wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (04/13/88)
Hi, When I got home from the office tonight, Unix PC 3b1, greeted me with a totally black screen -- even with furious mousing. Hmmm, I went to the other room and tried dialing in from the PC6300. Lots of ringing, but no answering going on. I surmise that the cat(s) must have jumped on the keyboard and sent the kernel into oblivion, as furious keystroking is reported to do. Nothing to do, but grit my teeth and cycle the power with out shutting down. With power back on, I am greeted by a screen of ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ from the very top to the very bottom. The pattern was very regular, not like random trash that would be sitting around in memory from a random power up. Actually, the dashers were closer together than I can render them as text. In fact it looked like they were about one raster line apart. The dahes appeared to be about 16 (hmmm) pixels long. Absolutely no disk seeking. Does anybody in netland know if the dashes are a significant diagnostic event? Well, quite on a lark, not knowing what to replace, not wanting to pay $1200 or whatever it is for a new motherboard, I decided to replace the 68010 CPU chip since that was the only chip in my junk box remotely resembling any of the chips in the Unix PC. Slap the baby in there and Sha-zam, Gol-lee Sgt. Carter, it boots up like nothing happened (aside from about 10 min. of furious fsck'ing). Moral of the story is that if you live dangerously like me without a service contract, and you experience this symptom, try replacing the 68010 before you fork over $1200 to AT&T. Total cost of repair: $8 + wear & tear on heart due to massive rise in blood pressure + lots of AT&T-oriented blue language. Whoever designed that stupid 3b1 case deserves at least 40 lashes with a wet noodle! --Bill
dave@westmark.UUCP (Dave Levenson) (04/17/88)
In article <1102@neoucom.UUCP>, wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes: ... > Well, quite on a lark, not knowing what to replace, not wanting to > pay $1200 or whatever it is for a new motherboard, I decided to > replace the 68010 CPU chip since that was the only chip in my junk > box remotely resembling any of the chips in the Unix PC. Slap the > baby in there and Sha-zam, Gol-lee Sgt. Carter, it boots up like > nothing happened (aside from about 10 min. of furious fsck'ing). > > Moral of the story is that if you live dangerously like me without > a service contract, and you experience this symptom, try replacing > the 68010 before you fork over $1200 to AT&T. Total cost of > repair: $8 + wear & tear on heart due to massive rise in blood > pressure + lots of AT&T-oriented blue language. Whoever designed > that stupid 3b1 case deserves at least 40 lashes with a wet noodle! It frequently turns out that disassembling and re-assembling is enough to "fix" it, whether or not you actually replace any parts. Yes, opening up the 3B-1 case is a bear, compared to most other desktop computer systems. Therefore, you may not want to go through that again. But if you ever feel like trying, put your original cpu chip back in the socket. You'll probably find that the system works just fine with that, too. The big question, of course, is what was fixed? If it's not clear what was fixed, it's not clear what was broken -- which means it won't be any more clear when it breaks again. -- Dave Levenson Westmark, Inc. A node for news. Warren, NJ USA {rutgers | clyde | mtune | ihnp4}!westmark!dave