Help with Reviving a NETRA240 Pls?

ozsavran · November 21, 2018, 12:22pm

Hi Everybody,

Hope everybody is having fun with their Solaris installations and not pulling out too much of whatever hair they have left so far.

Just for sport, I bought an old Netra 240 used by Northern Telecom Turkish subsidiary Netas here in Turkey. My hope is to turn this into an ugly workstation for playing with some old CAD software. At worst, I like to install some Linux or BSD on it, if I can get it up. My server I mean.

I do not know the last IP numbers used for it. And cannot get a response from serial management port. Here are the steps I have taken so far with some pics.

1- Connected two 48V DC power supplies to its internal power makers. They are both on seem to work fine. The cases say they produce 13V, 3.3V etc. However I just measure 4,9V on all pins of both supplies. Maybe the case sticker is outdated. They do seem to do their job as will be seen.

2- When power is first supplied management ethernet port link light comes on when connected to a switch. However the critical light on front also does. When the card at front is taken out the back error light with wrench sign comes on. There is no response from the serial port.

3- After turning the little blue knob at front half a turn either way, the on switch next to it brings up main power and the big air fan starts working with a big whoosh. The hard disk power light turns on temporarily then goes out. DVD has no lights on. Its button is unresponsive. Does not seem to have power. But its in place firmly. I can take it out and insert back. Hard Disk also comes in and out securely. Regular ethernet ports start lighting up after the main fan works. However the "critical" light at front panel is still on.

4- I tried Putty, TeraTerm, MobaXTerm, and BB ComTest programs to get a response from the serial port to no avail. It seems deaf, unresponsive. I did check my serial cable with TX-RX pin short. However when Netra is powered on with terminal emulator open, a single character came up into terminal which might be indicating serial port is electrically excited during start up, hence connected to something.

MY QUESTION is to people with actual real Sun Server experience. What should be checked and tried in these situations? What would you do? What compartment inside the case should I dismantle? Should I try to send or broadcast a Wake-On-LAN signal packet? Is there a default local LAN IP address that these servers are assigned with? Is this thing alive yet? If yes, how can I start communicating? etc. etc.

This has been a long time dream of mine to be able to tap into a real sun sparc server. Thanks to their sexy Frog Design boxes and ever nimble marketing, these clunky boxes has been every engineer's wettest dream for a long time. I have to see what the buzz has been about these please. I want in!

Rest of my pictures are in the following message. Thanks for checking me out. Any ideas would truly be greatly appreciated!

ozsavran · November 21, 2018, 12:39pm

These are the rest of the pictures of my efforts on reviving the Netra.

hicksd8 · November 21, 2018, 1:56pm

Firstly, thank you for providing such a comprehensive analysis of what you have tried. It helps us a lot to try and help you meaningfully.

Digest each of these statements I provide here and ask any questions if they're not clear enough.

The Netra 240 comprises (what can be regarded as two systems) the 'service processor' and the main processor.

The service processor (also known as SC) powers up as soon as volts are applied.

The main processor is under the control of the SC and may/or may not be programmed to power up automatically after the SC has started.

The SC reports its boot sequence via the SER-MGT port which is a RJ-45 interface!!!!! So you need a RJ-45 to DB-9 adapter which is a cable supplied in the box with a new machine. Do you have this? If not, a CISCO serial management cable (coloured light blue RJ-45 to DB-9) which CISCO network engineers use has the same pin-out so try and steal one of those.

Connect one end to the RJ-45 SER-MGT port (NOT the NET-MGT port) and the other end (DB-9) to an old laptop or the like with a serial DB9 port. Run a terminal emulator (default 9600-8-N-1) and then apply volts to the NETRA. If garbage appears on the terminal emulator, the baud rate is wrong; try a different speed.

Keep trying until it talks sense and then you are talking to the SC.

ozsavran · November 21, 2018, 4:44pm

Wow! Thanks for such a speedy, comprehensive and very kind reply Mr. Hicks! I will try the new method, and get back to you. I do thank Mr. Corona as well for connecting my message to you. My sincere respects to you both for all your hard work, experience, and having the heart to share it all... This really is wonderful.

