Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 03:09:51 -0500 (CDT) From: Josh Tolbert <hemi@scoundrelz.net> To: Wilko Bulte <wkb@freebie.xs4all.nl> Cc: Greg Lewis <glewis@eyesbeyond.com>, <freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: PC164 SRM firmware problem Message-ID: <20021015030414.P41308-100000@view.scoundrelz.net> In-Reply-To: <20021015085839.A31434@freebie.xs4all.nl>
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Hi Wilko, I think I grabbed SRM 4.8 from Microway's site, but I'm definitely interested in trying the firmware you have out. After much more experimenting tonight I could not a) get kermit to talk to the Alpha via a null modem setup b) get the newer SRM firmware to boot c) get any older SRM firmware to boot I'm fairly certain that a) is just my inexperience with serial connections. I don't know what settings the Alpha is expecting, nor do I know how to make Kermit do the right things. I'm beginning to think that this particular PC164 motherboard is one of the truly NT-only versions that can only play nicely with the ARC console. I'm probably going to send an e-mail to someone at DEC/Compaq/HP/whoever they are next week to see if my suspicion can be confirmed. If this board truly is ARC-only, I'll just chalk the $50 up to experience and sell it to someone that wants an NT/Alpha box. By the way, the ARC firmware I flashed works like a charm. There has to be a trick for making this buzzard work. Any other ideas? Thanks, Josh On Tue, 15 Oct 2002, Wilko Bulte wrote: > On Tue, Oct 15, 2002 at 01:15:25PM +0930, Greg Lewis wrote: > > On Mon, Oct 14, 2002 at 10:12:34PM -0500, Josh Tolbert wrote: > > > I obtained a PC164 motherboard, a 500MHz 21164 Alpha, 128M RAM and > > > various other bits (including a dead CPU fan; I just re-pinned an Intel > > > heatsink fan to work on the DEC motherboard) to use as a FreeBSD machine. > > > Unfortunately, I'm not able to get FreeBSD installed because I'm having > > > problems with the SRM firmware update. I know this is semi-off-topic for > > > this list, but I've looked around and can't find a description of a > > > similar problem anywhere. Hopefully someone on the list can point me in > > > the right direction. > > > When I received the board, it had ARC firmware in the ROM. Since > > > that won't do for FreeBSD, I downloaded the SRM firmware and followed the > > > documented procedure to flash the SRM firmware (put fwupdate.exe and > > > pc164srm.rom on a floppy, update firmware from the ARC console and just > > > follow the prompts). After rebooting, I get the standard blue screen with > > > a black border, a blinking white cursor and nothing else. I don't see the > > > customary SRM ">>>" prompt or a prompt of any sort. I've tried pressing > > > enter (and other keys) as suggested, to no avail. > > > > I've had a really similar problem with a PC164 LX. I haven't even gotten > > as far as you have yet unfortunately :(. > > > > Do get the serial console set up, it can be helpful if SRM has been > > set up to talk to it :). One of the two boxes I was looking at > > definitely had SRM set up to go to the first serial port. The other > > is still stuck in ARC as we speak, but I have a few more things to > > try before I completely give up :). > > > > The only other thing I can recommend is that a number of people have > > found that there are problems going directly to the latest version of > > the firmware. If you have an older version of SRM then give that a > > try. > > The oldest FW CD I have that has the AlphaPC164 contains SRM 4.8 > > If anybody wants to try that I could make the f/w image available. > > Wilko > > [historians beware, the very oldest FW CD I own is a from 1993 ;-) ] > > -- > | / o / /_ _ wilko@FreeBSD.org > |/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte Arnhem, the Netherlands > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
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