[Info-vax] MACHINECHK on my XP900...

[Hans Vlems]

On Feb 12, 5:57 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh... at telia.com>
wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I have som e trouble with my XP900 466 MHz system.
>
> Currently, when powered on, it boots (VMS 8.3) and runs
> for 5-10 minutes, then I get this on the console :
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> **** OpenVMS Alpha Operating System V8.3     - BUGCHECK ****
>
> ** Bugcheck code = 00000215: MACHINECHK, Machine check while in kernel mode
> ** Crash CPU: 00000000    Primary CPU: 00000000    Node Name: OSSBY1
> ** Supported CPU count:   00000001
> ** Active CPUs:           00000000.00000001
> ** Current Process:       NULL
> ** Current PSB ID:        00000001
> ** Image Name:
>
> ** Dumping error log buffers to HBVS unit 0
>
> **** No supported device(s) found in DUMP_DEV
> **** No DUMP_DEV devices found
> **** Attempting to write the crash dump to the system disk
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Before I begin fault-tracing, I thought I'd ask if there
> is anything in that message that "sticks out" ?
>
> I had the box opened before this started and I might have
> touched some RAM module or something like that. I do not know.
>
> Is the code = 00000215 trying to tell me something important ? :-)
>
> I was doing nohting in VMS, just booted and waited for the crash.
>
> Jan-Erik.

Good morning Jan-Erik,
very likely the code is trying to tell you/us something, but very few
people speak that language these days....
As you suggested, reseating modules (memory modules, cpu board and pci
controllers) is a good start.
Perhaps one of the memory modules has developed a hardware problem, so
reducing the memory is an option.
The system takes 5-10 minutes to crash, so it is not a straightforward
hardware problem.
If the system isn't doing anything then we can assume that there is no
VMS related problem, right?
So it may be temperature related, or an intermittent hardware
problem.
I never saw an XP900 (just an XP1000) but if the cpu has a fan on top
of it, check whether it rotates freely.
Other than that, strip the system to its minimum configuration (cd,
cpu and minimal memory) and run VMS off cd.
If nothing happens, add more hardware until the problem appears again.
If it does, well, I would defy Murphy and suspect the cheapest
components: memory ;-)
Does the XP900 have a memtest command in nvram?
Hans