even removing the RAM makes no difference. I have never removed the node board, so damage to the connectors is extremely unlikely. I have tried to use the L1 port for diagnostics but it doesn't work via a Windows or Linux machine as far as I can tell, and I don't have another SGI machine to connect to right now.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[indy99]

Anything interesting appear if you connect a serial terminal to the "L1" port while attempting the process? Might be worth a look at the output of the L1 "env" and "log" commands.

BTW, unlike previous generations of SGI hardware, no need to disconnect the keyboard mouse or monitor while establishing a serial connection. The L1 output is always live, even if or when the system is up and running in graphics mode.

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[Irinikus]

My advice is to always start the machine over a serial link. (besides saving the catch on the door and the power button, you can see the entire prom boot process)

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These are the serial terminal settings for the Tezro:

[chulofiasco]

My advice is to always start the machine over a serial link. (besides saving the catch on the door and the power button, you can see the entire prom boot process)

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These are the serial terminal settings for the Tezro:

that's a sexy bird.

[Irinikus]

My favourite next to the Concord!

[kln_nurv]

I have something from the serial console. It looks like a VRM error and I hope that's all it is. and I hope VRM 0 is the removable one.

ALERT: VRM not OK: type 12V, number 0
ERROR: Power up error: scan error - unable to reset scan hardware

001c01 ATTN: 3.3V low fault limit reached @ 0.000V.

001c01 ATTN: brick auto power down in 30 seconds

001c01 ATTN: brick auto power down in 25 seconds

001c01 ATTN: brick auto power down in 20 seconds

001c01 ATTN: FAN 8 warning limit reached @ 0 RPM.

001c01 ATTN: brick auto power down in 15 seconds

001c01 ATTN: brick auto power down in 10 seconds

001c01 ATTN: FAN 9 warning limit reached @ 0 RPM.

001c01 ATTN: brick auto power down in 5 seconds

001c01 ATTN: brick is powering down now!

001c01 ATTN: FAN 10 warning limit reached @ 0 RPM.

[Irinikus]

Confirm this machine came with this node board?

It also looks like it could be an environmental monitoring error!

[kln_nurv]

The machine was bought via a second-hand dealer who didn't know what it was. It came from an ad agency and AFAIK was stock Discreet Flame hardware. Serial card, 2 FC cards, DM3. I have since added an Adaptec USB2 card. The first time there was any sign of issues was when I tried to add an Audit 2zs platinum. It did power up but complained of low 12v. After removing the Audigy it worked fine though.

I installed irix 6.5.26 in November and had no trouble until yesterday.

I suppose the original owners could have upgraded at some point but I have no way of knowing for sure. It doesn't look like the node board has ever been removed though.

[Irinikus]

It's pity that you don't have another node board handy, as swapping them out would tell you quite a bit. (They're actually not that difficult to swap out.)

The problem with these machines, is that if L1 detects a fault on startup, it won't even allow the prom to boot.

[kln_nurv]

Do you know the meaning of the LEDs on the node board, next to the backplane connectors? On my machine, the LED nearest to the front edge is amber and the other stays off, for each connector. Unfortunately I never noticed the LEDs when the machine was working normally.