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Is there a prom or Solaris command to list the installed option cards
fitted on a system's Sbus?

I have acquired an Enterprise 150 where the system cannot see any disks
plugged into the hot-swap disk cage backplane. I guess this system, which
is based on an Ultra 1 motherboard, should have at least one additional
SCSI disk controller on the Sbus but taking the system apart to see what is
installed inside isn't that easy owing to its method of construction, with
large blocks of rigid foam supporting many of the components.

The system can see devices (1 disk, 1 CD-ROM) on the SCSI bus 0 on the
main board and boots normally from both. But probe-scsi-all doesn't
seem to pick up any additional controller(s) so either they are missing.
loose or faulty.

Thanks in advance,

Andy

On Monday 09 February 2004 9:17 am in comp.sys.sun.hardware andy thomas
wrote:

> Is there a prom or Solaris command to list the installed option cards
> fitted on a system's Sbus?
>
> I have acquired an Enterprise 150 where the system cannot see any disks
> plugged into the hot-swap disk cage backplane.

You need a short SCSI cable.
The disk cage is wired to a connector on the rear panel.
You need to connect it externally to the controller in one of
the SBUS slots, there are usually (but not always) two of these.

The E150 is a bit wierd in several ways, also be warned that there
is a firmware bug in the power control, It can be very difficult
to get the beast to power back on after an init 5 or power-off
command so you should avoid using these.

--
My real address is crn (at) netunix (dot) com
WARNING all messages containing attachments or html will be silently
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On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Chris Newport wrote:

> On Monday 09 February 2004 9:17 am in comp.sys.sun.hardware andy thomas
> wrote:
>
> > Is there a prom or Solaris command to list the installed option cards
> > fitted on a system's Sbus?
> >
> > I have acquired an Enterprise 150 where the system cannot see any disks
> > plugged into the hot-swap disk cage backplane.
>
> You need a short SCSI cable.
> The disk cage is wired to a connector on the rear panel.
> You need to connect it externally to the controller in one of
> the SBUS slots, there are usually (but not always) two of these.

Ah, I see now. I'll get a cable and connect it up.

> The E150 is a bit wierd in several ways, also be warned that there
> is a firmware bug in the power control, It can be very difficult
> to get the beast to power back on after an init 5 or power-off
> command so you should avoid using these.

Thanks for the warning. I've powered it off a few times using the OBP
power-off command but I'd better stop doing it. One thing puzzles me about
this server - what is the LCD display for? It shows a graphic of the
server with a flashing downward pointing arrow beneath it pointing at
what I assume is the internal ambient temperature (16 deg C). The buttons
to the right of the LCD just rotate the image from portrait to landcsape
mode & vice-versa. Or does the LCD start working when the disk cage is
connected and populated with drives?

cheers,

Andy

> Thanks for the warning. I've powered it off a few times using the OBP
> power-off command but I'd better stop doing it. One thing puzzles me about
> this server - what is the LCD display for? It shows a graphic of the
> server with a flashing downward pointing arrow beneath it pointing at
> what I assume is the internal ambient temperature (16 deg C). The buttons
> to the right of the LCD just rotate the image from portrait to landcsape
> mode & vice-versa. Or does the LCD start working when the disk cage is
> connected and populated with drives?

Nope, that's all it does

If you do accidentally power the machine off to a point at which you can't
get it to turn back on, a type 5 or 6 keyboard, with power button will do
the job.

If you don't have one of those, you'll need to take the case off to get at
the internal PSU that actually powers the motherboard...

Ben
--
"I've read Edwina Currie's novels and all I can remember of them is the
single word "moist"" -- Philip Hensher

On Monday 09 February 2004 11:51 am in comp.sys.sun.hardware andy thomas
wrote:


>
> Thanks for the warning. I've powered it off a few times using the OBP
> power-off command but I'd better stop doing it. One thing puzzles me about
> this server - what is the LCD display for? It shows a graphic of the
> server with a flashing downward pointing arrow beneath it pointing at
> what I assume is the internal ambient temperature (16 deg C). The buttons
> to the right of the LCD just rotate the image from portrait to landcsape
> mode & vice-versa. Or does the LCD start working when the disk cage is
> connected and populated with drives?

