[Info-vax] Changed Boot behavior on XP1000 since 2013

[Joukj]

MichaelM wrote:
> XP1000,  VMS V7.2-1 or V7.3-2, latest Firmware V5.9-1, SYSGEN-
> TIMEPROMPTWAIT=65535 (default), battery ok.
> 
> Since 2013 all machines booting up from "Power off" or after doing
> ">>> INIT" on the boot prompt stop booting and ask for the system time
> DD-MMM-YYYY MM:HH. IF you set the time back to 2012 they boot until
> login normally. All XP1000 boot normally too if power wasn't off or if
> no >>> INIT was given on the boot prompt.
> 
> Only XP1000 are infected, our DS10 and some other alphas boot as
> expected.
> 
> You can force the machines to boot through with another TIMEPROMPTWAIT
> value, but than the system time will be inaccurate (time of last boot
> or of last $SET TIME).
> 
> It seems that any time from 2013 on is an invalid time for the
> processors time-of-year clock and this clock becomes important after
> "power off" or >>>INIT.
I see the same on some of my alpha's since 1-JAN-2013.
Definitely one of my XP1000 does it (on the other 2 I have not seen it 
yet, but I did not do a power-cycle on those, only a "reset" by pressing 
the button).
I see the same on a DPWS500au and a AlphaServer 2000 4/200, but not on 
the boot-member of my cluster, a DPWS600au (I even power-cycled this 
machine)
All 6 of machines form a cluster with one boot-member and 5 satelites 
booting form the same system-disk. It is a OpenVM8.4 system with all 
available patches installed.

When I mentioned this to HP-support, they blamed the battery. I have not 
had time to replace them to see if they are right. But I'm still 
wondering why 3 systems failed on this point at the same time (since 
1-jan-2013).

             Jouk