3640 boot problems

[Dave Stroud <Dave@AVON.sltd.dialnet.symbolics.com>]

    Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 09:24:34 -0600
    From: s9274@srl1.LANL.GOV

    I have spent a couple of hours this morning trying to resurrect a 3640.
    I have identified at least one bad board (DP), and I suspect several
    others and have replaced them as well. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty
    sure I have replaced every board in the machine except the FPA. Before I
    say anything else, there's always the possibility that one of my spares
    is bad.

    The current symptom is that the machine halts during booting after
    having received the "Clear Machine" command: 

    Error: Decode load stopped with error

Sequencer, D.P. problem? Do you have the correct prom at location 23K on the D.P.
for the type of machine you are running? It should be "BASECTL.3" for a standard 
(non-IFU); "DPIFU.2" for an IFU machine.

What version of .flod files are you running?
These are the latest versions:-
      V127-debug.flod.66   51  57629(8)     02/20/88 00:12:26 []          DRJ
      V127-disk.flod.66   38  43443(8)     02/19/88 23:25:18 []           DRJ
      V127-info.flod.67   16  17862(8)     02/22/88 22:26:44 []           DRJ
      V127-lisp.flod.67   51  58645(8)     02/22/88 22:25:24 []           DRJ
      V127-loaders.flod.67   52  59435(8)     02/22/88 22:20:49 []        DRJ
      V127-rel7.flod.65    4   4240(8)     02/22/88 22:27:45 []           DRJ
      V127-tests.flod.67   10  11327(8)     02/22/88 22:27:17 []          DRJ

from sys;n-fep:

    When the machine has gotten past "Clear Machine", it halts after the
    "start" command:

    FEP Lbus Control: Doorbell Int Enb, Use Corrected Data, Ignore Double ECC Error, Task 3 Dismiss
    FEP Proc Control: FEP Int Enable
    Sequencer Error Status: B-memory parity error
    ...

D.P. problem!

    Two other items:

    1) After loading microcode, a message appears which reads

    -- Assuming old format MIC file

Don't worry! it's normal...

    (the microcode version "appears" to be correct for the world)

    2) After "Load World" the Lisp release is identified as 7.2, even though
    the Lisp release of the world is 8.1

Don't worry! it's normal...
The release reported in the herald will be o.k.,(when you finally get it to boot..)

    Since this machine has booted an 8.1 world in the recent pass, I am
    unsure as to how I should proceed. I would appreciate any helpful
    suggestions.

    John Krieger (s9274@srl1.lanl.gov)
    Westinghouse Savannah River Company

Hope this helps in some small way...

Dave.