hello

> Some of you make have seen me on the alpha mailing list before. Well, I just
> obtained a DECstation 5000/240 with PMAGB-B. Some months ago I bought 10 x
> 8MB boards for this beast, today I put them in and turned the machine on.
> 
> After it finishes all its tests and complains about no rz3/vmunix to boot ;)
> I ran a 'test mem' and got this:
> 
> ?TFL:  3/mem (1: board 8, MBE= 3088925, SBE= 0) [KNO3-AA]
> ?TFL:  3/mem (2: board 9: too many SBEs: 1048576) [KNO3-AA]
> ?TFL:  3/ni/ext-lb (3:(xmt [00000006, 00000040] cable)) [KNO3-AA
> 
> The guy I got it from advised me to use a toothbrush and some alcohol to
> clean the pins if I had any ram issues. But I thought I'd ask first if
> anyone knew what these messages might mean. I think the 3rd one is video
> related as it ran some video test patterns before it came up.

MBE - multi-bit error
SBE - single bit error
the third complaint is that the ethernet is not terminated, probably. 
the ECC can detect 2 bits/byte error, and correct 1 bit/byte error (iirc)
, the sbe's will be corrected but logged. the mbe's are not recoverable.. 
the advice to clean the contacts with alochol and a toothbrush is good
advice. I'd add to that, remove the mobo altogether, vacuum it off well, 
clean it off, rinse with alcohol and maybe lightly use toothbrush, cotton,
or a gentle cotton cloth, to clean out any leftover dust, and then let it 
air dry for a while to be rid of the alcohol, then reinstall it. the memory
slots on those are notoriously poor when it comes to corrosion, contact 
strength, and dirt. sometimes just rocking the module back and forth a 
few times will scrape the contacts clean somewhat, but better is to 
properly clean them. 

> 
> I'm intending on installing 1.4.2 on my friend's advice. This box is better
> than the main server when I first started uni! (it was a 5000/200) Will make
> a nice addition next to my VAXstation 3100. And I can use the PMAD-A I have
> sitting (unused :( ) in my DEC3000/400.

:-) 
yes, the 260 is a really nice machine! i'd second the 1.4.2 
recommendation.. it'll be faster on the old hardware. Plus (or was it 
1.4.1 that was the last one) youll get to use the 'real' rc files instead of
the rc.d stuff hehehe 
nice machine!