SCO 6 on Intel S3420GPLX

Hi all,

I build SCO 6 servers fo one of my customers and we normally use the Intel S3210SHLC and have no issues. Due to lack of stock I decided to order th newer S3420GPLX. It is not on the SCO compatibility list.

I am no SCO expert by a long shot, but I have not seen this type of problem before. During installation it gets to the first blue screen and says "Please Wait" and hangs there.

So far I have tried:
1) Removing the Adaptec RAID Controller so there are currently no Hard Drives in the unit.
2) Swapping the DVD-RW drive, SATA Cable and SATA ports for the DVDRW drive.
3) Changeing the sata controller mode to enhanced, compatible and AHCI.
4) Swapping RAM.
5) Turning off all cores on the CPU but one.
6) Turning off HyperThreading.
7) I have tested the media.
8) I also tried the psm=atpu option at the boot prompt (don't know if it is case sensitive please let me know and I will try again tomrrow).

No matter what it, seems to freeze up at the same spot. It goes to a black screen, makes a post about the installed RAM, goes to a blue screen with some legal mumbo jumbo and a Please Wait message, keyboard stops responding and that's the end of it.

I also tried an old SCO 506 CD I had and no freeze up.

I hope someone can give me a clue. I know the system is not on the compatibility list, but I cannot see why it would freeze up at that point. I don't care if the onboard components do not work, I will by third party components if need be. Is there a feature I need to turn off? What is the installation doing at that point? It's not the end of the world I can always turn it into a WIN2K8 server, but I do not like getting stumped.

Any and all help is ppreciated.

Thanks, Nova

Have you been able to get 6.0 to work with any other MB using the 1156 socket?

Thanks fo rthe reply.

No, I haven't tried. As Isaid we were using a socket 775 board before. Is there a know issue?

According to Intel's web site, the older board that you have been using is scheduled to be discontinued in Q3 of 2010.
Maybe you could acquire an ASUS P7P55D series to try and eliminate the socket.
Is the ASUS P7F7-E comparable to the Intel boards?

---------- Post updated at 10:34 PM ---------- Previous update was at 10:31 PM ----------

No known issues with the 1156 that I know of, but I did have similar problems with the ASUS P5LD series. Of the 3 or 4 versions available, only the one with the built in video would work.

My customer is quite picky about using Intel boards.

Do you really think it's an issue with the board that cannot beresolved? Have you seen this particular problem before? I can maybe convince them to switch, but I am curious to know why it won't get past that point in the install.

---------- Post updated at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous update was at 09:35 PM ----------

You mean to say with the P5LD, the installation would freeze at "Please Wait"?
Do you know what the installation software is trying to do at that point?

6.0 does a lot more automatic hardware recognition than Openserver 5 does. My guess is that it hangs on some feature that does not respond.
Do you have a Unixware 7 cd anywhere?

Unforunately not. I may be able to get my hands on one. What do you have in mind?

Just to try something different.
You can download the cd from here The SCO Group, Inc. | Support | Update | Download | Product

Thank you, but even if it works, it won't be much use to me. Maybe it will give me a clue.
By the way do you know if psm=atpu is case sensitive. Does it have to be PSM=atpu?

My post disappeared.
Just thought that trying something different might shed some light.
You can download the Unixware CD from here The SCO Group, Inc. | Support | Update | Download | Product

---------- Post updated at 11:00 PM ---------- Previous update was at 10:57 PM ----------

No I don't think any of the boot strings are upper case.

Sorry to leave you, but its 11pm here, and I really need my beauty sleep,
Jack

Okay so here's an updat and I don't know if anyone can help but:

If I disable Legacy USB support the installation program continues as normal. Unfortunately I cannot use the keyboard.
If I move an SCO 6 installation to this machine leaving legacy support disabled, It will boot into SCO6 and then the keyboard starts working. unfortunately I cannot get into maintenance mode.

Any ideas on how to get SCO to detect the keybaord during installation with legacy mode disabled?

Thanks Nova

See this:
How to install SCO OpenServer 6.0.0 on the new Fujitsu PRIMERGY TX300 S5 / RX300 S5?