Corona688 · November 21, 2018, 5:07pm

Hicksd8 found it all by himself. If you don't get an answer immediately, don't panic, just wait -- we have many knowledgeable people, but they aren't active 24 hours a day.

ozsavran · November 26, 2018, 7:27am

My Good Man Hicksd8,

Using that light blue flat cable, and power it up after connecting worked its charm. It seems to pass all tests. I can turn off the "critical" light with "setalarm critical off", I can turn main power on with just "poweron" command. I start to see a little beauty from this heavy box. Can not boot an OS yet, but I will see the manual I downloaded. Here are the pics:

hicksd8 · November 26, 2018, 8:28am

Well done!!!

If you have Solaris installation media (Solaris 8, 9, 10 or 11 SPARC version, of course) you can boot into single user with:

ok> boot cdrom -s

that will allow you to see that the hardware is capable of running Solaris.

If you:

ok> boot cdrom

it will boot and enter the Solaris install routine.

Your terminal emulator is connected to the SC after boot. If you want to talk to the main processor (after you've 'poweron' and installed Solaris) you can:

ok> console

to do that and get a login prompt.

When connected to main processor (Solaris) you can type

#.

to return to the SC.

There are a number of downloadable manuals on the web for the Netra 240 (service, install, admin, etc) so I suggest that you get your paws on those if you haven't already.

EDIT: As pointed out by Gull04 below, the Netra 240 cannot run Solaris 11.

ozsavran · November 26, 2018, 11:16am

Dear Hicks,

Downloaded all the manuals about Netra, ALOM, etc. Very superficial, lightly touches on things. But still explained a few points like the DB9 serial port. That indeed was not intended to help with ALOM access. Just a regular serial port for after the OS boots, not a management port at all.

Now as I wrote I can start the leaf blower fan inside with just a "poweron" command. To start individual sub-components (FRUs), I tried " poweron {fru} " commands. For motherboard tried "poweron MB", "poweron MOTHERBOARD", and "poweron MB.SEEPROM", for SCSI disks I tried "poweron SCSI", "poweron ENC", "poweron ENC.SEEPROM", does not like these names, declares invalid. When I try "poweron PS1", or "removefru PS1", the SC does NOT declare these name are invalid but says they are NOT present!

Now this is fun indeed! f we have no Power Supplies present how the heck are we talking to you Mr. SC?

In summary I need to supply power to the DVD drive to boot anything. I looked inside the DVD bay, there indeed seems to be socket there intact. Since the HDD power light comes on and goes out, I think we just need the correct FRU name for the SCSI subsystem.

ozsavran · November 26, 2018, 11:30am

And here is a sample of my SC action logs below:

ALOM BOOTMON v1.5.4
ALOM Build Release: 008
Reset register: e0000000 EHRS ESRS LLRS


ALOM POST 1.0


TTYD - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.

Memory Data Lines Test
Memory Data Lines Test, PASSED.

Memory Address Lines Test
  Slide address bits to test open address lines
  Test for shorted address lines
Memory Address Lines Test, PASSED.

Memory Parity Test
Memory Parity Test, PASSED.

Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test
Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test, PASSED.



Return to Boot Monitor for Handshake
ALOM POST 1.0
   Status = 00007fff

Returned from Boot Monitor and Handshake



Clearing Memory Cells
Memory Clean Complete


Loading the runtime image...
SC Alert: CRITICAL ALARM is set

SC Alert: SC System booted.


Sun(tm) Advanced Lights Out Manager 1.5.4 ()



Full VxDiag Tests

BASIC TOD TEST
  Read the TOD Clock:        SAT JAN 01 00:00:14 2000
  Wait, 1 - 3 seconds
  Read the TOD Clock:        SAT JAN 01 00:00:16 2000
BASIC TOD TEST, PASSED

ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST
  50 BYTE PACKET   - a 0 in field of 1's.
  50 BYTE PACKET   - a 1 in field of 0's.
  900 BYTE PACKET  - pseudo-random data.
ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST, PASSED

