GE VR11, Reference Manual

Page: 40 / 118

Status indicator, Postcode and Beeps
The VR11 family has a triple color LED at the front panel for a quick status
indicator usage. The possible colors are red, orange or green and the LED can
blink in different frequencies or be on continuously.
While running its BIOS initialization all boards of the VR11 family write
postcodes (POST = Power On Self Test) to port 80h at the PCI bus 0 (at
PMC2). These accesses can be monitored with appropriate equipment or a
PMC post card.
•
Currently some more debug support is integrated on the VR11 family,
which beeps the postcode if the POST stops before the CRT is initialized.
The beeps are long for a ‘1’ and short for a ‘0’. They start with the highest
bit 7 and beep 8 represents the lowest bit 0. After some seconds the beep
sequence is repeated for an easier recognition. If the beep code is not
repeated, then this beeps are issued within the BIOS execution to show
some other failures (i.e. fails in memory detection or if no VGA is
detected). For more information please check the AMIBIOS8 Check Point
and Beep Code List as well as the AMIBIOS8 Error Messages.
Booting
When switching-on the VR11 following steps are done by hardware:
-
On the VR11 family, all voltages at the backplane are monitored until they
reach a first trip point which is 2.5 V at the 5 V/3.3 V. After this the
onboard voltages are raised up in a controlled manner to the externally
supplied value.
- The continuous red Status LED shows that all circuitry is in reset.
- All onboard DC/DC converters are ramped up.
- When all onboard supply voltages are at their correct values, the
'powergood' status is signaled to all onboard devices and the red LED is
switched off.
- Especially when the battery is removed, this can take a few seconds to start
the 32 kHz Oscillator.
- After this the CPU start reading it first instructions from BIOS. Very soon
the red LED is programmed to a red blinking state and the first postcode is
issued.
- If the CPU does not start correctly, the red LED keeps off until the
hardware watchdog will issue a further reset 1.6 seconds later. You can see
this at the red LED, which is on again for a short moment. This sequence
repeats until the CPU starts correctly.
For reference the complete BIOS boot sequence is shown with the current
BIOS version. The times depend mainly on the memory size and they are
measured with 1 GB and quick boot enabled. All postcodes are shown in hex.
GE Intelligent Platforms – VR11, VP11 Hardware Reference Manual, Second Edition Page 40