AS500 Tru64 5.1B support?

[Paul Heller]

Am trying to install the 5.1B-3 on some older AS500s. The alphas have enough memory and disk space. According to OS FAQs, 5.1B-3 supports this hardware. However, we experience several failures during the install. Doing some checks, according to the Firmware FAQ, the V6.3 CD is the minimum firmware rev supported for 5.1B - but the AS500 last CD version was V5.7 with an internal revision of V7_2-2 (patch web site is incorrect; it lists V7_2-1 as last release in March). Why would AS500 be listed as supported if firmware for it is not? Has anyone tried this with any success? V5.1A appears to work but I would like the AS500 to match our latest version running on our DS15.
Thanks.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] several failures [...]

Are you offering any clues as to the nature
of these failures?

According to "dupatch -track -type
patch_level" I seem to have "Patch Kit 5:
T64V51BB26AS0005-20050502 OSF540" installed
on my AlphaStation 200 4/233, and its
firmware hasn't seen an update for quite a
while, either.

PK5 is V5.1B-3, isn't it? If there's a
command which reports the marketing version
number, it's a mystery to me.

[Paul Heller]

Out of 4 AS500s that were tried, 3 had "SCSI CAM errors" and/or memory checks - that is, hardware issues, and apparently were unrecoverable (and unseen in unattend loads). The fourth had a video card, that for some reason, works under 5.0A but decided to fail during the upgrade to 5.1B and only support lower res VGA.
So, unsupported as it may be, I do have 5.1B running on the AS500.