Death Tones from AlphaServer 1000A

From: Kevin Reardon <kreardon_at_cerere.na.astro.it>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:37:39 +0200

I had an AlphaServer 1000A up and die on me today. When I power it on I get
a sequence of tones with a 3-3-3 pattern and a depressing blank screen (not
even the console). From the manual, this implies a problem with the QLOGIC
controller (ISP1020A, firmware 2.10). The machine did the same thing (i.e.
the Chimes of Doom) last night too, but after several tries (and reseating
some of the internal cables), it finally booted and was running fine today.
The power went out though this morning and now I can't get it to boot
again. While it was up I saw nothing in particular in uerf (well, some odd
behaviour from the internal CD-ROM, but I have trouble seeing how they
could be connected). So my questions are:

1) does the 3-3-3 tone pattern really mean a bad QLOGIC controller? It was
initialized without problem when the machine booted last night.
2) Is there anything I can do to try to get the machine to boot before
Digital Service arrives?
3) Is a motherboard replacement the only way to fix this?

home directory-less,
kevin reardon
Received on Wed Jul 23 1997 - 18:56:14 NZST

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