🚀 go-pugleaf

In <32F602A9.2C4D@agfacobra.er.usgs.gov> Dave Dee <ddee@agfacobra.er.usgs.gov> writes:

>The workstation tries to boot and sometimes makes it.  When it fails
>during boot or shortly thereafter it appears to fall asleep, the CPU
>lights on the memory cards go out.

>If the machine is shutoff long enough for it to cool to room temperature
>it will make it through startup and run for a few minutes.  If I power
>down and up again when it is warm the CPU lights generally fail before
>it reboots.  This 3/260 takes about 10 to 12 minutes to boot.

>Questions:

>1. Does this indicate CPU failure

Not really. It more likely indicates that because your system is quite 
old, somewhere there is a connection that is intermittently breaking 
electrical contact as the machine warms up. The most likely place for 
this is one of the PAL's on the CPU board, since they are all mounted in 
machined-pin sockets, however....

You say the lights on the RAM boards go out. Does the power supply keep
running all the time? What you probably should also do is try measuring
the supply rails, and adjust the power supply if they are out of spec.
Often power supply output voltages will drift with age, and so they
occasionally need to be checked and readjusted if any drift is detected. 

It's possible the power supply itself is failing.

Until a few months ago I was running a rack-mounted at home, and every 6
months I was shutting the rack down, pulling everything out and removing
all the dust from the boards, the fan tray underneath the card chassis,
and the power supply. At the same time I put each board on an antistatic
mat and gave every socketed device a light push in case it wasn't seated
properly in it's socket. 

This had the added benefit that all connectors were getting reseated. 

>2. What is the going price for a known good replacement CPU.

If you want to upgrade your CPU, think about going to a 4/3xx Sparc 
board, since it's a complete single-board machine which only needs the 
addition of a framebuffer (either P4-bus or VME bus). You'll need to 
upgrade your operating system too (SunOS 4.1.4, aka Solaris 1.1.2, is the 
best choice for a 4/3xx machine), but you'll have a much better 
performing, and a much cooler machine.

The 4/3xx has 8 SIMM sockets on-board which can take 1 or 4 meg 30 pin 
SIMM's, so you can build a machine with 32 meg of RAM.

Regards,

Craig.
-- 
        Craig Dewick - craig@zeta.org.au - http://www.zeta.org.au/~craig  
            Professional Train Driver. Located in Sydney, Australia.
          Sun Ripened Kernels - http://www.zeta.org.au/~craig/srk.html
                Surplus and pre-loved Sun Microsystems equipment.