Can't access BCM 1

[stuartmytech]

Hello All,

I am new to the BCM, I have only worked on one since doing a course some months ago but have a fair number of years experience in other systems including Nortel.

Last night I had a call to look at a BCM400 with the voicemail not working but when I looked at the system the telephony side of things seem to be working fine ie I can receive incoming calls, make calls both internal and external but no voicemail, all the leds on the front are flashing and I can't access the unit by any means ie ethenet, telset or rs232.

On this site I found a bulletin outlining an issue which sounds the same where the capacitors on the main board fail causing the services not to start, I checked the main board but I can't see any failures but that does not mean its not the fault. I have been told that the system is V3.5 but how can I check this if I can't talk to the system.

The main question I have is if the telephony is running ok is it not also located on the base function board?

All the OS etc are located on the hard drive, forgive me if I seem to be asking basic questions but this seemed to be skimmed over in the course, if this is so where does the telephony applications reside, if they are on the hard drive why do they load and not the other applications. If this system is a 3.5 then it would be running NTE.

Could this also be a hard drive failure but this would depend on some of the questions above, surely if it is a hard drive failure then it could load nothing and therefore should be a grey box on the wall doing nothing!

Thanks in advance.

Stuart

 

[trying2help]

all digital and analog telephony is stored and runs off the MSC card. Yes, the MSC is connected to the Motherboard (BFT) but it requires nothing more than power to operate. You can litterally remove the hard drive and the MSC will still function. It is very possible that either the capcitors have leaked or the drive is no longer working. You need to inspect the capcitors first. If they are fine, attach a monitor (VGA port is located behind the platic bezel/face plate) and you can watch the boot sequence. If you get absolutley nothing the issue will most likely be the Base Function Tray. If you do see boot progress, it should at least point you in the right direction.

 

[stuartmytech]

Thanks for the information, I have been going through the manuals and I understand what you are saying, the MSC does all the Telephony and the mainboard runs the applications such as the voicemail, wan etc but why can't I access the system via the Telset programming, I would have thought it would have come back to something like a basic Norstar?

I am not onsite with the system at the moment but I am looking through the docs and I can't find any mention of a vga socket, it must be somewhere on the tray behind where the leds are, is this the case, I can see where the modem socket normally goes which is just above the rs232 port, where is the vga located in reference to that?

From what you are saying I should be able to watch the boot process and if it is anything like a normal PC then I should see if the system can see the hard drive or not.

With regards to the capacitors, I checked them out and there does not appear to be any that have exploded or swollen but there are a couple that the tops are slightly rounded.

In the bulletin on the capacitor issue it mentions some PEC codes of affected items, is this the code of the mainboard or the tray?

Regards
Stuart

 

[acewarlock]

Open the BFT and look at the CAPs, if there Green there BAD, if there Blue there GOOD. The BFT will be replaced for free by Nortel until 12/31/08.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.