Full VxDiag Tests - PASSED



    Status summary  -  Status = 7FFF

       VxDiag    -          -  PASSED
       POST      -          -  PASSED
       LOOPBACK  -          -  PASSED

       I2C       -          -  PASSED
       EPROM     -          -  PASSED
       FRU PROM  -          -  PASSED

       ETHERNET  -          -  PASSED
       MAIN CRC  -          -  PASSED
       BOOT CRC  -          -  PASSED

       TTYD      -          -  PASSED
       TTYC      -          -  PASSED
       MEMORY    -          -  PASSED
       MPC850    -          -  PASSED


sc>
sc> showlogs

Log entries since JAN 01 00:00:15
----------------------------------
JAN 01 00:00:15 : 00060021: "CRITICAL ALARM is set"
JAN 01 00:00:15 : 00060003: "SC System booted."
JAN 01 00:00:24 : 00060000: "SC Login: User admin Logged on."
sc> poweron
Warning: the poweron command is being ignored because the password for admin is not set.
Setting password for admin.
New password: *********

Re-enter new password: *********

sc> poweron
sc> showlogs

Log entries since JAN 01 00:00:15
----------------------------------
JAN 01 00:00:15 : 00060021: "CRITICAL ALARM is set"
JAN 01 00:00:15 : 00060003: "SC System booted."
JAN 01 00:00:24 : 00060000: "SC Login: User admin Logged on."
JAN 01 00:01:19 : 00040001: "SC Request to Power On Host."
sc> poweroff
Host system power is already off
sc>

hicksd8 · November 26, 2018, 11:48am

I'm putting my thoughts in writing here. Unfortunately, I cannot derive a definitive answer from the information that you have provided so I just resort to a series of statements in the hope of it being helpful.

I notice from one of your screen captures that the system date is 1/1/2000. Is the backup battery on the mobo dead? Has this hardware been idle for ages?

Did you have to login to the SC before it would let you do anything? userid/passwd combination? If the hardware has lost all its memory due to a dead battery then the userid/passwd combination to use will be admin/changeme or root/changeme.

This warning implies that your poweron command is not being executed due to no valid SC login:

The 'poweron' command turns on the whole main processor. AFAIR, there are no individual power commands for individual components. However, if your 'poweron' command is not executing then there is no surprise that the DVD is dead. If 'poweron' is doing its job then perhaps the DVD is faulty? Remove it and test on other hardware.

ozsavran · November 27, 2018, 6:44am

Dear Mr. Hicks,

Thanks again for your smart electronics probing from afar. Yes you are right, the coin battery is most probably dead. I bought this from a government surplus liquadator from Ankara, it should have been sitting somewhere for long. Its a 2006 model, I think. Battery must also be 12 years old. Seller did promise to change any parts if necessary. That we have in pocket, but he is just 400 miles from here. The battery holder seems a little delicate, I did try to take that out when it first arrived. I will have to take that out somehow now that it is relevant.

When I first entered SC, yes there was no password. But I can set a password, after that it does allow me to use the "poweron". That command again starts the main air blower inside. But then "poweroff" does respond with a "power is already off". If changing that battery doesn't solve the issue, we can try loading an OS through the 2 USB slots hopefully.

Another idea is to check the jumpers on the motherboard, IMHO. I found the table for it in the manuals. I will photo their current setup for you to inspect, in any case.

BTW, just received the "High Noon" book about McNealy from your country, the good old UK. A University of Derby discard in perfect condition. I just love reading self-promotion volumes of silicon valley boys paid for their personal advertisements. Just gobbled up Dr. David Yen's book, named "Under the Sun: My 20 years in Sun Micro.." the previous night in one long sitting. That was heady. This old clunky machine stimulates the unsatisfied electronics engineer in me, whether works or not. My favorite classes were Digital Design and Computer Architecture, both using wonderful books of Morris Mano (photocopies of course) when I was in Istanbul Tech. Baah, the good ole days man...

gull04 · November 27, 2018, 7:26am

Hi,

Just a quick bit of info, the server will only run Solaris up to and including Solaris 10 1/13 - it will not run 11 as the SPARC IIIi processor is not supported by the OS.

