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Conference tmaceo::field_service

Title:Help for Field Service
Notice:Help for the Field Service world
Moderator:TMAWKO::BELLAMY
Created:Tue Oct 07 1986
Last Modified:Thu Apr 29 1993
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1835
Total number of notes:7854

1830.0. "Help Vax drops to console prompt!" by MAASUP::TURRO (Make it so number 1) Sun Feb 21 1993 19:09

    IVE BEEN dealing with a Vax 4000 model 705a. Symptom- at any time
    the system will be running VMS then drops to the console prompt!
    Yep no warning no bugcheck,no self test runs (pwr fail) nothing
    
    Ive replaced the battery on the console bulkhead,the console bulkhead,
    the CPU. Its running version 6.1 VMS ! and has been for about a year.
    
    Any Ideas!!!!!!
    
    HELP!!!!
    
    The customer tried typing continue at the prompt but it just pukes
    out another halt and pc .
    
    Nothing in errorlog or VAXSIM and I mean nothing!!!!!
    
    Mike Turro
    
    
    
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1830.1Been There...WHTAIL::TALBOTWed Feb 24 1993 07:377
    I have seen this problem before. In my instance it turned out that the
    console terminal (VT###) was throwing out a strange escape sequence
    or break key. My suggestion is to swap the terminal if possible. If you
    do not have a spare, just disconnect the console cable from the
    bulkhead. I do not suggest running this way very long, only for
    troubleshooting purposes. Customer should understand. Good luck..
    
1830.2OHFSS1::FULLERNever confuse a memo with realityTue Mar 02 1993 17:5829
    Please pardon my tardiness in replying...
    
    I'd start by looking at the PC and seeing where in the VMS exec the
    halt is located. 
    
    We had a spate of halts like this on one of our VAX 7630 systems, where
    it would just halt with no dump, no message, nothing.  The PC, however,
    was located in the area of VMS that would be trying to load the
    bugcheck module.  It turned out that what was happening was that VMS
    was trying to crash, but it could not (for some never discovered
    reason) load the bugcheck module.  I don't recall what was done to
    resolve the situation, however.
    
    Someone in support or in VMS was able to supply a new EXECEPTION.EXE
    module which would printout some potentially useful information in this
    type of situation, but as it happened, we never had a problem while
    running that module.
    
    Just for grins, you might try performing the manual crash dump
    procedure:
    
    	>>> E PSL		! Get the Processor Status
    	>>> E ISP		! Get the Interrupt Stack Pointer
    	>>> E PC		! Get the contents of the PC
    	>>> D PC FFFFFFFF	! Invalidate the PC
    	>>> D PSL 41F0000	! Force Interrupt Stack and IPL=31
    	>>> C			! Continue [and crash]
    
    	Stu
1830.3Still monitoringMAASUP::TURROMake it so number 1Wed Mar 03 1993 14:367
    The customer may have fixed it. They had some new software
    that may have been crashing it. They got some patches for it
    Im still monitoring!
    
    Thanks
    Mike Turro