[SunRescue] (Help!) Problems with Solaris 8 and SPARCServer 1000E?

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Corda Albert J DLVA wrote:

> The system seems to be hanging at various random (non-
> reproducable) places in the install. The only error
> message is an occasional watchdog-timer reset. Most of
> the time, it just stops dead.

The watchdog reset is a good indication that you've got a hardware issue.

> My current configuration consists of 2 CPU Boards with
> 2 60 Mhz modules ea., 640 Mb of RAM, two 2.1 Gb hard
> disks, a TGX card and a fiberchannel card. Both external
> SCSI buses are terminated. Prom Rev. is 2.31
> 
> Things I've tried:
> 	Memory test diags (all seems fine)

These are very close to useless.

> 	Reseating the RAM and CPU modules.
> 	Swapping the two CPU boards (i.e. putting the
> 	lower board in the top slot. I did this as
> 	an experiment since I am assuming the installation
> 	software only uses CPU0)

It does not, it runs a normal Solaris kernel.

> 	Tried using a different hard disk... no luck.
> 
> At this point, I'm kind of stuck...is this a Solaris 8
> problem, or a problem with my hardware? any suggestions?

It should work.  Try pulling all but a single board with a single module
and a minimal amount of RAM (64MB).  Pull the fibre card while you're at
it.

> Perhaps I shouldn't even be tring to use Solaris 8... The
> install is dog-slow (which probably indicates that 8 will
> run dog-slow) Is there a recommended version of Solaris

No, the installer is just slow (especially off of a slow CDROM).  Once
installed it should be very snappy.

> for the 1000? (Linux is out, since a deja search indicated
> that it seems to have a problem with SMP on the 1000) Perhaps
> I should drop back to 2.5.1, 2.6 or 2.7?  Opinions are
> welcome!

8 will be faster than other versions provided you have enough memory
installed, and 640MB is plenty.  Linux support for sun4d is extremely
spotty at this point in time, I can't recommend it.  Solaris should work
flawlessly on this gear, my suspicion is that you have either a board, CPU
or backplane problem.

Check the part numbers of your mbus modules as well, some of them were not
cleared for operation in the SS1000.

-James