Can't type anything into the console

[Travis959]

First off, I'm a huge newbie to this system and I know very little about the technical side of things.

I recently joined this company as a network administrator and part of my responsibilities fall under the phone system, which has worked fine up until a week ago.

Now when I attempt to connect to the phone system, I am unable to type anything into the system. I still receive TTY messages, mostly just: AUD000 or DTC103, but I am unable to type anything. The phone system, and meridian voicemail, still work fine otherwise, but the date and time are set to Apr 09 5:12am currently.

Sometimes I will get a lot of strange letters and characters, but this seems entirely random and I'm not sure how to reproduce it.

I am using Procomm to connect, and I have also tried hyperterminal. I've used an ungodly different amount of settings in an attempt to get it to work. The only way I can get anything to type is if I change the Data Duplex to "half".

The old network administrator suggested "moving the cable to another port as they are the same", but I'm not sure what this even means?

If it helps, we have an "Option 11" nortel system.

 

[Travis959]

We've tested the octopus cable and verified it's functional.

What is the female serial port on the main card, below where the octopus cable connects, for? Is it the same thing as the male port?

Also, how can we test if the System Core card is bad? Would the whole system be down if it was bad?

 

[KCFLHRC]

The other port is for an AUX cable, it gives you different voltages out on that connector. Don't connect that to your laptop. How did you verify that the cable is functional? Have you tried hyper-terminal and see if you get the same result? I doubt the core card is bad but I have seen stranger things happen. I still think this is something simple. Have you powered the system down and then brought it back up?

 

[bhassell2000]

on an Option 11 you definitely need a null modem adaptor attached to the TTY cable and to your modem cable on your laptop. if none of the three TTY cable work they may be disabled in the system. I would bet on a setting in your procom not being correct.

Thanks,

Buddy

Linked in Profile

http://www.linkedin.com/in/buddyhassell

 

[Travis959]

I haven't tried the Port 2 cable yet as I'm not sure exactly where it is connecting too. I believe another server we have, but not sure.

I'm not sure what setting is missing in Procomm, but I think I said I also can not type when using hyperterminal either. It's weird that all of the sudden the cable/settings on the box/server would change since it has been fine for a long time before this.

 

[bhassell2000]

is this a single caninet? Do you have a TTY on another cabinet?

Thanks,

Buddy

Linked in Profile

http://www.linkedin.com/in/buddyhassell

 

[Travis959]

There are 2 cabinets connected together, however the other cabinet does not have any of the serial ports on it.