Problem with HP 9000 800/G40, won't boot, all LEDs are on.

[a_75]

I am a student and I just picked up an HP 9000 800/G40 from an auction. I would love to get this machine up and running again as a file server running HP-UX (it has plenty of room inside for disks).

When I turn the system on, one power supply fan starts spinning and the other does not. Is this bad?

The four LEDs on the front of the machine light up and remain lit indefinately. Also on the console card, the console self-test fail LED is on.

I tried (maybe foolishly) to connect a terminal to the console port (6-pin mini-DIN) using a PS/2->DB9 converter (for a PC mouse) but could not get the machine to respond. Before I spend $40 on a console cable I would like to believe that the hardware is in working order. I may try to make a console cable over the next few days and see if the machine is able to talk.

I have searched some on docs.hp.com but could not find much in the way of steps to diagnose what/which part(s) is/are failing.

Any help would be appreciated.

Nick Maniscalco

[Bill Hassell]

I hope you got a good price or a working order guarentee. You definitely have hardware problems, most likely a broken power supply. There won't be a lot of technical docs on the machine (certainly not enough to repair it) as this box has been obsolete for a long time.

[paul courry]

Don't spend $40 for a console cable. The pin out is published in this forum. Probable key words are DIN, console, cable, "2,3,7"

And th man is right, you have a sick puppy with some VERY expensive vet bills coming up.

[a_75]

I paid VERY little for the machine so it's not so bad. I did end up finding a post about the pin out for the console cable and I made one today. Didn't work of course since a console cable doesn't supply much power...

Before I give up all hope and try to sell the cards and memory, I will see if I can find a new power supply for this machine. I would hate to see this machine get scrapped or go to waste over one bad power supply.

There is an aspect that makes me wonder if something else is wrong with it. I turned the machine on and checked the voltage across the disk drive power connectors that run from the 'bad' power supply. The red and black wires had 12 volts across them as expected. I guess the power supply could be partially working... but maybe not able to supply power to the back plane.

Anyone have a spare power supply (cheap)? ;)

Nick

[Angus Crome]

Just a quick note;

If you hunt around on E-bay, Yahoo, etc you will find lots of listings for G,H and I class as well as 800 series versions. The power supplies on the G,H and I are all the same, some of the 800 series will work, but they are getting really old now and there are no compatibility guarantee's. I find most of my material on the auctions using 'HP 9000'. I think E-bay has a bunch of H70 equipment out there right now.