on 6/4/01 9:58 AM, David Woyciesjes at DAW@yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu
wrote:

> -> ... but right now I just see the video
> -> BIOS message printed on the screen, it clears
> -> and then I get a blue screen with a flashing
> -> cursor. I'm guessing that means it doesn't...

> Sounds almost exactly like what I went through trying to get my
> AXPpci33 going. The other guys are right about the memory & cache. As for
> the blue screen cursor bit, sound like it is using the serial console. Try

    I actually had parity RAM in the machine, but it was only 8MB so I'm
glad I bought more anyhow. (thanks John)

> giving it the WinNT salute - [Ctrl][Alt][Del]. That is supposedly what fixed
> mine, when I shipped it back to the seller, thought it was DOA. You'll

    I figured out what it was, it's so unbelievably obvios, I can't believe
I overlooked it. One word: keylock. The case had the keylock switch on and I
never noticed it before since it came bare. Unplugged the keylock line and
bang, booted right into SRM and everything came up normally. Hooked up an
RX23A and installed the 1.5.1b2 sets off of a RealTek 8139 based ethernet
card. I think I also had a bad DIN-9 to MMJ adapter, but didn't check into
it further since it's working now.

> probably then get the console prompt ( >>> ).
> Type "show console", then "set console graphics" if it isn't. These
> little Alphas seem to automatically switch to serial console if they're
> booted without a keyboard hooked up.

    FWIW, output will go to serial console if any one of {keyboard, mouse,
frame buffer} are not present. I had a keyboard and a video card, and it
still switched to the serial console on the PS/2 mouse && keyboard model of
the motherboard. Now I just need to directly attach that 3" fan to the
heatsink...

    Yay for BSD!


    Chris