The E150 was originally supplied with software on a floppy disk which
allowed network configuration and a few OBP commands to be done from
the LCD display. This minimal console removed the need for a serial
console or keyboard/screen to bring the machine up to the point
where it could be remotely administered via telnet.
All very clever, but support for this fell by the wayside (somewhere
around Solaris 2.4 ??) so now you just have a nifty thermometer with
some useless buttons to poke.

The Enterprise 150 and the similar Netra i were nice machines which
were later replaced by the E250 and E450. One model, the E150 NFS
even came with a built-in UPS. If you have one of these you will
need to replace the batteries by now.

--
My real address is crn (at) netunix (dot) com
WARNING all messages containing attachments or html will be silently
deleted. Send only plain text.

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Ben Charlton wrote:

> > Thanks for the warning. I've powered it off a few times using the OBP
> > power-off command but I'd better stop doing it. One thing puzzles me about
> > this server - what is the LCD display for? It shows a graphic of the
> > server with a flashing downward pointing arrow beneath it pointing at
> > what I assume is the internal ambient temperature (16 deg C). The buttons
> > to the right of the LCD just rotate the image from portrait to landcsape
> > mode & vice-versa. Or does the LCD start working when the disk cage is
> > connected and populated with drives?
>
> Nope, that's all it does

;-)

> If you do accidentally power the machine off to a point at which you can't
> get it to turn back on, a type 5 or 6 keyboard, with power button will do
> the job.

Yes, I'm using a type 5 keyboard and it powers the system back on every
time.

> If you don't have one of those, you'll need to take the case off to get at
> the internal PSU that actually powers the motherboard...

.... which is quite a job by the looks of it!

cheers,

Andy

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Chris Newport wrote:

> On Monday 09 February 2004 11:51 am in comp.sys.sun.hardware andy thomas
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Thanks for the warning. I've powered it off a few times using the OBP
> > power-off command but I'd better stop doing it. One thing puzzles me about
> > this server - what is the LCD display for? It shows a graphic of the
> > server with a flashing downward pointing arrow beneath it pointing at
> > what I assume is the internal ambient temperature (16 deg C). The buttons
> > to the right of the LCD just rotate the image from portrait to landcsape
> > mode & vice-versa. Or does the LCD start working when the disk cage is
> > connected and populated with drives?
>
> The E150 was originally supplied with software on a floppy disk which
> allowed network configuration and a few OBP commands to be done from
> the LCD display. This minimal console removed the need for a serial
> console or keyboard/screen to bring the machine up to the point
> where it could be remotely administered via telnet.
> All very clever, but support for this fell by the wayside (somewhere
> around Solaris 2.4 ??) so now you just have a nifty thermometer with
> some useless buttons to poke.

And the thermometer reads 16 deg C at all times ;-))

> The Enterprise 150 and the similar Netra i were nice machines which
> were later replaced by the E250 and E450. One model, the E150 NFS
> even came with a built-in UPS. If you have one of these you will
> need to replace the batteries by now.

Mine is actually badged Netra i but there seem to be few references to
this online so I referred to it as the E 150 which returns a lot more
references on google.

By the way, I added the 68p -- 68p SCSI cable and a 18.4 GB disk in the
cage is now visible. Reboot with boot -r and all is well. Thanks for
putting me on the right track - I don't know why I didn't think of that
cable before! Although sbus cards have external connectors, I was thinking
there was an internal connection as there's a large wiring diagram inside
showing all sorts of internal SCSI cabling. I suppose it's a good idea to
have SCSI connections to the disk cage externally accessible as then you
can hook the disk pack up to another system if the server itself fails.

I'm going to add some more disks and a DAT or AIT tape drive and use it as
an off-site backup server. It has 64 MB of memory so I installed Solaris 2.6
instead of 9 but that should be fine for a backup system.

cheers,

Andy