| Author |
Firmware upgrade breaks DS20e CPU |
dittman
Member
Posts: 4
Location: Plano, TX
Joined: 22.04.08 |
| Posted on January 04 2010 18:12 |
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I have a DS20e with two 667MHz CPUs. The system was running firmware V7.1. I installed OpenVMS V8.2 without any issues. I then found my OpenVMS V8.3 CD and decided to reinstall. Before I did that I upgraded the firmware to V7.3. I then booted and started the VMS V8.3 install. After the initial install finished I shutdown the system and then booted from the hard drive to continue the install. VMS bugchecked with:
%SYSTEM-I-BOOTUPGRADE, Coordinated Startup not performed
%EWA0, Auto-negotiation mode set by console (EGA0_MODE)
%EWA0, DEGXA-TA located in 64-bit, 33-mhz PCI slot
%EWA0, Device type is BCM5703C (UTP) Rev A2 (10020000)
**** OpenVMS Alpha Operating System V8.3 - BUGCHECK ****
** Bugcheck code = 00000215: MACHINECHK, Machine check while in kernel mode
** Crash CPU: 00000000 Primary CPU: 00000000 Node Name: BALDER
** Supported CPU count: 00000002
** Active CPUs: 00000000.00000003
** Current Process: STARTUP
** Current PSB ID: 00000001
** Image Name: BALDER$DKA0:[SYS0.SYSCOMMON.][SYSEXE]SYSMAN.EXE;1
That's usually hardware which I found odd since it had been running V8.2 just fine and did the boot from the V8.3 CD without any problems.
I pulled the PCI cards and swapped around memory without any help. I then tried to boot from a VMS V7.3-2 CD to see what would happen if I tried an install of V7.3-2. It crashed while booting from the CD with the same failure:
Configuring devices...
%EWA0, Auto-negotiation mode set by console (EGA0_MODE)
%EWA0, DEGXA-TA located in 64-bit, 33-mhz PCI slot
%EWA0, Device type is BCM5703C (UTP) Rev B2 (10020000)
**** OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System V7.3-2 - BUGCHECK ****
** Bugcheck code = 00000215: MACHINECHK, Machine check while in kernel mode
** Crash CPU: 00 Primary CPU: 00 Active CPUs: 00000003
** Current Process = STARTUP
** Current PSB ID = 00000001
** Image Name = DQA0:[SYS0.SYSCOMMON.][SYSEXE]SYSMAN.EXE;1
**** Error log buffers not dumped to SYS$ERRLOG.DMP
**** Canceled memory dump, no dump file available
(I find it odd that it says "Active CPUs: 00000003"
I then pulled CPU 1 and the V7.3-2 CD booted just fine. I then rebooted from the disk I installed V8.3 and it continued the installation just fine.
After the firmware upgrade the system could still see the CPU:
OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version V8.3
. Copyright 1976-2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
%DECnet-I-LOADED, network base image loaded, version = 05.13.00
%DECnet-W-NOOPEN, could not open SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSEXE]NET$CONFIG.DAT
%SMP-I-SECMSG, CPU #01 message: P01>>> START
%SMP-I-CPUTRN, CPU #01 has joined the active set.
Does anyone have any ideas on what might have went wrong with the firmware upgrade? |
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| Author |
RE: Firmware upgrade breaks DS20e CPU |
dittman
Member
Posts: 4
Location: Plano, TX
Joined: 22.04.08 |
| Posted on January 06 2010 19:36 |
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I decided to play around some more. If I use just one of the CPUs everything works fine. I tested both CPUs alone in each slot and everything worked.
I then reinstalled both CPUs but switched slots and again got the failures. I checked the CPUs to make sure they were the same pass and had the same SROM firmware and they do:
Processors
CPU 0 Alpha EV67 pass 2.2.3 666 MHz SROM Revision: V1.13.44
Bcache size: 8 MB
CPU 1 Alpha EV67 pass 2.2.3 666 MHz SROM Revision: V1.13.44
Bcache size: 8 MB
As a final test I booted the VMS V8.3 disk that had completed the installation with only one CPU and it booted just fine with both of them.
I'm puzzled by these results. I don't believe this is a general problem with the DS20e and firmware V7.3 since I think I would have seen complaints about it and the firmware has been out for quite a while. |
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| Author |
RE: Firmware upgrade breaks DS20e CPU |
ddsnyder
Member
Posts: 15
Location: BUTLER, PA
Joined: 03.12.06 |
| Posted on January 07 2010 01:27 |
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I am puzzled by this as well. I have a DS20E with VMS 8.3. I did not
encounter any problems. Note that I only updated to FW 6.9, the minimum recomended. The Bugcheck data made no sense, I am no
expert at analyzing crashes.
I was hoping someone else would jump in here to offer a solution,
as I may encounter this sometime in the future. |
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| Author |
RE: Firmware upgrade breaks DS20e CPU |
dittman
Member
Posts: 4
Location: Plano, TX
Joined: 22.04.08 |
| Posted on January 07 2010 07:07 |
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I suppose I can try to downgrade the firmware. |
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| Author |
RE: Firmware upgrade breaks DS20e CPU |
dittman
Member
Posts: 4
Location: Plano, TX
Joined: 22.04.08 |
| Posted on January 07 2010 07:08 |
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By the way, is your DS20e a production or hobbyist system? If it's hobbyist, would you be interested in trying my CPUs in your system to see what happens? |
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| Author |
RE: Firmware upgrade breaks DS20e CPU |
ddsnyder
Member
Posts: 15
Location: BUTLER, PA
Joined: 03.12.06 |
| Posted on January 08 2010 02:17 |
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My DS20E is a hobbyist system, was production. I would be willing to
test your CPU's. I currently run duals plus one spare.
It has been running VMS 8.3 since 10/09, loaded with Oracle,
WASD and numerous other packages. |
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