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

[Hans Vlems]

On 25 jan, 12:12, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh... at telia.com>
wrote:
> Hans Vlems wrote 2013-01-25 11:57:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 22 jan, 16:21, DaveG <davel... at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Friday, January 18, 2013 7:47:21 AM UTC-6, 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 was asked for the system time (same as the others here) this morning on an Alpha 4000 after a power down restart.  I did set the date as 22-JAN-2013 and the boot continuded normally.  I thought battery too then stumbled on this thread.
>
> >> Don't recall this being a problem before 2013 rung in.
>
> > I saw this happen on a Digital Server 5305 5/533. Now this is not a
> > supported VMS system so I didn't do anything about it.
> > A reboot without a powering off the system will still get you to the
> > date and time prompt.
> > Something else that I noticed on this system: in ARC the date is set
> > to 24 January 2073.
> > The 5305 runs the last issued firmware for the 5305 and is the same
> > for the Alpha Server 1200.
> > I'll check my other systems this evening. All I can say is that my
> > DS20E does not show this behaviour.
> > Hans
>
> Same with my customers D20e's. I havn't checked but I do not
> expect my DS25 to ask for a date either.
>
> Everything right now points to some "feature" in older firmware
> versions where it can't handle dates that are too "new", right ?
>
> Jan-Erik.- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -

So far I've seen this:

The Digital Server 5305 5/533 as well as the 5/400 suffer from this
problem.
The Alpha Server 1200 (again both models) too. These systems are at
their latest firmware V6.0-4 (AFAIK).
My XP1000 boots normally as does the AlphaServer DS10 (V7.3-1) and the
DS20E (V7.3-1), no problems there.

On both the AlphaServer 1200 and the Digital Server 5305 I tried ARC
and had a look at the date kept in there.
It showed the year 2073, the day and month were set at expected values
(24, 25 and Jannuary).
Next I set the year to 2013 and saved that value (F10) en left that
menu. Next, press the cycle button and VMS
booted alright. Power cycling removed the correct date setting and the
VMS date and time prompt appeared again.

I don't think this is a dead battery problem, all my Alpha's have
different ages and different run times.
They all run ARC version 5.70 and I believe that's where the problem
is.

Any suggestions for a remedy or do I have to learn an live with this?
I suppose there are no AlphaServer 1200's left
covered by a maintenace support contract, right?


Hans