Fixing a "Bad slot"

[kerygma]

Hey,

Had a power surge today and UPS labeled outlets must not be as stable as we had hoped, because the PBX reset. No problem, I got WinSPM, so I restored the programming from an earlier backup.

All went well, or so I thought, as the phones on one card would not come back to life. So, swapped the card with another, and the card worked fine in the new slot, but the new card in the old slot produced the same result - nothing.

Status on the cards all report normal, and the programming seems right for all the other extensions. So, I thought maybe the slot interface is bad, but the backplane connects successfully to the next chasis. I have reseated the cards multiple times, have rebooted many times (by the way, is there a "proper" way to shutdown and bring back to life multiple chasis setups? left to right, etc.), changed the card order around significantly, and done many restores. No luck. Can't get antything to work in that slot.

Configuration is as follows.

Merlin Legend R2 V4.0
------------------------------------
Chasis 1 (Card#:Cardorts)
0: CPU
1: 008 MLX: 10-17 - Fine
2: 408: 18-25 - Fine
3: 408: 26-33 - Fine
4: 012: 34-45 - Not used. Could be the offender?
5: 408: 46-53 - THIS IS THE GUY I NEED TO WORK!!
Chasis 2 (Card#:Cardorts)
0: 408 GS/LS: 54-61 - Fine
1: 408 GS/LS: 62-69 - Fine
2: 007 MLM (voicemail/attendant) - Fine
------------------------------------

One obvious solution is to move those on the offending card (1:5) to later cards, but really don't want to have to move extensions if I don't have to. I mean, we just printed new business cards ...

Thanks! Really need some help.

James

 

[jinxs]

Hmmmm, I had a similar problem when I was a newbie and I powered down a 3 carrier legend improperly. I would say to try to powerdown and powerup again. The maintance book states that powerdown should go 1-2-3 and powerup should go 3-2-1. The idea is that there is no corruption to the processor on a powerdown. As well, the processor can see the cards in the other carriers on a powerup during checksum. If that doesn't work..try a boardrenumber (sys program) (system) (boardrenum). IF that doesn't, the all so faithful busy-out; reset; restore might work but I doubt it. BTW, is the system config that you have done from a system printout or done by just checking the actual cards. If you were just checking out the cards, try doing a system printout and see what the system thinks you have in slot 5. Good luck.

 

[kerygma]

Thanks man.

As an update, it appears both of the last two slots in the first chasis have this problem.

I have been consistent about the power up order, but unsure about the down. Will be sure to follow the correct order from here on out.

I tried the board renumber a few times, and no-go thus far.

Tried the busy-out/reset/restore option (man, I was hoping...) but as you guessed, no-go there as well.

I am not sure how to get a proper system printout. For the cards, I was going off the external properties (plug a phone into cards in those two slots, and no signal), and the internal (WinSPM/MLX-20L say that the extensions exist, cards are read back appropriately (Maintenance -> Slot -> 5 -> Status, etc.).

Am presently printing/saving "All" to a file on my machine from the "Print" option. Is that what you mean by system printout?

Thanks man.

James

 

[jinxs]

O.k., what I would do is remove all the cards and insert them one at a time....there might be some corruption on a card and might not be that peticular card. unfortunally this is time consuming and disruptive. I have found some cool commands in monitor that will display everything that is maintance busy...show mbusy....maybe it will see something. You could try that as well. As for the printout the ALL is the whole system...I meant to do F2..system or something like that. That is all that you would've needed. As well, is the phone completely dead when you plug into the card or do you get talk battery? The powersurge could've just of damaged the cards. Is you system grounded to the ground screws on the powersupplies. Good luck.

 

[kerygma]

jinxs,

Thanks man. I have done the inserting a few times - each card individually in order last night - and no luck.

Is it possible this is CPU related? That is my guess at the moment. Also, how do I make a clean start. This old CPU card's battery is dead, so when it does lose power, it requires reprogramming (not a problem with WinSPM but a pain nonetheless). Is REALLY cleared each time, or is there some nascent bad programming that is residing in the system.

The System printout reads as follows (direct paste):

A SYSTEM INFORMATION

..... (skipping not relevant info here)

A Slot # 1: 008 MLX
A Slot # 2: 408
A Slot # 3: 408
A Slot # 4: 012
A Slot # 5: 408
A Slot # 6: 408 GS/LS
A Slot # 7: 408 GS/LS
A Slot # 8: 012
A Slot # 9: Not Used
A Slot # 10: Not Used
A Slot # 11: Not Used
A Slot # 12: Not Used
A Slot # 13: Not Used
A Slot # 14: Not Used
A Slot # 15: Not Used
A Slot # 16: Not Used
A Slot # 17: Not Used

Is this a sufficient board query? Seems like it thinks it is ok. I swapped boards around, and it updated the information correctly. And the cards in the suspect slots (4 and 5 in this list) are ok, because they worked fine in other slots, while other working cards failed to work in these slots. So weird.

When I plug into the slots, total deadness. Though, I do not know what "talk battery" is, I admit. I think our ground is pretty reliable, though the screws go stright into wood, not a grounding rod of some kind.

I also don't understand the monitor thing, being such a wet noob. Have to research that.

Thanks jinxs. Any thoughts are very welcome!

James

 

[jinxs]

Hey James, it probably is cpu related after all of that. OK to answer you first question..to default the system programming, you enter into [maintaince] [slot] type in [00] for the slot number [Demand Test], o.k., now on your screen you will see [peek] which is F1 in SPM, then Second button down F2 is for [Poke] which is not labeled. The Third button down F3 is for default erase, you push it twice, the system will prompt you, {About to perform full system erase, do you wish to continue} just press yes and you have a default system.

Monitor I am just getting involved with myself since I just found the passcode. You enter it through the main menu on SPM labeled [monitor]. Pretty much it is dump's data about the system. Some of it is cool where you can see real time the lights lit on certain phones, you can trace live button pressing for certain sids..aka station ID I'm assuming. You can do some damage, all though you could play around with it with the R2 you are replacing.
As for talk battery, well, talk battery is actually voltage across a t/r port 48v dc, where if you would blow into the handset, you could hear yourself, but I just use the term loosly to reference digital phones as well. If you would have "talk battery" in a ATL set, that would tell me the phone is getting power and the card isn't completely fried. Good luck with the new processor, let me know how it works out.

 

[bobsou]

had the same problem once & it turn out to be the carrier, the system would show the module but nothing on the card would work,

 

[kerygma]

Thanks guys. Learning more every day.

James

 

[kerygma]

Bob, I ordered a new backplane as well, in case that was the problem. New CPU and backplane should get it.