New Octane, odd issues

[astouffer]

Hello all, I just scored an Octane from eBay. Its a dual 300Mhz and didn't come with any ram so I moved the simms over from my dead Octane and it's alive! I was able to boot with a serial console and clear the prom password. So far so good.

When booting with a serial console I'm getting this error

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nic_eaddr: Failed to find readable MAC NIC, rc 1
ALERT: /hw/node/xtalk/15/pci/2: nic_get_eaddr failed


So I check out the prom variables

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netaddr=143.57.73.26
eaddr=31:34:33:2e:35:37


The mac address is invalid. I tried to set the variable but got an error about it being read only. So I did a resetenv and it changed to

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eaddr=00:68:67:6a:66:69

Which still isn't valid... A bad Dallas chip?

Anyhow the next issue. My old hard drive had 6.5.29 and was set up for V6 graphics. The new board is listed as EMXI in the prom hinv. I can't boot with this board installed. I tried an autoconfig -vf at the serial console and still nothing. The mouse stops responding and you never see any boot messages. How can I make irix detect the new hardware?

Thanks.

[Raion-Fox]

Your NIC is bad. You'll need a new number-in-a-can or a frontplane.

As for the irix problem with the wrong graphics board, you'll need to reinstall the graphics subsystem.

[astouffer]

Your NIC is bad. You'll need a new number-in-a-can or a frontplane.

As for the irix problem with the wrong graphics board, you'll need to reinstall the graphics subsystem.

Wow that was a fast reply

Just had a thought here. I have a spare O2 riser card with the TO-92 style chip. It would be an interesting experiment to tack it onto my Octane frontplane and see if that works. Such a shame that chip failure is bringing down the whole machine.

[Raion-Fox]

No, the O2 NIC and Octane NIC are entirely different things. You can't swap them over.

[johnnym]

Just had a thought here. I have a spare O2 riser card with the TO-92 style chip. It would be an interesting experiment to tack it onto my Octane frontplane and see if that works. Such a shame that chip failure is bringing down the whole machine.

Why don't you try to put the NIC of your dead Octane into the frontplane of your "new" Octane? Maybe this NIC is still working.

[astouffer]

Today I took everything apart to do a thorough cleaning (lots of dust) and found the cause

If you do an ARIN lookup on that IP address from my hinv, it belongs to the Department Of Defense Guess they were worried about secrets being stolen in the chip.

Oh maybe the "number in a can" wiki should be updated, the Octane part number is a DS1982.

*edit* Guess I need to read further down the wiki

[mopar5150]

PM me your address and I will send you a chip.