It's why my v250's at home are still at Solaris 10.

Regards

Gull04

ozsavran · November 27, 2018, 7:32am

Thanks Gull04. Good to save the time beforehand, and good to know I didn't burn that Solaris 10 for Sparc DVD for nothing. Will stay with that. Expecting an XVR-100 graphics card which has drivers for it built into Solaris 10, right?

gull04 · November 27, 2018, 8:40am

Hi ozsavran,

Yes the drivers are bundled in Solaris 10 - in 8 and 9 it was a package that had to be added, the packages that you should need are;

SUNWpfbcf Sun XVR-100 Graphics Configuration Software
SUNWpfbx Sun XVR-100 Graphics System Software Device Driver (64-bit)
SUNWpfbw Sun XVR-100 Graphics Window System Support
SUNWpfbmn Sun XVR-100 Graphics Manual Pages

You also need to install the card in a 66Mhz PCI slot for the best performance.

I think the V240 will support 2 or 4 of the cards.

Regards

Gull04

ozsavran · November 28, 2018, 7:34am

Dear Hicksd8,

OK, new battery is keeping the system clock stable. Thanks for the heads up Hicks! Here is the latest SC action to celebrate:

ALOM BOOTMON v1.5.4
ALOM Build Release: 008
Reset register: e0000000 EHRS ESRS LLRS

ALOM POST 1.0

TTYD - Internal Loopback Test, PASSED.

Memory Data Lines Test
Memory Data Lines Test, PASSED.

Memory Address Lines Test
  Slide address bits to test open address lines
  Test for shorted address lines
Memory Address Lines Test, PASSED.

Memory Parity Test
Memory Parity Test, PASSED.

Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test
Boot Sector FLASH CRC Test, PASSED.

Return to Boot Monitor for Handshake
ALOM POST 1.0
   Status = 00007fff

Returned from Boot Monitor and Handshake

Clearing Memory Cells
Memory Clean Complete

Loading the runtime image...
SC Alert: CRITICAL ALARM is set

SC Alert: SC System booted.

Sun(tm) Advanced Lights Out Manager 1.5.4 ()

Full VxDiag Tests

BASIC TOD TEST
  Read the TOD Clock:        WED NOV 28 13:58:57 2018
  Wait, 1 - 3 seconds
  Read the TOD Clock:        WED NOV 28 13:58:59 2018
BASIC TOD TEST, PASSED

ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST
  50 BYTE PACKET   - a 0 in field of 1's.
  50 BYTE PACKET   - a 1 in field of 0's.
  900 BYTE PACKET  - pseudo-random data.
ETHERNET CPU LOOPBACK TEST, PASSED

Full VxDiag Tests - PASSED

    Status summary  -  Status = 7FFF

       VxDiag    -          -  PASSED
       POST      -          -  PASSED
       LOOPBACK  -          -  PASSED

       I2C       -          -  PASSED
       EPROM     -          -  PASSED
       FRU PROM  -          -  PASSED

       ETHERNET  -          -  PASSED
       MAIN CRC  -          -  PASSED
       BOOT CRC  -          -  PASSED

       TTYD      -          -  PASSED
       TTYC      -          -  PASSED
       MEMORY    -          -  PASSED
       MPC850    -          -  PASSED

Please login: admin
Please Enter password: *********

sc> showdate
WED NOV 28 13:59:23 UTC 2018
sc> showdate
WED NOV 28 13:59:40 UTC 2018
sc> showdate
WED NOV 28 13:59:45 UTC 2018
sc> showdate
WED NOV 28 13:59:46 UTC 2018
sc> showdate
WED NOV 28 13:59:47 UTC 2018
sc>
sc> poweron
sc> break
Break command is disabled when system is powered off.
sc> poweroff
Host system power is already off
sc> poweron
sc> poweron
sc> poweron
sc> break
Break command is disabled when system is powered off.
sc> poweroff
Host system power is already off

There was some headache from mushy tiny battery positive terminals. To get the little new battery going, I had to slide in some wires under them and press them down with a tiny piece of electrical tape. I could be useful for somebody else in these situations, so I took pictures with my phone. Wire thickness must be right, and no aluminium foil did not work, in my case at least.

