Alpha Diagnostic Environment LED codes and Beep codes


Contents


Introduction

This document contains a brief summary of error information transmitted by Alpha Diagnostics.

Different motherboards feature different means of informing the user of error conditions.


Alpha Diagnostics Beep Codes

Beep codes are helpful for when the machine has no other means of output, for example a machine failing Power-On-Self-Test (POST) in the middle of a headless cluster.

The following sounds may be emitted by Alpha Diagnostics in error situations:

dot dot dot
Machine check. Either a hardware ECC error has occurred and been detected by the processor, or the motherboard system controller (often referred to as the southbridge has detected an error and generated a Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI).

dash dot
VGA Warning. There was an attempt to initialise a VGA device which failed.

dot
Console Warning. No console is available, or an attempt to start a new console routing has failed. Sometimes these beep codes are generated if there is no default console set (using the tty_dev environment variable) and Alpha Diagnostics is looking for likely possible console routings.

dot dot
Software Error. A software error has occurred. Often this means a bug in Alpha Diagnostics but it is also possible that the machine is confusing the software in mysterious ways.

dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot (SOS)
Halt Button Asserted. On the CH320 chassis, there is a toggle-switched halt button next to the reset button. If this switch is on then SRM console will not start. Alpha Diagnostics checks for the halt button state and notifies the user if it is asserted.

dash dash dot dot
Irregular System Timer. The system periodic timer interrupt is measured against the processor cycle frequency to check for irregular, fast or slow rates. If the system periodic timer is not accurate then this may lead to drifting system time measurements while running the operating system.

dash dot dot
Jumper Setting Mismatch. The motherboard jumpers are configured in an invalid combination which may lead to undefined consequences or system failure.

dot dot dot dot
Processor Frequency Miscalculation. The CPU clock speed is passed to Alpha Diagnostics from the reset PALcode (SROM). This value is cross-referenced with the motherboard configuration jumpers. If they are not matched then an alert is raised. This error condition may be related to a jumper setting mismatch or an irregular system timer.

dash dot
Reboot Timeout. On reboot of an embedded operating system kernel, the primary processor waits for all other processors to "call-in" before signalling the reboot. If the number of processors that calls in does not match the number of processors participating in the original boot, this error condition is signalled.

dash dot dash dot
Reboot Failure. On reboot of an embedded operating system kernel, if Alpha Diagnostics is unable to reload the kernel or PALcode for restarting the OS, this error condition is signalled. It may mean that the firmware has become corrupted.

dot dash dot dash
System Health Alert. All API motherboards are designed with integrated system health monitors. These devices include temperature, voltage and fan speed sensors. If a system health monitor is found to be operating outside its designated safe range then this alert is raised.

dot dash
Non-volatile log corruption. Diags has found that the ROM region used to store system log messages has been corrupted, and is not in a workable state. An attempt will be made to "roll over" the log and start again.