-
5
- #1
Firebird Scrambler
Systems Engineer
Hello everyone
I'm in the process of writing up a BCM serial port guide. I'm not sure if anyone will be interested in it when I finally complete it, but it has helped me fix a couple of BCM 50 systems that would have been thrown out as being faulty and would have probably needed the keycode migrating to a new unit.
It isn't all my work as a number of us have been involved with this process over the past year. The BCM 400 and 450 systems have a serial port attached inside onto the Motherboard. I've listed out a number of useful commands for testing, but it's all been done so far on the BCM 50 range via the use of a USB to serial port connector that has been modified to work at 115200 baud.
The troubleshooting tips below might be helpful and I hope to add more tips in the future when I've finished the guide but that won't be for a couple of weeks.
This is only part of my guide, but it should still be OK for reference.
Troubleshooting tips
The following examples were solved on BCM 50 systems that would have been thrown away as being hardware errors.
A number of faults and tests can also be looked at on the following BCM systems below
The BCM 200, 400, 1000 version 4.0 (Linux) systems has a 9 way RS232 serial port hidden behind a panel on the front on the left which can be used at 9600 baud by removing the two screws. You might need to power down the BCM before you remove it as this panel also covers the monitor, keyboard and mouse connections which can be used to get to the BIOS during the power up process.
The BCM 450 system (All versions) has a 9 way RS232 serial port connector on the front to the right of the LAN Ethernet ports and you need to have it as 115200 baud.
You might also require a null modem adapter and use standard settings such as 8 1 None etc.
Problem 1
All four Ethernet ports not working and the Green LED’s are constant all the time. This is due to a corrupted configuration and the symptoms are that the FPGA boot up sequence is missing. The example below was taken from a BCM 50 at release 6.0.
CSC U-Boot 2.06.6 (Aug 17 2009 - 17:07:17)
MPC8260 Reset Status: External Hard, External Soft
CPU: MPC8260 (HiP7 Rev 00, Mask unknown [immr=0x0a10,k=0x0071]) at 266.640 MHz
Board: BCM CSC Rel 1 Rev 0
I2C: ready
DRAM: Total size: 256 MB
Memory cleared
Testing SDRAM ...
sdram data path test passed
macho address test passed
walking ones test passed
Reboot Reason: Power Recycle
Now running in RAM - U-Boot at: 0x0ff52000 .data 0x0ffb5650 .bss 0x0ffc2000
FLASH: 2 MB
PCI INIT
00 16 105a 3375 0180 0e
sub_bus:0
DEVICE INIT
JUMPTABLE INIT
CONSOLE INIT R
In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
enable Interrupts init
get environmnet information
Net: FCC1 ETHERNET [PRIME], FCC2 ETHERNET, FCC3 ETHERNET
IDE: Bus 0: OK Bus 1: not available Status = 0x7F
Device 0: Model: Maxtor 6N040T0 Firm: NAN51680 Ser#: N10DXKDG
Type: Hard Disk
Capacity: 39205.6 MB = 38.2 GB (80293248 x 512)
BEDBUG:ready
dbg_mode_l
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 ######### (Make sure that you press a key!) #########
Solution
Carry out the following tests using a serial port lead at the => prompt to see if it is corruption.
=> fpgactrl enable (You can either use disable or enable!. It should be set to enable)
=> printenv (Look for the line of fpga_config. It should be fpga_config=y)
=> setenv fpga_config y (Use this command if after using printenv, it was set to fpga_config=n)
=> saveenv (This saves the environment settings upon a reboot!)
=> reset (Resets the BCM as a reboot without pulling out the power lead)
If it works, then you will now see the missing lines of FPGA Device data during the initial power up. The 4 Green LED’s for the Ethernet ports will go out when you see the Linux boot up data appear.
Problem 2
BCM 50 system that has both flashing Red LED’s after powering it up and they stay constant.
Solution
This was due to an upgrade failure. By having a serial lead connected, you can watch the BCM boot up and see where the last command line was.
Opening the console
INIT: version 2.84 booting
Welcome to NCGL NCGL 2005 (cjdavola)
Press 'I' to enter interactive startup.
