Sun

Today I set up my old Sun Blade 1000, connected keyboard, mouse and screen and tried to power it on. Nope, no light in the power switch, no beep (The SUN logo lights up, and I can hear the hard drive spin up). The last time I used it, the machine was working properly. However, this was in 2011.
So I tried reseating the memory - didn't help.
Next I checked the battery - it reads 2.8V with my multimeter. Could that be it?

No, it should still boot with a dead battery, the boot process will see that it's dead and say:

Slowlaris wrote: Can’t read mem-layout table from sys SEEPROM. Using default!
WARNING: HOSTID data should be moved to socketed SEEPROM!
HW support required for hostid reprogramming!

I changed the battery - no, that didn't help.
The PSU turns on, a bit later the hard drive spins up, but that's it.
No green light (blinking or otherwise) in the power button.
Update : oh, no no beep from the speaker either.

Oops, you were quicker than me
Any idea what could be wrong?
I've reseated the memory again, I took out and put in the idprom chip.
Anything else I should do?

When the disk spins up can you tell if it's reading anything? The usual cacophony of a SCSI read head clicking back and forth?

it doesn't appear to be reading, just an initial scan / seek, then nothing.

Sounds like a clear cut case of the dreaded Dead Hardware.

Next you should try disconnecting the boot disk, see if it's not a disk failure that's preventing the OS from posting...

Removing the hard drive didn't help - the machine still doesn't want to boot.

No bootable Solaris CD?

Tingo, I have the complete internal workings of Blade 2000, motherboard, dual 900Mhz CPU, XV200[can't recall it, but a super Graphics Card], 2Gb Ram, PCi3 card with drivers etc, 4 port Ethernet etc.. also power supply etc.. everything except the case. I'd have to get everything out for a complete inventory.

Obviously this doesn't help your problem at the moment, but would help my shed space..

I dismantled it not long after Oracle took over sun..

Let me know if you need anything.

vishnu wrote: No bootable Solaris CD?

No, how is that supposed to help?
The machine won't power on properly....

This is probably not the problem, but when i was playing around with my sunblade, the case had to be closed before the system did anything.. was scrathing my head with an open case not working.

bradbobak wrote: This is probably not the problem, but when i was playing around with my sunblade, the case had to be closed before the system did anything.. was scrathing my head with an open case not working.

Good point - I've been bitten by this with some servers and at least one workstation-type deskside/tower. Look around for switches or contacts mounted anywhere on the internal frame...

A Sun 1000/2000 will not boot with the side off.

No, it's not the cover interlock switch. I've tested that too; if you power on the machine and remove the side cover, the PSU turns off completely, not even a light in the Sun logo.

Try hooking up a serial console, if it's actually getting as far as spinning up the disks there should be some output there from the power-on self test.

In most cases serial output will tell you exactly what the situation is. In most cases the motherboard is to blame, but from experience, try re-seating CPU 0, use electronic cleaner and a can of compressed air to clean out the CPU contact strip. NO CPU 0, no beep, nothing

Yes, I really should try to hook up a serial console, and try to reseat the cpu. Hopefully, I will find time for it in the near future.

tingo wrote: Yes, I really should try to hook up a serial console, and try to reseat the cpu. Hopefully, I will find time for it in the near future.

A good cleaning could get it running. Revived a SB1k dual 750 that way

In my years of working with super cranky Blade 2000s, here are a couple of notes.

-Make sure the CPUs are torqued correctly, I think the 1000 came with a torque "ring" to use, the 2000s had a green handle 5lb wrench.
-Turn on the machine and then double tap the power button after the light comes on, this should do a temporary set-defaults.
-Boot the machine minus a keyboard and mouse with a null modem cable hooked up, 9600 8N1, that should put *something* on the screen that should put you in the right direction.