I think I fixed it. A simple power-cycling of the box did it. I made the
mistake of not powering down and back on after installing the firmware. I
think this happened for 2 reasons: 1) the documentation I was using didn't
mention it and 2) the firmware actually didn't change versions. I then went
on to read the installation guide and it says to power down after upgrading
firmware so I did that and now CDE is fine.
I did get 2 very helpful emails from Rogier Sars that I thought I should
pass along:
===========
It could be that you are using a seperate gaphics card installed in one of
the expansion slots. If your model of 1000A also has an onboard graphics
chip this will cause a conflict. Check the boot messages to confirm this. If
this is the case you should disable the onboard graphics chip. This is done
by going into ARC and run the ECU from there. ECU is the EISA Configuration
Utillity and should have come with your system.
============
and (after I sent him the boot messages from /var/adm/messages):
============
I don't see any other VGA chipset in the boot messages besides the Cirrus
Logic 5428. According to my tech docs the CL 5428 is the onboard graphics
chip.
When I got the Alphaserver 1000A I have at home I had exactly the same
problem as you describe. The CDE was in black and white and had lines
running through it. After a while it would crash back to the command prompt.
In my case it turned at that I had to disable the onboard graphics chip
because I had a separate Elsa Gloria Synergy in one of the PCI slots. After
I disabled the onboard chip using the ECU disk everything worked fine.
Because you just updated your firmware I thought maybe the configuration was
reset and the onboard graphics chip was active again. Now that I only see
one graphics chip in the boot messages this seems less likely. But maybe it
just doesn't see the other chip at all anymore. To make sure you are using
the onboard graphics chip, just look at the back of the machine. The onboard
VGA connecter is just above the keyboard and mouse ports. If the VGA cable
is hooked up to a connector in one of the expansion slots you are running a
seperate graphics card.
If you are NOT using the onboard graphics card check that:
The Cirrus Logic chip is disabled in the ECU.
The VGA Enable jumper (J27) is disabled.
If you ARE using the onboard graphics chip check that:
The Cirrus Logic chip is enabled in the ECU
The VGA Enable jumper (J27) is enabled
============
ORIGINAL QUESTION
===============
I rebooted a 1000A after installing firmware (turns out we already had the
latest version though). Now the screen is barely legible (lots of gray
vertical lines). The system automatically goes into the desktop -- can I
disable it from automatically going into desktop? How do I begin to
troubleshoot this garbled video? It's on a KVM switch and the other servers
using this switch (and therefore the same monitor) works fine so I think
it's something with the 1000A.
Thanks again,
Andy
Received on Thu May 01 2003 - 16:26:15 NZST