Mounting proc filesystem: [ OK ]
Setting hostname bcm_m50r1: [ OK ]
Activating swap partitions: [ OK ]
Finding module dependencies: [ OK ]
Mounting local filesystems: [ OK ]
Enabling swap space: [ OK ]
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
Entering non-interactive startup
Starting nn_modules: [ OK ]
Starting fesConfig: [ OK ]
Starting Fans_control: [ OK ]
Setting network parameters: [ OK ]
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth2: [ OK ]
Starting portmapper: [ OK ]
Starting system logger: [ OK ]
Starting kernel logger: [ OK ]
Initializing random number generator: [ OK ]
Starting xinetd: [ OK ]
Starting ResetButton: ###### (Press the Reset Button on the front panel 2 times) ######
CSC U-Boot 2.04.01 (Jul 12 2005 - 18:25:35)
MPC8260 Reset Status: External Hard, External Soft
MPC8260 Clock Configuration
- Bus-to-Core Mult 4x, VCO Div 2, 60x Bus Freq 25-75 , Core Freq 100-300
- dfbrg 0, corecnf 0x1a, busdf 5, cpmdf 1, plldf 0, pllmf 5
- vco_out 399960000, scc_clk 99990000, brg_clk 99990000
- cpu_clk 266640000, cpm_clk 199980000, bus_clk 66660000
In my case, the BCM 50 just stopped at this point. All I did was to press the small reset button on the front of the BCM a couple of times at “Starting ResetButton:” and allowed it to reboot again. This time the prompt didn’t appear and the BCM 50 powered up OK.
If you don’t have a serial cable attached to the BCM 50 but you had both flashing Red LED’s after powering it up and they stay constant, then you could just wait 5 minutes and then press the small reset button on the front of the BCM a couple of times and see if it reboots OK.
Problem 3
BCM 50 system that had constant Red LED’s after powering it up and they stay constant.
Also all four Ethernet ports not working and the Green LED’s are constant all the time.
Solution
This was due to a patch upgrade failure. By having a serial lead connected, you can watch the BCM boot up and see where the last command line was. Please refer to Problem 2 as the fix was to just press the reset button for around 5 to 10 seconds twice and then reset the power lead. There wasn’t a requirement to use the serial cable on this fault.
Problem 4
Unable to access an unknown BCM system that had unknown IP addresses and password etc. The top level Avaya password was failing when trying using a known IP address. This might have also happened if the Yellow Lithium battery was removed from the BCM motherboard.
Solution
This was due to the date on the BCM being incorrect. It is possible to use the serial port to check the date and change it.
The example shows the date was changed from the 11th December 1913 to the 4th September 2015.
=> date
Date: 1913-12-11 (Tuesday) Time: 1:09:05
=> help date
date [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
date reset
- without arguments: print date & time
- with numeric argument: set the system date & time
- with 'reset' argument: reset the RTC
=> date 090415152015.50
Date: 2015-09-04 (Friday) Time: 15:15:51
Remember to add in the seconds with a “.” In front at the end!.
Firebird Scrambler
Nortel Meridian 1 / Succession and BCM / Norstar Programmer in the UK
Advance knowledge on BCM support
I'm in the process of writing up a BCM serial port guide. I'm not sure if anyone will be interested in it when I finally complete it, but it has helped me fix a couple of BCM 50 systems that would have been thrown out as being faulty and would have probably needed the keycode migrating to a new unit.
It isn't all my work as a number of us have been involved with this process over the past year. The BCM 400 and 450 systems have a serial port attached inside onto the Motherboard. I've listed out a number of useful commands for testing, but it's all been done so far on the BCM 50 range via the use of a USB to serial port connector that has been modified to work at 115200 baud.
The troubleshooting tips below might be helpful and I hope to add more tips in the future when I've finished the guide but that won't be for a couple of weeks.
This is only part of my guide, but it should still be OK for reference.
Troubleshooting tips
The following examples were solved on BCM 50 systems that would have been thrown away as being hardware errors.
A number of faults and tests can also be looked at on the following BCM systems below
The BCM 200, 400, 1000 version 4.0 (Linux) systems has a 9 way RS232 serial port hidden behind a panel on the front on the left which can be used at 9600 baud by removing the two screws. You might need to power down the BCM before you remove it as this panel also covers the monitor, keyboard and mouse connections which can be used to get to the BIOS during the power up process.
The BCM 450 system (All versions) has a 9 way RS232 serial port connector on the front to the right of the LAN Ethernet ports and you need to have it as 115200 baud.
You might also require a null modem adapter and use standard settings such as 8 1 None etc.
Problem 1
All four Ethernet ports not working and the Green LED’s are constant all the time. This is due to a corrupted configuration and the symptoms are that the FPGA boot up sequence is missing. The example below was taken from a BCM 50 at release 6.0.
