Alphastation 200 4/100 freezes on install

[Rebecca Putman]

I have acquired an Alphastation 200 4/166. It was running OpenVMS Alpha v7.2-1. I obtained v7.3-1 via the OpenVMS Hobbyist channel, and the license for it. When I attempt to install it, it gets to where it gives the OpenVMS startup message, then shortly after that the drive lights (one for the hard drive, one for the CD-ROM) suddenly come on solid and the system hangs.

System info:
SRM Console: v7.0-9
show_arc: Can't find Flash Rom containing ARC console.
PALcode: VMS PALcode v5.56-2, OSF PALcode x1.46-2
Serial Rom: v4.6
Diag Rom: v1.7

Processor
DECchip (tm) 21064a-2 166MHz 512KB Cache

96MB RAM

Help, please? Thank you!

[Willem Grooters]

Rebecca,

As you can read in teh release notes, you may need to upgrade your firmware, you can download it from the HP site at http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/firmware/readmes/as4x00.html (it states:
Firmware V6.0 was the last release for this system.)

[Willem Grooters · Accepted solution]

Sorry, wrong reading.

Your firwmare can be found on http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/firmware/archive/astn200.html - latest version is 7.0.

Willem

[Rebecca Putman]

Yes, I did see that... so I'm on the latest (and last) version of the firmware. The release notes say that the last version of OpenVMS that will run under this is v7.2.

*sigh*

Thanks!

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

The release notes were made in 1999. 7.2 must have been the latest version then.

I found :

The minimum version of Alpha Systems Firmware tested with OpenVMS Alpha Version 7.3-1 is Version 6.1.

Is this wrong ? Doesn't VMS give an explicit message when firmware version is too low ?
May be lack of memory ?

Wim

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

And

I have OpenVMS V7.3-1 (+ latest patches) on one of my home VMS
systems - an AlphaStation 400 4/233 with 64MB memory, Motif V1.3 and
while I do not run any large app's on this, I have had no issues at all.

Wim

[Ian Miller.]

I expect its not firmware. Possible hardware problem. I assume you mean the vms startup message seen when booting from the VMS instalation CD.

At the console >>> prompt is all the hardware seen. Parhaps you could post the result from SHOW CONFIG?

[Antoniov.]

Hi,
I agree with Ian; when I've installed V7.2 on old AS400 I read the message told me about need upgrade SRM/PALcode/Console.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Keith Parris]

Rebecca, I have a couple of Alphastation 200 4/233 systems (similar hardware, just 233 Mhz clock vs. your 166) running 7.3-1 just fine.

Since you're getting to the OpenVMS banner, I'm suspecting a problem with a system parameter or some other resource shortage. You might see where it hangs by turning on verify during STARTUP.COM. You would do this by doing a conversational boot:
>>> SET BOOT_OSFLAGS 0,1
>>> BOOT
and then setting the STARTUP_P2 parameter to a value which invokes verify in STARTUP.COM (a value of 1 or "TRUE" or any string with the letter "V" anywhere in it will do the trick):
SYSBOOT> SET STARTUP_P2 "V"
SYSBOOT> CONTINUE
and this will echo each DCL command executed by STARTUP.COM. The output may give you a clue as to what is causing the hang.

[Rebecca Putman]

I'll try that and post the results - thanks!