Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Some disquieting signs with the x235 server

 RAN DIAGNOSTICS AND EXAMINED HARDWARE LOGS

First thing I noticed when I powered up was a 'Bad CMOS Battery' error, but I had just replaced the battery with a new one. That may hint at motherboard damage from the fall that is manifesting in failure to deliver the backup battery power to the CMOS memory holding configuration parameters. 

I then accessed the hardware based log that holds messages issued during POST by the BIOS. Most of them are driven by the failed CMOS battery backup problem, but I also have a message 110 listed that is not in any of the IBM manuals I can access. That may be further problems based on the battery issue or may be an important sign of a different issue.

Running diagnostics on the ServerRaid card in slot 4 gave me several errors and it flagged the board as 'Failed' testing. Not sure what this is about but have to look closer. I did verify that all the sectors of my raid set disk are good, which is a relief in itself.

I may buy a replacement motherboard. I see them on eBay ranging for $23 to $150 which is worth a gamble that it resolves issues. I would have to swap the CPUs and DIMMs over but this might be the fast path to resolution. On the other hand, if any of the software is licensed by some value that is specific to each board, then it might not be worth the risk. 

OS/2 is the eComStation version that is sold and maintained by a third party - that was the splash screen I saw when I tried to boot up. If either eComStation or the P390 code is sensitive to serial numbers such as the onboard ethernet MAC address, I would be at an impasse on the board swap idea. 

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