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CPU Power up problems


KEJR

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I often have a problem where the CPU of the PPMAC does not boot properly. It doesn't even seem to get to the bootloader (As seen with the serial port attached). Is this a known problem?

 

It seems I had seen this same problem with an evaluation PPMAC that we were borrowing from our distributor over a year ago.

 

The System usually boots again if I remove power and then reapply power shortly thereafter.

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This should not be the case. The board should power up consistently.

 

There are two improvements we made to the board, Q2 and Q3 are now FDS6690 FDS4435 which stay cooler. They were 4403 / 4894 . You can inspect your board to see what you have but this should not cause the board to not start up.

 

In addition, Applied Micro upgraded the processor to a B revision that which stays cooler and uses less power.

 

 

I often have a problem where the CPU of the PPMAC does not boot properly. It doesn't even seem to get to the bootloader (As seen with the serial port attached). Is this a known problem?

 

It seems I had seen this same problem with an evaluation PPMAC that we were borrowing from our distributor over a year ago.

 

The System usually boots again if I remove power and then reapply power shortly thereafter.

 

 

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Hi Henry,

 

This should not be the case. The board should power up consistently.

 

Agreed.

 

There are two improvements we made to the board, Q2 and Q3 are now FDS6690 FDS4435 which stay cooler. They were 4403 / 4894 .

 

I don't think it is a heat thing because it can happen first thing in the morning after being off all night. We do have the 4403/4894 chips on the board for Q2 and Q3.

 

FWIW it should also be noted that we are using year 2001 vintage backplane boards and a fairly lightly loaded power supply (1 24V-IN/OUT and 1 Macro Master).

 

Would it help in troubleshooting to monitor the 5V supply on the backplane with a scope at powerup, or are there other things to try first?

 

Thanks again for helping me out, you seem to be the all-around PPMAC Guru.

 

KEJR

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  • 2 months later...

Is there anything else I can try to get our PPMAC boards to boot properly? I have two CPUs that are doing the same thing in different card cages. The problem is very intermittent and can go for a week or two between failures. It has never failed once it has started booting from flash. I'm going to need some resolution on this soon as our machine is on the manufacturing floor and is an annoyance to the operators.

 

 

 

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  • 2 years later...

Is there anything else I can try to get our PPMAC boards to boot properly? I have two CPUs that are doing the same thing in different card cages.

 

Was this issue ever solved? We are having this issue across all of our PPMACs. The boot up failure rate is about 20%.

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Update on this issue:

 

Delta Tau has identified an issue with a reset sequence on Power PMAC 460EX (604020) USB PHY which is a cause for most of this boot issues. This problem and its fix is addressed in ECO 3164. The solution included in this ECO is a firmware change on U36 Lattcie part. Delta Tau head quarter, international offices and some of our distributors are capable of updating this firmware on defected CPUs. In addition this ECO is applied on all Power PMAC 460EX CPUs which are sent to Delta Tau as RMAs.

 

Please note that we have had CPUs that despite implementation of the ECO, exhibit boot problems once is a while. We believe there might be an unrelated source for these isolated cases such as a hardware component failure in which case we recommend sending the board back for repair.

 

Regards,

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Sina,

 

One of our PowerPMACs requires two consecutive "$$$" commands to reset it properly. After the first "$$$" command it returns to factory default settings with no programs loaded. After the second "$$$" command is has all of our settings and programs loaded.

 

This drove us crazy for a while, but once we figured it out it hasn't been a big issue.

 

Does this sound like the problem you described above?

 

Thanks,

 

Matthew Dean

Coastal Controls

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On some of our PowerPMACs we experience a problem with power cycles to the controller. As viewed through serial, the boot sequence gets stuck in a loop and never fully boots. It starts to boot, doesn't get very far, and then restarts. It can take two or three power cycles sometimes for it to boot properly. Is this the same issue the ECO is supposed to fix?
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  • 1 year later...

On some of our PowerPMACs we experience a problem with power cycles to the controller. As viewed through serial, the boot sequence gets stuck in a loop and never fully boots. It starts to boot, doesn't get very far, and then restarts. It can take two or three power cycles sometimes for it to boot properly. Is this the same issue the ECO is supposed to fix?

 

I am working with user jhendges on a similar issue. We had a Power PMAC cpu stop booting right upon power up at the ram check portion of the boot. We are sending in for a diagnostic test as this card has done this on every boot and has not successfully boot up.

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