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Hello,

I recently was given a C3600 (no monitor). The problem is that the
display is garbled from startup. The startup text is mostly legible,
but the workstation will not start in graphic mode. It tries
repeatedly to start X after the startup process, but fails. I've tried
changing the monitor using co and mo, but it never seems to save my
monitor settings. It always comes back up to 1280x1024 75Hz VESA, even
when I change it to something else, like 1280x1024 72Hz or 1024x768
75Hz. I'm using a DVI to VGA adapter (that came with it) to plug the
FX/4 video card into a 21-inch ViewSonic monitor. I just want to start
it up and play with the UNIX that's already on it for the moment. Any
help would be appreciated.

X

* kasey@tvtc.org:

> I recently was given a C3600 (no monitor). The problem is that the
> display is garbled from startup. The startup text is mostly legible,
> but the workstation will not start in graphic mode. It tries
> repeatedly to start X after the startup process, but fails.

Did you try to start it w/o keyb/mouse and check what it says over the
serial port?

> I've tried
> changing the monitor using co and mo, but it never seems to save my
> monitor settings. It always comes back up to 1280x1024 75Hz VESA, even
> when I change it to something else, like 1280x1024 72Hz or 1024x768
> 75Hz. I'm using a DVI to VGA adapter (that came with it) to plug the
> FX/4

The VisualizeFX4 has no DVI, it has EVC and delivers an analog signal
only. The adapter you use has to be a EVC-VGA-Adapter.

> video card into a 21-inch ViewSonic monitor. I just want to start
> it up and play with the UNIX that's already on it for the moment. Any
> help would be appreciated.

The only things that come to mind might be a mis-configured operating
system or a broken gfx card.

Benjamin

Benjamin,

Thanks for your reply.

I haven't tried the serial console. I'll have to look into what
adapter I might need to try that. I vaguely see the startup text and
that it fails on things like nfs mounting and so forth (because it's
not hooked up to a network). I see that it tries to start X and I see
the typical X cursor, but then it switches back to console.

OK, I wasn't familiar with the EVC connector. It looks similar to a
DVI.

If I had to guess, I would say that it's probably a broken card then.
The display is garbled before it ever even tries to start UNIX, in the
boot manager, etc. That may be the reason why it was given to me for
free. :-)

X

<kasey@tvtc.org> wrote:

> The startup text is mostly legible, but the workstation will not start in
> graphic mode. It tries repeatedly to start X after the startup process,
> but fails.

Does DNS work properly? For sure?

Regards
Götz
--
http://www.knubbelmac.de/

When you say DNS, I think Domain Name Service. There is no network
connected to it, so I'm sure that it is not resolving DNS.

X

* kasey@tvtc.org:

> I haven't tried the serial console. I'll have to look into what
> adapter I might need to try that. I vaguely see the startup text and
> that it fails on things like nfs mounting and so forth (because it's
> not hooked up to a network). I see that it tries to start X and I see
> the typical X cursor, but then it switches back to console.
>
> OK, I wasn't familiar with the EVC connector. It looks similar to a
> DVI.
>
> If I had to guess, I would say that it's probably a broken card then.
> The display is garbled before it ever even tries to start UNIX, in the
> boot manager, etc. That may be the reason why it was given to me for
> free. :-)

Well, that's probably not really a problem because you can get better
cards like VisualizeFX5 or FX10 (both have standard VGA+DVI) for a few
bucks today. The FX4 is quite slow and not really a match for the c3600...

Benjamin

<kasey@tvtc.org> wrote:

> When you say DNS, I think Domain Name Service.

Yep.

> There is no network connected to it, so I'm sure that it is not resolving
> DNS.

Fix this with sam in CLI mode. My own HP-UX boxes don't come up to X11
without working DNS lookups.

Regards
Götz
--
http://www.knubbelmac.de/

Goetz Hoffart wrote:
> <kasey@tvtc.org> wrote:
>
>
>>When you say DNS, I think Domain Name Service.
>
>
> Yep.
>
>
>>There is no network connected to it, so I'm sure that it is not resolving
>>DNS.
>
>
> Fix this with sam in CLI mode. My own HP-UX boxes don't come up to X11
> without working DNS lookups.
>
> Regards
> Götz
Kasey,


Goetz says DNS, but if you do not have a network connection check
/etc/hosts.

Is there a ip-addres hostname pair for your C3600? If not add it.

Also check the /etc/nsswitch.conf to see whether or not your /etc/hosts
file is checked.


Kind regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

Hello all;

I have many C3600 boxes on a private lan and do not use DNS. I see this
problem a lot when someone wantes to change a host name and does it
wrong.
As Jan said, check /etc/nsswitch.conf to see in what order your system
is doing host name resolving. If you are not on a network get
/etc/hosts first in line. Now make sure that the IP to hostname mapping
in /etc/hosts matches the /etc/config.d/netconf file. This file defines
the information that is loaded to the lan card. If these two files do
not agree X11 will not start. To do all this you will have to boot into
single user mode. I do this by stopping the autoboot, at the boot
prompt type 'bo' (for boot) , then 'y' to interact with the IPL, then
'hpux -is' at IPL prompt. This will boot into single user mode (I hope
you are good with vi).
Starting in single user mode will also bypass all those other boot
issues.

Hope that helps.

D.Toth