Still trying to netboot 6300

From: Saku Setala <setala_at_setala.net>
Date: Sat Feb 23 00:16:47 2002

Hi Geoff, thanks for replying.

On Sat, 23 Feb 2002, Geoff Roberts wrote:

> All those retries are a Bad Thing. Looks more like a hardware problem.

That's what I suspected in the beginning. So I swapped the hub and network
cables and aui-rj45 transceiver. I also swapped the DEBNT card on 6300.
No difference whatsoever. Tried even flipping the "heartbeat" on from the
tranceiver. No different.

The boot server is a Microvax 3100/40. Two diskless Microvax 3400 boot
happily from it without any problems.
The R5 looks funny becouse I need to specify the Tertiary loader filename.
With R5:0 it just freezes.

I've pulled out earlier all the extra cards from the 6300, so only bare
minimum left.
>>> SHOW CONF
      Type Rev
  1+ KA62B (8001) 8002
  8+ MS62A (4001) 0002
  9+ MS62A (4001) 0002
  A+ MS62A (4001) 0002
  D+ DWMBA/A (2001) 0002
  E+ DWMBA/A (2001) 0002

  XBI D
  1+ DWMBA/B (2107) 000A
  6+ DEBNA (410F) 0250

  XBI E
  1+ DWMBA/B (2107) 000A

Thanks for your time,

--Saku


>
> 1) What is the boot server? Vax of some kind?
> 2) Might be a flaky cable or transceiver. Looks like it's trying to do it
> right, but the msgs are not getting through.
> 3) 6K ethernet hardware is strictly half duplex, make sure your boot server
> isn't trying to use full duplex.
> 4) 10Base2 transceivers have a switch to alter a ethernet particular
> characteristic, cannot remember what it's called offhand, but vaxen do
> strange things if it's in the wrong place.
>
> Does the 6K have a CIBCA (CI device for talking to a HSC) in it? If so take
> it out (usually 2 cards in the BI cage).
> Shouldn't bother it, but I vaguely recall some odd problems during boot if
> it's not terminated.
> I'll post some working boot strings, I haven't had to play with mine for
> years so memory fails me at the moment. Your R5 value looks odd to me but
> all my 6K's boot off hard disk or HSC so it doesn't mean you have it wrong.
> .
> I'll see if I can scan and post a couple pages from the 6K user manual.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Geoff in Oz
>
>
Received on Sat Feb 23 2002 - 00:16:47 GMT