[Kl0neMan]

Greetings new users, and welcome to the forums.

It would be wise to read the FAQ I wrote here:

https://wiki.irixnet.org/IRIX_and_SGI_FAQ

Thank you for allowing me access to the system.  I have read the instructive FAQ, and would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and reveal why I am here.

 I am a recently retired engineer who used SGI's in his former life. I have collected a few of them for use at home. I currently have a pair of indigos, an indigo 2, a pair of Indys, and an Octane.

The Octane has developed a failure to recognize its network connections, so I am scouring the internet looking for sources of information on what themes probably problem might be, and how to go about repairing it. (before being an engineer, I was an electronics technician, so I can still handle tools like an oscilloscope, DMM and a soldering iron).  I have observed the failures of the "Dallas" chip on Indys of the past, and wonder if something similar the what is wrong with it. If this is the failure cause, how does one acquire replacement modules, and restore whatever content was stored within them, so that the machines can communicate over the network once again?

Thank you all in advance.  I will also share knowledge I have gained with these systems that I still recall, and also tell my son-in-law about the system. I gave him an Indigo R10K system with Max Impact graphics to play with.

[Raion]

Hi and thanks for joining! I've split this out into its own thread.

What works network-wise when you boot into IRIX? From the PROM, ping/trace/IP address assignment doesn't actually work.

[Kl0neMan]

The system appears to power up normally. it configures its ef0 interface properly also. An ethernet switch shows that the interface goes up and down, based upon an LED indicator on that switch port. It responds to pings its own IP address that I assigned to match an allocation I made for it on my LAN. It neither responds to nor is successful in pings to other LAN hosts. It DOES know what the current time is.

[Raion]

Can it ping a gateway? Are you using routed or /etc/config/static-route.options?

http://archive.irixnet.org/apocrypha/the...s/ch2.html

[Kl0neMan]

It cannot ping any LAN host other than itself, either by hostname or by IP address. This includes my LAN's router which I have set to be the default route.

Routed is chkconfig'd on.

I rebooted the system, and it is stating there is no ethernet link - check ethernet cable. A replacement cable does not correct the problem and my cable tester indicates no problem with the cable.

Going into diagnostics, an hinv command reveals the 10/100 ethernet as ef0. The manual assigned IP address and MAC address are both displayed in a "printenv" command in the command monitor shell.

The port on the ethernet switch the system is attached to blinks about once per second. It is as if the system is trying to initialize the link, then failing somewhere along the line. The upbound port has a solid attachment indication.

[Raion]

That sounds like a hardware issue of some kind for certain.

But you should definitely chkconfig routed off because that tends to screw things up software side—manual configs are always best on IRIX

[weblacky]

I’ve not seen this before but I agree with Raion, please test from PROM, then from Irix. Don’t confuse them as being the same. If you can setup Ethernet in PROM and perform a TFTP get (watch with wireshark). Then it’s not a hardware issue.

The only my thing I can come up with is to either use Irix install media and boot the installer and try some Ethernet operations and also check your MTU. A frame that is larger than it’s supposed to be could cause what you’re seeing, but I assume you didn’t enable jumbo frames or a custom MTU in your dhcp server or something.

I’d try wireshark and watch for dhcp ack from the octane. If you’re getting an assigned address and your MAC isn’t corrupt then it sounds like a higher layer problem.

We’ve not had people come in and say the Ethernet ports are failing in Octanes. So this isn’t a thing we’ve seen specifically.

Also to be very clear, only Indy corrupts it’s MAC on NVRAM issues. No other SGI does that. So your real-time clock shouldn’t have any relation to Ethernet on an Octane.

Also O2/Octane chips with replacement coin cells are now available on tindie, but this RTCs aren’t hard to get.

Indy RTCs are next to impossible right now. I have an old drilling guide for Indy RTC. Each RTC can have different drilling position. Don’t mistake them.