The collected works of jpaul

jpaul
Who joined Oct. 11, 2007, 9:04 a.m.
and authored 19 notes
Wrote on the subject of Indigo startup problems at Jan. 21, 2013, 6:37 a.m...
Greetings;

I pulled my R3k Indigo Eland out of storage recently and apparently it has suffered from bitrot. The machine worked when I put it up, around eight years ago, but now it won't power on. Initially the orange LED would simply blink constantly on power on without turning green. I pulled the CPU and graphics board and reseated the RAM and gently pushed on socketed chips (while grounded).

Now, when I power on the machine, the LED goes immediately to green and stays green. I hear no startup chime. I've checked +5v and +12v on the drive socket and the voltage is steady with no obvious ripple. I don't see anything appear on the serial terminal at all. I've left it running for ~3 minutes and not seen any hint of video coming up. When I power off the machine I get a curious squelch noise from the speaker, which I don't recall ever getting before... but it does suggest the speaker itself isn't blown out and holding 'back' the chime.

The Indigo Field Manual doesn't quite describe this issue - it expects it to either not come to green, or to green with chime and carry on - there doesn't seem to be a middle ground.

I don't suppose someone could throw a suggestion my way?

Thanks;

- JP
jpaul
Who joined Oct. 11, 2007, 9:04 a.m.
and authored 19 notes
Wrote on the subject of Indigo startup problems at Jan. 21, 2013, 7:54 a.m...
jan-jaap wrote:
Connect a terminal to serial #1 and see what it says.

If the battery went dead (which isn't unlikely), the NVRAM is invalid and the console reset to 'd' (serial port).
You'll need a new battery to get past the 'TOD clock invalid , initializing TOD...' messages.


As above, I don't see anything on the serial console ever show up, alas.

- JP
jpaul
Who joined Oct. 11, 2007, 9:04 a.m.
and authored 19 notes
Wrote on the subject of Indigo startup problems at Jan. 28, 2013, 1:09 p.m...
I tried reseating chips and fiddled with the RAM positions, even removing all of the sticks. Green on power-on, no complaints even when missing all RAM.

Given it gave me an orange light when I tried it last weekend, before initially reseating things, I'm definitely worried I've zapped something.

I've also verified there's no voltage coming out of the battery on the CPU board, but I have a hard time believe that not having a working battery causes it to fail to go into its POST (especially since there's lots of posts saying it gives tod errors on serial, which you wouldn't get it if it hadn't gone past the POST in the first place).

Most irritating. Anyone got a spare Indigo CPU board? :P

- JP
jpaul
Who joined Oct. 11, 2007, 9:04 a.m.
and authored 19 notes
Wrote on the subject of Indigo startup problems at Jan. 29, 2013, 7:39 a.m...
Alrighty, it's not like it'll be a major investment, I'll give it a whirl.

I see mention of possibly using a CR2032, which is a 3.0v battery - but the installed battery is 3.7v. Is the 3.0v sufficient?

- JP
jpaul
Who joined Oct. 11, 2007, 9:04 a.m.
and authored 19 notes
Wrote on the subject of Indigo startup problems at Feb. 6, 2013, 2:28 p.m...
No soap, no changes at all in behaviour with a good battery source. Quite sure I killed it.

Thank you, again, to everyone who suggested things.

- JP