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IBM Powerstation 220

D

dabone

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
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Chattanooga, TN - USA
I just acquired a IBM Powerstation 220 with a 6091 19 Monitor last night, and I have no clue about this thing. I haven't even powered it up yet.

I'm guessing it's rare, since I'm not finding much on google about this thing.

I'm looking for a disassembly guide or service manual, since I don't want to break anything tearing it apart to clean it.

I think this came from a former IBM employee, since I got other things in the lot that include a RS6000 Presentation script with a ton of sales slides. and other older IBM equipment including a monitor with a Property of IBM badge.
 
I always liked AIX. The menu driven admin system was very good.

Never had to port anything to it, however, but I was able to bumble through configuring drives and installing DB software with zip documentation.
 
whartung said:
I always liked AIX. The menu driven admin system was very good.

Never had to port anything to it, however, but I was able to bumble through configuring drives and installing DB software with zip documentation.
Click to expand...

smit is certainly one of the better corporate Unix interfaces, and when I switched servers from AIX 4 to AIX 6 I loved the fact that all of my (604-era!) binaries still ran. Migration was a snap.

That said, and speaking as someone with long AIX experience going back to version 3, I'm probably running my last personal production AIX system (the POWER6 that hosts Floodgap) because IBM really doesn't want AIX run by anyone other than institutional customers anymore and it's too much of a pig to port things to. The handwriting was on the wall anyway when AIX 6 just about eliminated any possibility of using the OS as a workstation and the Capacity-on-Demand nonsense with this Power 520 really annoyed me when I had to recover from a blown planar. Plus, having to have a whole second system around (the HMC) for managing LPARs is just bulls**t. My next front-line server will still be POWER/OpenPOWER (probably POWER9 or POWER10 if Raptor can figure out the secret sauce with OMI), but it will be BSD.

Getting back on topic, we had a system very similar to the OP's back in the day (in fact, it *might* have been a 220, but definitely that form factor) which was a workstation and ran AIX 3.2.5. Not too performant, but did what it needed to do. Its name was rover.
 
Ok, got it slightly cleaned up and turned on.. Good lord that monitor is a pain.
The hard drive has failed and when it's disconnected, it tries floppy, then ethernet boot.
I'm guessing boot media for these things are unavailable? Can it read a 1.44? I thought I saw somewhere it takes a 2.88 floppy.
 
If I recall correctly from decades ago, BOS is something like "base OS". You might start with 5750-ACG_BOS_01.img to see if that one is bootable.
 
dabone said:
I just acquired a IBM Powerstation 220 with a 6091 19 Monitor last night, and I have no clue about this thing. I haven't even powered it up yet.

I'm guessing it's rare, since I'm not finding much on google about this thing.

I'm looking for a disassembly guide or service manual, since I don't want to break anything tearing it apart to clean it.

I think this came from a former IBM employee, since I got other things in the lot that include a RS6000 Presentation script with a ton of sales slides. and other older IBM equipment including a monitor with a Property of IBM badge.
Click to expand...

7011-220 RS/6000 PDFs are here:
http://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/manuals/
 
Hi - I think it has integral SCSI - you would probably find it easier to use the 3.2.5 install CDs, even though it means sorting the correct cables... You can use a non-IBM SCSI CD-ROM and Disk drive, was the faulty disk SCSI ? The IBM SCSI drives were notoriously unreliable - especially the 320MB, 400MB and 1GB 3.5" drives... They used to make a sound like a ball bearing rattling inside a tin can as they lost the servo data and kept hitting the end stop...
 
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Disk 01.iso from fsck.technology/software/IBM/AIX%20Install%20Media/RS6000/IBM%20AIX%203.2.5/ doesn't boot (I've tried with few scsi cdroms (including apple cd300, ultraplex, toshiba). In the other hand there are floppies at fsck.technology/software/IBM/AIX%20Install%20Media/RS6000/IBM%20AIX%203.2.0/Floppy%20Images/ however I have no idea which one is to boot. I have some 4 floppies from one guy that allow me to select install/maintanance mode, however when I tried installing from 3.2.0 floppies, I had errors during the process.

edit: I think the hard disk is OK, because I was able to read it entirely using another computer.
 
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Did you try booting with the key in both Normal and Service positions? - Also correct SCSI termination is critical on the RS/6000 systems - the service guide here: http://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/manuals/7011_Service_Guide.PDF will take you through the step by step diagnostics, be VERY careful to observe antistatic precautions if removing any modules...

The 3 digit display is a good indication of what is going on during the boot sequence - and where it is stopping - see: http://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/txt/rs6000_led_errorcodes.txt
 
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I tried both normal mode and service mode. Few of the codes are:

233/223/253 - SCSI devices selected for ipl
299 - IPL ROS has completed loading and has passed control to passed control to the loaded code
555 - Unable to create NFS swap device during network boot./ODM error when trying to varyon rootvg

it always ends with 555.
 
drg said:
I tried both normal mode and service mode. Few of the codes are:

233/223/253 - SCSI devices selected for ipl
299 - IPL ROS has completed loading and has passed control to passed control to the loaded code
555 - Unable to create NFS swap device during network boot./ODM error when trying to varyon rootvg

it always ends with 555.
Click to expand...
Hi, that is actually a pretty good sign, in a way - it's passing all its built in tests and actually trying to boot from the disk - which is failing - the startup diags (BIST and POST) are very comprehensive... So - the disk is either corrupt, or it is looking for maybe an external drive that you do not have, so the way forward is to get it booting from the installation media - and I would suggest looking at the CD-Rom option rather than floppy...

I would check the disk is SCSI ID 0 and set the CD-ROM to ID 6 and double check you have termination on the physical ends of the cable - either enabled on the drives or actual termination blocks as IBM used.

Keep the key in service mode until the system says to turn to normal mode during installation.

These systems take a while to startup and to boot, so be patient! You will get to know what the 3 digit codes mean.

Check out chapter 2 here: https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/rs6000/aix_3.2/SC23-2341-5_AIX_3.2_RS6000_Installation_Guide_Jun92.pdf
 
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Thanks for help. I changed scsi id of cdrom to 6 and ensure hd is at 0. Unfortunately, cdrom still doesn't boot, however I can hear when cd is starting to read. I also tried to install with floppies, however I had few errors and on 5 disk it stopped because of lack of file.

Without hard disk connected it tries to boot from ethernet.

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Just a thought, how old are the CD Rom drives you are using? - Can you read the CD on those drives on a different system? Not all CD-Rom drives could read recordable CDs, if it is an age-appropriate drive... might be worth trying different types of recordable disk since it seems to be trying and failing...

I think getting the CD working is a much better bet than trying to install from SO many floppy disks - and a LOT less tedious...
 
Small success! I was able to boot AIX 3.2.5 from Ultraplex cdrom, when I connected it instead of hard disk. When I replace single scsi cable to cable with multiple ends and connect both hard disk and cdrom, it hangs with 223 (SCSI devices selected for ipl).
 
drg said:
Small success! I was able to boot AIX 3.2.5 from Ultraplex cdrom, when I connected it instead of hard disk. When I replace single scsi cable to cable with multiple ends and connect both hard disk and cdrom, it hangs with 223 (SCSI devices selected for ipl).
Click to expand...
Ah-Ha! - Sounds like a SCSI termination problem... your SCSI bus needs to be one linear bus with only 2 ends - to "T" pieces and termination at the very end of the cables...

Check for terminator power links if you are using terminators on the devices as well...
 
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