I could need some help getting this Iris Indigo R3k running.
I already fixed the "tod clock" issue by soldering a new battery onto the board and with the SGI2USB adapter I was able to get past the "keyboard not found" error.
But now it turns out there is a PROM password set in the nvram which prevents me from entering the "Command Monitor" as well as the software installation menu to start installation of the OS.
- I don't have a bootable disk with a preinstalled OS, so starting up and resetting that password "the software way" does not work.
- According to "the internet" you can reset the password by removing the EEPROM, power up, enter the command monitor and insert the EEPROM again while the machine is running (yikes!) to overwrite/reset it.
but besides that it is close to impossible to insert that EEPROM through that tiny opening while the machine is running, the machine won't even start with the EEPROM removed.(LED remains green).
Additionally, the indigo seems to have another issue. most time when I power up the machine, the LED stays green instead of turning amber. a few weeks ago I was at least able to start it up with amber led (as well as SCSI disk spinning up) in let's say 50% of power up attempts.
but recently it really needs a lot of attempts to get the amber LED with startup chime, display output and disks spinning up.
I did some experiments with removing and reordering RAM modules:
- when I remove all RAM modules, LED blinks amber. every time. (won't start)
- when I just install two of four modules (one left, one right) it blinks amber as well. every time. won't start.
- when I install all four again, there is a 90% chance that I can start up successfully with amber LED (chime, scsi spinning up, gfx ok), but most times only once.. second time it's green LED again with no sign of life.. until I remove the CPU board again, fiddle with the RAM modules and insert it again. not sure why, but it's reproducable.
tried above procedure a dozen times with and without the EEPROM. with EEPROM removed I NEVER get an amber LED, just stuck at green LED.
any ideas how to reanimate this indigo?
thx!
I already fixed the "tod clock" issue by soldering a new battery onto the board and with the SGI2USB adapter I was able to get past the "keyboard not found" error.
But now it turns out there is a PROM password set in the nvram which prevents me from entering the "Command Monitor" as well as the software installation menu to start installation of the OS.
- I don't have a bootable disk with a preinstalled OS, so starting up and resetting that password "the software way" does not work.
- According to "the internet" you can reset the password by removing the EEPROM, power up, enter the command monitor and insert the EEPROM again while the machine is running (yikes!) to overwrite/reset it.
but besides that it is close to impossible to insert that EEPROM through that tiny opening while the machine is running, the machine won't even start with the EEPROM removed.(LED remains green).
Additionally, the indigo seems to have another issue. most time when I power up the machine, the LED stays green instead of turning amber. a few weeks ago I was at least able to start it up with amber led (as well as SCSI disk spinning up) in let's say 50% of power up attempts.
but recently it really needs a lot of attempts to get the amber LED with startup chime, display output and disks spinning up.
I did some experiments with removing and reordering RAM modules:
- when I remove all RAM modules, LED blinks amber. every time. (won't start)
- when I just install two of four modules (one left, one right) it blinks amber as well. every time. won't start.
- when I install all four again, there is a 90% chance that I can start up successfully with amber LED (chime, scsi spinning up, gfx ok), but most times only once.. second time it's green LED again with no sign of life.. until I remove the CPU board again, fiddle with the RAM modules and insert it again. not sure why, but it's reproducable.
tried above procedure a dozen times with and without the EEPROM. with EEPROM removed I NEVER get an amber LED, just stuck at green LED.
any ideas how to reanimate this indigo?
thx!