Hi, apologies in advance if this is a stupid question, or in the wrong place.

I've recently purchased an Ultra1 from eBay, and I'm having a few problems
getting the networking to work on the machine. When I try to run 'ifconfig
-a', I get the following

# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=1000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000

No sign at all of the network interface there, I then dropped down to the ok
prompt and tried running 'test net' which gave me the following

ok test net

Using AUI Ethernet Interface
Internal loopback test -- Ethernet chip initialization failed
Using TP Ethernet Interface
Internal loopback test -- Ethernet chip initialization failed
net selftest failed. Return code = -1

I also tried running net boot, and with ethereal running on another machine I
can see the rarp packets hitting the wire, but I am unable to get the
networking to respond in any other way. The link light on my hub is also
illumnated. I have also tried using the same cable, in the same port with
another machine and it works fine.

I have also tried setting tpe-link-test to true, to no effect, have attempted
to run reset-all to no effect, and powering down the machine also has no
effect.

The machine in question is an Ultra1 SBus ( UltraSPARC 143MHz), with OpenBoot
3.11

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Regards,

Michael Ramplin
mike ( at ) bytegenerator ( dot ) com

Michael Ramplin wrote:

> Hi, apologies in advance if this is a stupid question, or in the wrong
> place.
>
> Using AUI Ethernet Interface
> Internal loopback test -- Ethernet chip initialization failed
> Using TP Ethernet Interface
> Internal loopback test -- Ethernet chip initialization failed
> net selftest failed. Return code = -1
>

I've got two Ultra 1s, and they both do this. My opinion is that the
ethernet chip is dodgy on these machines. At the weekend I might try and
get my soldering iron out, and see if it's just a dry joint. If it is,
I'll let you know :-)

--
Graham Lee
Wadham College
Oxford

Graham Lee wrote:

>
> I've got two Ultra 1s, and they both do this. My opinion is that the
> ethernet chip is dodgy on these machines. At the weekend I might try and
> get my soldering iron out, and see if it's just a dry joint. If it is,
> I'll let you know :-)
>

Well, there were a couple of crap joints around but nothing connected to the
ethernet hardware. For three of these machines (two of mine, one of
Michael's) to show exactly the same failure though, is slightly suspect.
My next guess is that the chips in this model of sun4u just don't last
particularly long. It might be worth getting an SBus ethernet card off the
'bay, and trying that. I would, if I could afford it

--
Graham Lee
Wadham College
Oxford

In article <bno9ch$qul$1@news.ox.ac.uk> Graham Lee <graham.lee@wadham.oxford.ac.invalid.uk> writes:
>Well, there were a couple of crap joints around but nothing connected to the
>ethernet hardware. For three of these machines (two of mine, one of
>Michael's) to show exactly the same failure though, is slightly suspect.
>My next guess is that the chips in this model of sun4u just don't last
>particularly long. It might be worth getting an SBus ethernet card off the
>'bay, and trying that. I would, if I could afford it
>
>--
>Graham Lee
>Wadham College
>Oxford

Hmmm. I've got a Ultra 1/170E that's been running since 1996.
They're built like tanks.
--
Jeff Wieland

Jeff Wieland wrote:
> In article <bno9ch$qul$1@news.ox.ac.uk> Graham Lee <graham.lee@wadham.oxford.ac.invalid.uk> writes:
>
>>Well, there were a couple of crap joints around but nothing connected to the
>>ethernet hardware. For three of these machines (two of mine, one of
>>Michael's) to show exactly the same failure though, is slightly suspect.
>>My next guess is that the chips in this model of sun4u just don't last
>>particularly long. It might be worth getting an SBus ethernet card off the
>>'bay, and trying that. I would, if I could afford it
>>
>
>
> Hmmm. I've got a Ultra 1/170E that's been running since 1996.
> They're built like tanks.

I had originally thought that, but one of mine has had many more
problems than just the ethernet. It won't recognise 512Mb of the 576Mb
installed, trashed the partition table on one of the two hard disks, and
every so often decides that it wants to do a net boot instead of a disk
boot (followed by me shouting at it profusely, then doing a L1-N). The
other one does have a glitch in that if RAM in installed in a certain
bank the POST doesn't get completed; I don't have a suitable serial
cable to work out what's wrong, though.

Actually, having thought about it mine were bought within a year of each
other, so they *could* be from the same batch. Maybe there was a
problem with that particular batch. Or maybe I've just been unlucky :-/

--
Graham Lee
Wadham College
Oxford

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:49:55 +0000, Graham Lee wrote
(in message <bno9ch$qul$1@news.ox.ac.uk>):

> Graham Lee wrote:
>
>>
>> I've got two Ultra 1s, and they both do this. My opinion is that the
>> ethernet chip is dodgy on these machines. At the weekend I might try and
>> get my soldering iron out, and see if it's just a dry joint. If it is,
>> I'll let you know :-)
>>
>
> Well, there were a couple of crap joints around but nothing connected to the
> ethernet hardware. For three of these machines (two of mine, one of
> Michael's) to show exactly the same failure though, is slightly suspect.
> My next guess is that the chips in this model of sun4u just don't last
> particularly long. It might be worth getting an SBus ethernet card off the
> 'bay, and trying that. I would, if I could afford it
>
>

I'm one step ahead of you there, just after I got the machine and after a few
weeks of playing with it, I decided that that must be the cause, so found a
new card on eBay and gave that a try.

I still get the exact same thing when running test-net ( which after reading
some stuff on the web may be due to it only testing the on-board ethernet
adapter ), and when I run watch-net-all the machine appears to lock up ( not
100% sure as I am accessing it via minicom ).

I'm not sure if there should be something else to get the other card to work,
but the second card also gave me a link light when connecting it.

Its the fact I can see the RARP packets on the wire if I use net-boot that is
really getting to me, is this even a hardware problem, or could be something
not set correctly in OpenBoot somewhere.

Mike.