Any IBM Power / AIX fans out there?

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:06:14 -0700 (PDT) "Jeff Davis" 
<jdaviscl2 at soupwizard.com> wrote:
> Hi, I just acquired a few IBM POWERstation 370 in unknown condition.
> I can probably make a couple good units out of the 4 I have - they
> have disks, memory, etc, were decommissioned from a university
> environment.
>
> I also have a diagnostics set of a cdrom labeled "POWERstation /
> POWERserver Diagnostics v4.1.5" and a floppy labeled "POWERstation /
> POWERserver High Capacity (2M byte) Diagnostics Test Diskette", and
> an external plextor cdrom to use to install software.
>
> Right now, since I don't have an AIX 4.3.3 (last supported) install
> cdrom set, I just want to get a machine powered up and tested.

Actually, you can run AIX version 5.1 on ANY RS/6000 that was released 
before that version of AIX was released.  I've run 5.1 on a 370, and it 
wasn't 'horrible' by any means, but it wasn't terribly 'snappy' either.

Also, AIX install CDs are easily obtainable via eBay.

> I don't have a 13W3 monitor, nor keyboard or mouse (which I think are
> non-standard).

You can either use a serial console, or just watch the LED display as it 
boots.  If it eventually (after 10-15 minutes) ends up with a blank LCD, 
everything probably works just fine.  If there's some numbers that stay 
on it for > a minute or so, there *might* be a problem.  If you don't 
have a network connected to the machine, it may stall (progress slowly) 
during some of the network configuration (codes in the 500s).

IBM has a guide of what LED #s mean as a chapter in their MCA diagnostics 
manual:
http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/en_US/infocenter/base/hardware_docs/pdf/a4af5bas.pdf

Pat
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