SGI O2 startup issue

kubaslonka

New member
Nov 12, 2021
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Poland, Opole
youtube.com
Dears,

I'm new here and I'm sorry if missed a hread with this issue posted before.
Anyway I've bought a SGI O2, two pieces, only main units. They should work but they not.
All of them got HDD and memory, A/V cards, I/O extension card.

The question I have to this community- they don't start.
One starts, I can hear chime and hear that HDD is spinning but nothing else is going on.
Second starts with no chime but the same HDD is not spinning.
Chime I can hear thrught headphones.

I know the graphic standard is SoG so I've tested that with many monitors and TVs.
The only result I got is a green screen with no other visible stuff behind it OR black screen- in this case display device shows that something is connected to it.

I've tryied to mix everything to find where problem is related to.
So I've take out some memory, mix memory, take out HDD, exchange HDD, take out A/V card, exchange A/V card, take out I/O card and exchange that as well.

No positive results. Motherboards behave always in the same way.

Please, help.
Kuba
 

TruHobbyist

Member
Jul 27, 2019
41
38
18
Hi Kuba

the symptoms you describe sound much like a hardware failure on both machines. If you can, try to rule out the possibility of none of your monitors supporting SoG. Maybe you have another known to work SGI machine to check this.

Typical debug procedure is to connect a terminal to the first serial port (console) and inspect the output. Even if the hardware is defect, you could use the O2 through serial port or network (telnet, ssh, rsh, ...).

For the serial connection you need a null modem cable and a terminal configured to use 9600, 8-N-1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-N-1). A good terminal emulator is putty (available for Windows) or cu/minicom/tip or the likes on Linux/Unix boxes.

Good luck
 
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kubaslonka

New member
Nov 12, 2021
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Poland, Opole
youtube.com
Hi Kuba

the symptoms you describe sound much like a hardware failure on both machines. If you can, try to rule out the possibility of none of your monitors supporting SoG. Maybe you have another known to work SGI machine to check this.

Typical debug procedure is to connect a terminal to the first serial port (console) and inspect the output. Even if the hardware is defect, you could use the O2 through serial port or network (telnet, ssh, rsh, ...).

For the serial connection you need a null modem cable and a terminal configured to use 9600, 8-N-1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-N-1). A good terminal emulator is putty (available for Windows) or cu/minicom/tip or the likes on Linux/Unix boxes.

Good luck
Hi there!

So, What I found- lack of kayeboard and mouse connected blocked startup sequence...
God damn' it- tousands of monitors tested :-D

Anyway- I got other issue- I don't have password to the user account worked previously with this machine and I've tried to install system from scratch, but...
After files being coppied to the HDD, screen gets dark and nothing happens, no HDD working sound, no LED indication, no nothing.
System I've tried to install is IRIX 6.5. The same which is installed originally on.
Myybe I'm trying to install too new version?

Maybe there's a possibility to install a Linux on it but where to find ready to install cd images?

Thanks in advance!
 

Laurent

New member
Nov 20, 2021
11
2
3
Hi Kuba, I don't have experience with O2s, and they may be different from what I am used to, but here are a few things to try:
  • Just before Irix boots you can press ESC to get to a maintenance menu
  • In the maintenance menu there should be a diagnostic entry, that will run tests on the hardware. Try that. It's helped me in the past with "mysterious" behaviours
  • In the maintenance menu there should also be an option for running Irix in single mode. That should give you passwordless root access on the old installs if you have kept at least one of them.
  • Try to see if the old install runs for a long period of time without crashing. If yes, then there is a problem with your new install. If not, then the problem is elsewhere.
Good luck and don't hesitate to ask for more help!
 

mgtremaine

Member
May 3, 2020
62
35
18
San Diego, Ca
www.stellarcore.net
Kuba,

Some of this stuff can be a little tricky, and some of the details of your hardware might help everyone figure out the issues. Also how are you installing this and what disks (or images) are you using.

From Ian's site http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/6.5inst.html we have this note about O2 installs.

NOTE: depending on the type of system you have, you may need to use a later 6.5.x installation tools CD in order to boot the system and perform the installation. This is because certain hardware was not supported until a later release, eg. CPUs like R12000, etc. If this is the case, then read in the update CDs aswell as the base CDs referred to below, eg. for a 6.5.16m installation, the base CD set to read into swmgr would be the 6.5.16 inst tools 1 of 4 May 2002, Foundation 1 June 1998, Foundation 2 June 1998, Applications June 1998, 6.5.16 Overlays 3 of 4 May 2002, IRIX 6.5.16 Overlays 4 of 4 and 6.5 Applications May 2002 (for the feature stream, the boot CD is called Overlays 2 of 4). Full details on supported hardware is in the guide that accompanies the 6.5.x update, or see support.sgi.com.

I have an o2 on 6.5.22m and I don't remember having any issues on the install but it is r5K / 1GB of memory.

As an extra I figured I'd re-post the ancient O2 trouble shooting charts.

-Mike
 

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kubaslonka

New member
Nov 12, 2021
5
0
1
Poland, Opole
youtube.com
Thank you guys very much for an involvement.
Thank you Mike for the link. Seriously I'm tottaly new at this.
So, anyway- I used the way for installation from here:

A complete conflict-free IRIX 6.5.30 install on an SGI Tezro

But from the beginning what I've done:
- I've reset ENV parameters by "resetEnv" instruction, and thanks to that the Installation Procedure were able to start,
- then I used "hinv" to get to know places where what is installed,
- used the instructions:
boot -f dksc(X,Y,8)sashARCS
boot -f dksc(X,Y,7)stand/fx.ARCS --x

- since that I used the YT manual.

Files I got from:
6,5,30, 6.5.
6.5.30 files just rename from *.image into *.ISO


Some usefull data:
PROM Monitor commands
Booting IRIX Installation from CD
 

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