[powerstation-owners] troubleshooting non-booting powerstation

[Adrian Reber]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 01:52:00PM -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote:
> > Adrian Reber wrote:
> >> Serial console: very good. Can you tell us which firmware version is
> >> running on your PowerStation. It should tell that very early in the boot
> >> up. Just before the memory is configured.
> > 
> > JS2XBlade Starting
> >   Build Date = Jul 22 2008 17:16:18
> >   FW Version = JX-1.7.0-3
> >   Check ROM  = OK
> > 
> > Weird part is that I can't provide input over the serial console except 
> > from the keyboard directly connected to the machine -- at least, not 
> > until a kernel is loaded up, then serial console accepts input over 
> > serial. I'm hoping I just need a firmware update?
> 
> So I guess I'm already running the latest firmware... Been comparing 

Yes, that version is a pretty good start.

> notes w/Josh Boyer's powerstation, and there are some potentially 
> interesting differences.
> 
> 1) I have no screen devalias, Josh does

The screen alias is usually set when the graphics card is detected
correctly. It seems that this is the root of your problem.

> 2) I have auto-boot?=false, Josh has true

You should get some output on the monitor anyway.

> 3) I have a number of biosemu* settings that Josh doesn't

New stuff, but that should not make a difference.

> No clue how it got to be this way. Running 'nvsetenv auto-boot?=true' 
> under linux doesn't seem to do anything, should it? (apologies, I know 
> squat about open firmware).

I probably need the complete boot log.

The graphics is the one that came with the PowerStation?

What kind of monitor do you have connected?

If the monitor does not do DDC correctly the firmware cannot detect if a
monitor is connected and assumes that no monitor is connected and serial
is the output. That it still enables the USB keyboard is probably a bug.
I would expect that it should not enable the keyboard, but I have no
access to a PowerStation anymore so I have to guess here. Looking at the
code it seems that the keyboard is enabled even if no "screen" is found.

So maybe you could try to use a different monitor to do a test.

		Adrian