CSC U-Boot 2.06.6 (Aug 17 2009 - 17:07:17)
MPC8260 Reset Status: External Hard, External Soft
CPU: MPC8260 (HiP7 Rev 00, Mask unknown [immr=0x0a10,k=0x0071]) at 266.640 MHz
Board: BCM CSC Rel 1 Rev 0
I2C: ready
DRAM: Total size: 256 MB
Memory cleared
Testing SDRAM ...
sdram data path test passed
macho address test passed
walking ones test passed
Reboot Reason: Power Recycle
Now running in RAM - U-Boot at: 0x0ff52000 .data 0x0ffb5650 .bss 0x0ffc2000
FLASH: 2 MB
PCI INIT
00 16 105a 3375 0180 0e
sub_bus:0
DEVICE INIT
JUMPTABLE INIT
CONSOLE INIT R
In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
enable Interrupts init
get environmnet information
Net: FCC1 ETHERNET [PRIME], FCC2 ETHERNET, FCC3 ETHERNET
IDE: Bus 0: OK Bus 1: not available Status = 0x7F
Device 0: Model: Maxtor 6N040T0 Firm: NAN51680 Ser#: N10DXKDG
Type: Hard Disk
Capacity: 39205.6 MB = 38.2 GB (80293248 x 512)
BEDBUG:ready
dbg_mode_l
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 ######### (Make sure that you press a key!) #########
Solution
Carry out the following tests using a serial port lead at the => prompt to see if it is corruption.
=> fpgactrl enable (You can either use disable or enable!. It should be set to enable)
=> printenv (Look for the line of fpga_config. It should be fpga_config=y)
=> setenv fpga_config y (Use this command if after using printenv, it was set to fpga_config=n)
=> saveenv (This saves the environment settings upon a reboot!)
=> reset (Resets the BCM as a reboot without pulling out the power lead)
If it works, then you will now see the missing lines of FPGA Device data during the initial power up. The 4 Green LED’s for the Ethernet ports will go out when you see the Linux boot up data appear.
Problem 2
BCM 50 system that has both flashing Red LED’s after powering it up and they stay constant.
Solution
This was due to an upgrade failure. By having a serial lead connected, you can watch the BCM boot up and see where the last command line was.
Opening the console
INIT: version 2.84 booting
Welcome to NCGL NCGL 2005 (cjdavola)
Press 'I' to enter interactive startup.
Mounting proc filesystem: [ OK ]
Setting hostname bcm_m50r1: [ OK ]
Activating swap partitions: [ OK ]
Finding module dependencies: [ OK ]
Mounting local filesystems: [ OK ]
Enabling swap space: [ OK ]
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
Entering non-interactive startup
Starting nn_modules: [ OK ]
Starting fesConfig: [ OK ]
Starting Fans_control: [ OK ]
Setting network parameters: [ OK ]
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth2: [ OK ]
Starting portmapper: [ OK ]
Starting system logger: [ OK ]
Starting kernel logger: [ OK ]
Initializing random number generator: [ OK ]
Starting xinetd: [ OK ]
Starting ResetButton: ###### (Press the Reset Button on the front panel 2 times) ######
CSC U-Boot 2.04.01 (Jul 12 2005 - 18:25:35)
MPC8260 Reset Status: External Hard, External Soft
MPC8260 Clock Configuration
- Bus-to-Core Mult 4x, VCO Div 2, 60x Bus Freq 25-75 , Core Freq 100-300
- dfbrg 0, corecnf 0x1a, busdf 5, cpmdf 1, plldf 0, pllmf 5
- vco_out 399960000, scc_clk 99990000, brg_clk 99990000
- cpu_clk 266640000, cpm_clk 199980000, bus_clk 66660000
In my case, the BCM 50 just stopped at this point. All I did was to press the small reset button on the front of the BCM a couple of times at “Starting ResetButton:” and allowed it to reboot again. This time the prompt didn’t appear and the BCM 50 powered up OK.
If you don’t have a serial cable attached to the BCM 50 but you had both flashing Red LED’s after powering it up and they stay constant, then you could just wait 5 minutes and then press the small reset button on the front of the BCM a couple of times and see if it reboots OK.
Problem 3
BCM 50 system that had constant Red LED’s after powering it up and they stay constant.
Also all four Ethernet ports not working and the Green LED’s are constant all the time.
Solution
This was due to a patch upgrade failure. By having a serial lead connected, you can watch the BCM boot up and see where the last command line was. Please refer to Problem 2 as the fix was to just press the reset button for around 5 to 10 seconds twice and then reset the power lead. There wasn’t a requirement to use the serial cable on this fault.
Problem 4
Unable to access an unknown BCM system that had unknown IP addresses and password etc. The top level Avaya password was failing when trying using a known IP address. This might have also happened if the Yellow Lithium battery was removed from the BCM motherboard.
Solution
This was due to the date on the BCM being incorrect. It is possible to use the serial port to check the date and change it.
The example shows the date was changed from the 11th December 1913 to the 4th September 2015.
=> date
Date: 1913-12-11 (Tuesday) Time: 1:09:05
=> help date
date [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
date reset
- without arguments: print date & time
- with numeric argument: set the system date & time
- with 'reset' argument: reset the RTC
=> date 090415152015.50
Date: 2015-09-04 (Friday) Time: 15:15:51
Remember to add in the seconds with a “.” In front at the end!.
Firebird Scrambler
Nortel Meridian 1 / Succession and BCM / Norstar Programmer in the UK
Advance knowledge on BCM support
