Alpha 200/100 does not boot (no >> prompt)

From: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio_at_mi.iasf.cnr.it>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 17:24:48 +0200 (MET DST)

Today we had a blackout (too many air conditioners in the city ?) while I
was away. When power came back, our old Alpha 200/100 (which we use as
spare mail exchanger) had not switched off and got damaged. Of course it
is not under maintenance contract.

I found it on, the screen showed just the first "checkout" line
f4.eb.....ea.e9.e8.e7.e6.e5.

I can't remember what those codes are, and they are not listed in our
hardware manual for AlphaStation 200 Series (EK-PCDTA-UI.D01)

Anyhow, there was no >> prompt, so I could not boot.

I tried a few times a reset from the reset button. I also checked the LEDs
on the back of the CPU (pag. 4-10 of the h/w man) and they showed the
normal "console initialized" code (E5).

I then switched off and on the machine. Now the LEDs on the back showed
the code F7 "memory test 4 failure".

What does that mean ? One of the memory banks failed ?

I tried to switch the machine on again some times later, and now I'm back
to the previous situation ("console initialized" LED code, screen showing
f4.eb.....ea.e9.e8.e7.e6.e5., no >> prompt).

This puzzles me, transient memory error ?

Is there any quick solution to this before we junk the machine ?

Can I e.g. locate and remove the offending memory bank (will it run with
3 ?) Another possibility would be to cannibalize some spare parts from
another institute which had dismissed similar machines.

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Lucio Chiappetti - IASF/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
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L'Italia ripudia la guerra [...] come Italy repudiates war {...] as a
mezzo di risoluzione delle controversie way of resolution of international
internazionali controversies
                [Art. 11 Constitution of the Italian Republic]
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For more info : http://www.mi.iasf.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html
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Received on Wed Jun 25 2003 - 15:29:29 NZST

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