However "poweron"-"poweroff" problem is the same. Still thinks systems is not powered and break command does not work. DVR-ROM Still does not power up or respond to front keypress. I tried the USB ports with a brand new Sandisk memory stick, tested on 2 machines. Both plugging during operation and plugging before power up did not make it show on FRU list with "showfru" command.

Which brings us to motherboard jumper situation. Below are the info available in the manual about Netra240 motherboard jumpers:


JP1[1]
-------------
1-2 Fitted
3-4 Fitted
5-6 Not fitted
7-8 Not fitted
9-10 Fitted
Processor core voltage. Do not alter this jumper setting. Changing the setting for JP1 could cause damage to the server.


JP2
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
ALOM Flash ROM swap halves. Only service personnel should modify this setting. Fitting a jumper affects the swap.


JP3
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
ALOM reset. Used only for testing the system.


JP4
-------------
1-2 Fitted
3-4 Fitted
5-6 Not fitted
7-8 Not fitted
9-10 Not fitted
System configuration. Do not alter this jumper setting.


JP5
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
Only service personnel should modify this setting. Do not change the settings for the JP5 jumper. Only service personnel should modify the settings for this jumper.


JP6
-------------
1-2 Fitted (this is a non-functional setting)
2-3 Not fitted
ROMBO enable. Only service personnel should modify this setting. Fit jumper to 2-3 to enable ROMBO.


JP8
-------------
1-2 Fitted
Clear CMOS. Only service personnel should modify this setting. Fit jumper to 2-3 to clear CMOS.


JP10
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
Override PSON#. Only service personnel should modify this setting.


JP11
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
ROM write-protect. Only service personnel should modify this setting.


JP12
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
ALOM console bypass. Only service personnel should modify this setting.


JP13
-------------
1-2 Fitted (this is a non-functional setting)
2-3 Not fitted
OpenBoot PROM Flash ROM swap halves. Only service personnel should modify this setting. Fit jumper to 2-3 to affect swap.


JP14
-------------
1-2 Not fitted
ALOM AFT mode. Used for testing the system only.

Here is an overall picture of the board with current jumper positions:

I will follow with an ordered picture gallery of jumpers taking care to show jumper number and whether they are set or not.

Soon.

hicksd8 · November 28, 2018, 8:17am

Found this:

Netra T1 AC200 ignoring all serial LOM commands - Servers General Discussion

so it seems like your problem is not unique.

At this point I wouldn't be changing mobo jumpers though.

ozsavran · November 28, 2018, 9:48am

That link was great tried a few things they suggested. This may have various reasons, but they all related to some hardware connection it seems. Speaking of that, I was kinda suspicious of the dinky power connection I concocted here. Sun in all its wisdom made a special DC power connector it seems from this manual they have for that esteemed "product" design:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19256-01/806-2073-10/806-2073-10.pdf

That is exactly what we have here:

And I do not even have space to make a ground connection.

Following the + / - signs, I just connected +48V to the + terminal, power return to the - terminal, that's it. Could it be that the curiously hunky DC-2-DC power converter we slide in is testing whether we have a legitimate Sun AC-2-DC power supply connected to it? Could this be why its refusing to admit that it in fact has power supplied to it??

hicksd8 · November 28, 2018, 11:11am

That's what? Are you saying it's working?

ozsavran · November 28, 2018, 4:22pm

My apologies Hicks, no its not working, still the same. Since this is a hardware problem, I was simply saying maybe my issue here is the most basic one, my power connection. What I made is a 2-wire connection to a 3-wire socket. I will try correcting that ny replacing the unique plastic connector Sun used with a good quality, market standard metal sleeved 3-wire connector. See if that makes a difference. I am not touching the mobo jumpers per your suggestion.

hicksd8 · November 30, 2018, 4:50am

You could be looking for a poor power connection to the mobo somewhere. I would be reseating all power cables, edge connectors, etc. When you 'poweron' do the CPU fans start? (although I can't remember, I assume that they plug into the mobo). Could, of course, also be a dry joint somewhere.