[johnnym]

<QUOTE author="johnnym" post_id="2145" time="1533847414" user_id="209">

No issue, thanks for your board P/N, which seems to be the latest revision of the V210/V240 board. Your combination P/N is then 375-3465 or 375-3466 or 375-3467? This P/N should be on a label near the on-board SCSI controller ASIC.

375-3467-02

Oh, seems I've overlooked and later forgot about this. Thanks, LarBob, for taking the time. So according to this combination P/N your board was originally shipped with 1.5 GHZ US IIIis. Well, sadly this doesn't say if one of the other combination P/Ns using the same board P/N will work with 1.5 GHz US IIIis, but I assume they will do. I hence will try to procure a board with this combination P/N or at least the same board P/N and try my luck with my CPUs.

[darkhelmet02]

Sparcstation IPC, but it wont boot SUNOS 4.1.4 off of floppy, watchdog reset and window errors that I could never get past. Also a Sun blade 2500 (silver) which is a wonderful machine

[escimo]

SPARCstation 1+
SPARCstation 2 (4x)
Ultra 60
Blade 2000
Sun 611 cases for CD-ROM, DDS, HDD (8x)

[netfreak]

SPARCstation 5 (70mhz, 160MB RAM, 24-bit framebuffer) - will be a NeXTStep/OpenStep project system
Netra X1 (400mhz, some combination of RAM) - not doing much, will be a Solaris test box

[mamorim01]

- SPARCStation 2, status unknown (still on the mail).
- Ultra 1 Creator, operational, running Solaris 2.6/8.
- Ultra 5, operational, running Solaris 2.6/8.
- Blade 100, operational, running Solaris 10.
- Blade 2500 Red, non operational, board looks dead by all accounts. Sold as "was working last I checked"...
- Sunfire v240, non operational (flashing maintenance) but I plan to tackle the repairs soon.
- Two sets of Type 5 keyboard + mouse, one set of Type 6 keyboard + mouse, one Type 7 keyboard.

The Blade 100 is actually using the input VGA port of a Ray 270 thin station, kind of a waste but I had no other spare monitor at hand.

[commodorejohn]

- Blade 2500 Red, non operational, board looks dead by all accounts. Sold as "was working last I checked"...

Might be worth just double-checking that everything is seated properly inside; my Blade 2000 appeared to be dead until I popped it open and realized that the seller had simply slid the CPU modules into place on the rails but never actually seated them in the socket or locked them down...

[mamorim01]

- Blade 2500 Red, non operational, board looks dead by all accounts. Sold as "was working last I checked"...

Might be worth just double-checking that everything is seated properly inside; my Blade 2000 appeared to be dead until I popped it open and realized that the seller had simply slid the CPU modules into place on the rails but never actually seated them in the socket or locked them down...

Thanks. I am afraid I did try. Removed and reseated DIMMs, processor (I actually have two spare IIIis at hand), PCI cards, tried all connectors (speakers, SCSI, etc), NVRAM, but to no avail. The machine will not POST or reach OBP at all, or show any kind of indication (no beeps from the speaker, so the troubleshooting manual's only suggestion is to "replace motherboard"). Tried with or without different keyboards, tried to connect to the console port, no signs of life whatsoever. :s

Bought the machine for pretty cheap, decided to keep it as it is as I am too fond of the architecture. It has a nice XVR-600 card as well, it was fitted with 4x1GB DIMMs on the first bank, a couple of SCSI drives.... All in all, a bunch of interesting parts, but motherboards are so damn expensive that I figure it will remain just like that, a bunch of parts.

[johnnym]

Thanks. I am afraid I did try. Removed and reseated DIMMs, processor (I actually have two spare IIIis at hand), PCI cards, tried all connectors (speakers, SCSI, etc), NVRAM, but to no avail. The machine will not POST or reach OBP at all, or show any kind of indication (no beeps from the speaker, so the troubleshooting manual's only suggestion is to "replace motherboard"). Tried with or without different keyboards, tried to connect to the console port, no signs of life whatsoever. :s

It might also be worth a try to strip the machine down to the absolute minimum, i.e. no PCI cards, no memory (I know that at least for a Blade 100 it will then complain about missing memory on the serial console port!), one known-working CPU only, no NVRAM, no keyboard (I think only the existence of a connected keyboard is checked, but to be sure, also remove any attached mouse, so the console gets rerouted to the serial port, usually ttya).

Another option might be to try known-good hardware like memory or CPUs in the Blade 2500 (w/o other hardware attached/inserted) or parts from the Blade 2500 in a known-good machine. There might be a risk to damage good hardware with bad hardware, but to be completely honest, I've never seen this for my machines. Actually I never even came across a non-working Sun machine either, and I've got plenty of them. They're rock solid.

Maybe you try to fix your V240 first, as it has an SC/ALOM with environment monitoring, you should be able to diagnose things easier there. When fixed you have a set of known-good hardware to test with the Blade 2500 and a known-good machine to test parts from the Blade 2500.

[mamorim01]

It is good advice. To be honest, I believe I have tried it everything I possibly could. Having had experience with Sun machines I would expect a barebones setup with just a processor (no RAM) would have complained with 3 beeps (memory error). I have verified that to be a good reference and starting point to start troubleshooting in a few ocassions before. This one just won't do anything at all. I have checked the console as well for good measure.

I do have the v240 as a backup plan to test the processors, RAM, and PCI cards. As you say, there are quite a few common points between both systems.

I am frankly surprised at the huge price difference between both systems, I managed to procure the barebones v240 for around 50 euro (including s&h), plus a working, tested, motherboard is coming from Germany at 35 euro (including s&h) to keep as spares and to help during the troubleshooting were it necessary. I also have an ASTEC PSU about to arrive which I procured for 22 euro (somebody had pulled one of the redundant PSUs from the v240 and I wanted to make sure I had a good supply to begin with).

Prices on Blade 2500s are absolutely insane, with motherboards being offered for around 500 euro as a minimum, some of them fitted with two IIIis processors selling for near 1.000 euro. It kind of looks as if someone had cornered the market as things have not changed in months. That is definitely a no go in my book, would rather try my hand at the v240 and keep it working somewhere where the noise does not bother me. They are essentially the same machines (excluding graphics capabilities, maybe?).

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, I have to assume the Blade 2x00 models are still deployed out in some mission-critical field application or run some expensive CAD software or something based on the prices they command. I was lucky and got mine for about $200 with a decent loadout (minus hard drives,) but they can go quite a bit higher than that.