Origin o200 not booting

[competentcompton]

Hi,

When the on button is depressed the LED blinks green three times and then blinks red once and turns off.

I tried connecting to the AUX port to talk to the MSC and no dice.

I pulled the MSC board and the battery has no voltage.

Any ideas?

Is it the MSC, the power supply or the mainboard?

Thanks in advance

Cheers

[smj]

First thing I did was check the O200 wiki page - no mention of what happens when the battery runs down, but replacing it would be a good first step judging by how other systems react to that...

The External Links section includes a link to the O200 Maintenance Guide, specifically the troubleshooting section. But the table for the LED seems to indicate a temperature sensor, PSU, or VRM issue, so...

Perhaps somebody who actually has an O200 will chime in soon. I did administer one in 1999-2000, but unfortunately (?) it was very reliable.

[jan-jaap]

Have you tried to connect a serial console to the MSC (it's the mini-DIN8 port on the back side)?

It's a subset of the bigger systems, and not documented in the O200 manuals (I think), but the O2K MSC is described here: http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... /ch06.html

Without the battery the system will likely 'forget' all sorts of vital information. You may need to take it to POD mode to rediscover the NUMA topology.

[cris_adder]

This problem seems to have come up before, see link below which suggest the power supply may be at fault?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16719936&p=7299259

[competentcompton]

that thread looked promising.

I mentioned the dead battery on the MSC card because when I connect a terminal to the AUX port I get nothing back from the MSC
crtl + t then enter does not return an MSC prompt. Yes I did check multiple times with the documentation to ensure that the terminal had the correct 9600-8-N-1 settings.

Also switch 10 is up as it was a stand alone unit.

It could be the power supply. There is one on ebay for $190 bucks - hmm. Wasn't planning on sinking that much into this thing on a trial and error basis.

Anyone have any schematics for the power supply. Does the power supply supply voltage when out of the unit? I could test it with an oscilloscope but a schematic might provide actual test points. there is an LED on the power supply board and that is off. Should it be on if the PSU is good?

Cheers

[competentcompton]

BTW it was impolite of me not to thank you guys for your answers and for taking the time to post links.

thank you

[kubatyszko]

Hi, not trying to insult you, but just to make very sure - you DO know that your serial-din cable for MSC is working right ? (if you have indigo or indy or some old apple you can test it with one of those machines), and you DO press CTRL-T when in the MSC ? (it doesn't really print anything by itself).
The PSU definitely has to supply some voltage for the MSC when the power is applied, once you disassemble the PSU, you should be able to find which pins are ground - then just use your multimeter and find out if any other pin gives you 5V (most likely) - if you're very lucky the PSU will have wires and their voltage levels marked internally.
190 is pretty steep for a PSU I think.

[SAQ]

The three green + one red flash is a bad PSU (environmental monitoring shuts the machine down because of bad voltage). I've had an O200 do this, replacing the PSU fixed it.

[competentcompton]

I have used this cable in the past to talk to the MSC on this very machine.
Of course that was quite a while ago. I do not have another machine to test it with.

I followed the documentation (I think)
plug in the cable, connect then hit
ctrl +t and enter and I should see

MSC>

right?

I am leaning toward a PSU problem.
the only reason why I want to keep this alive is because it has dual 360Mhz CPUs which makes it quite a nice little machine.

Cheers

P.S. Note to self - RTFM - The MSC card does not have a battery is has (as stated in the documentation) a NIC or 'number in a can' which I can say I had never heard of before Little wonder it had no voltage on it

[kubatyszko]

I guess this http://www.maxim-ic.com/datasheet/index.mvp/id/2825 is the "battery" you meant (or something similar, the one from this link is for Octane).

Yes, you should be seeing MSC> at the prompt upon pressing ctrl-t , one last chance is to try out with different flow control setting (xon/xoff) - it may depend on your cable but if nothing works, then assuming your cable is good, it pretty much must be the MSC or PSU broken.

One more thing - when you plug the cable into the box - do you hear silent "click" ? - this is usually good sign of at least the high-voltage portion of PSU working, it may give you a hint what to do next..

[recondas]

I have used this cable in the past to talk to the MSC on this very machine.
Of course that was quite a while ago. I do not have another machine to test it with.

I followed the documentation (I think) plug in the cable, connect then hit ctrl +t and enter and I should see

MSC>

right?

I just got done with some testing on a G-Brick that involved removing the L1 module and inserting an MSC (the L1 used in the G-Brick and the MSC used in the Onyx2 Graphics Module are mechanically interchangeable).

There are some obvious structural differences, but the integrated firmware (and underlying commands) by the MSC controllers used in the O2k/Onyx2 series and Origin 200 appear to be reasonably similar.

I noticed if I had the serial terminal running (and connected to the MSC diagnostics port) when I powered up the G-Brick, the MSC would automatically print version info to the terminal without the need for a control-t keypress:

Code: Select all

MSC VER 3.1

If I then executed a control-t keypress I got the MSC> prompt you were expecting and could then query the MSC:

Code: Select all

MSC> tmp
ok n

- perhaps a working O200 MSC will exhibit similar behavior if the serial terminal is running when your O200 is powered up.

For comparison, I'm using a standard DB9-to-DB9 null modem cable connected at 9600-8-N-1 with XON/XOFF flow control.

Putty.png (50.87 KiB) Viewed 686 times

I am leaning toward a PSU problem.

The previously linked thread, and especially SAQ's experience with a nearly identical problem, makes that sound like a reasonable suspicion.

[SAQ]

I am leaning toward a PSU problem.
the only reason why I want to keep this alive is because it has dual 360Mhz CPUs which makes it quite a nice little machine.

I have a spare O200 PSU. Make offer - but I'll take less than the eBayer wants.

[competentcompton]

Thanks for all of your help,
Still not much dice from the MSC. No click when plugged.

Thanks for the offer SAQ of a new PSU. I am not sure what the shipping would be so I would probably not want to offer a huge amount partly because I am not 100% convinced that this is the only problem.

I'll send you a message with an offer.

Cheers

[competentcompton]

SAQ,

Seems that nekochan has been down for a bit. Did you get my PM?

Cheers

[kubatyszko]

and what is your location btw ?
I have 2 O200 PSU's, one in Japan and another will be available for shipping from Poland. But you'd have to let me know within next 2-3 days.