We replaced the battery on the processor card in our DEC Alpha DMCC 4/266. It does not seem to run the POST now. (do not see the eb….ea.e9.e8.e7.e6.e5.e4 on the screen.) And at the >>> prompt we can not get it to boot up. It says “jumping to bootstrap code”, but then hangs up. Apparently some motherboard settings get erased when the battery is removed. Where can we find the procedure to get an Alpha computer running again after the battery is replaced?
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With help from Teradyne, we figured this out.
The problem was that the configuration of the backplane ISA slots gets erased when the battery is removed.
In our case, there are two IEEE-488 boards in the ISA slots.
The software tries to talk to these during the boot up, and hangs when they don’t answer. (generating the cryptic BUGCHECK error)
The solution for how to fix this is given in an old (2001) Teradyne Product Support Bulletin: PSB #559-500-08.
Word to the wise: If you are considering replacing the 15+ year-old battery in your DEC Alpha computer, before you do you should type the following two commands at the >>> prompt:
>>>SHO *
>>>SHO CONFIG
Write down all the setting from these two commands before you replace the battery.
Then with the new battery installed, update all the SHO * settings using SET commands, and update the SHO CONFIG settings using the ISACFG command.
Do an internet search to find out about the ISACFG command.