Sun Microsystems Cobalt LX50, User Manual

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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting the Server
6-12 User Guide—Sun Cobalt LX50 Server
BIOS Recovery Beep Codes
In rare cases, when the system BIOS has been corrupted, a BIOS recovery process must be followed to restore system
operability. During recovery mode, the video controller will not be initialized. One high-pitched beep announces the
start of the recovery process. The entire process takes two to four minutes. A successful update ends with two high
pitched beeps. In the event of a failure, two short beeps are generated and a flash code sequence of 0E9h, 0EAh,
0EBh, 0ECh, and 0EFh appears at the Port 80 diagnostic LEDs.
POST LED Indicators
To help diagnose POST failures, a set of four bi-color diagnostic LEDs is located on the back edge of the server Main
Board. Each of the four LEDs can have one of four states: Off, Green, Red, or Amber.
The LED diagnostics feature consists of a hardware decoder and four dual color LEDs. During POST, the LEDs
display all normal Port80 codes representing the progress of the BIOS POST. Each postcode is represented by a
combination of colors from the four LEDs. The LEDs are in pairs of green and red. The post codes are broken into
two nibbles, an upper and a lower nibble. Each bit in the upper nibble is represented by a red LED and each bit in the
lower nibble is represented by a green LED. If both bits are set in the upper and lower nibble then both red and green
LEDs are lit, resulting in an amber color. Likewise, if both bits are clear then the red and green LEDs are off.
During the POST process, each light sequence represents a specific Port-80 POST code. If a system should hang
during POST, the Diagnostic LEDs present the last test executed before the hang. When reading the LEDs, the LEDs
should be observed from the back of the system. The most significant bit (MSB) is the first LED on the left, and the
least significant bit (LSB) is the last LED on the right.
Table 17. BIOS Recovery Beep Codes
Beep Code
Error
Message
Port 80h LED Indicators Description
1 Recovery
started Start recovery process.
2 Recovery
boot error
Flashing series of post codes:
E9h, EAh, EBh, ECh, EFh Unable to boot to floppy, ATAPI, or ATAPI CDROM.
Recovery process will retry.
Series of long
low-pitched
single beeps Recovery
failed EEh Unable to process valid BIOS recovery images. BIOS
already passed control to OS and flash utility.
Two long high
pitched beeps Recovery
complete EEh BIOS recovery succeeded, ready for powerdown,
reboot.
✍
Note: When comparing a diagnostic LED color string from the server Main Board to those
listed in the diagnostic LED decoder in the following tables, the LEDs on the Main Board
should be referenced when viewed by looking into the system from the back. Reading the
LEDs from left to right, the most-significant bit is located on the left.
Table 18. POST LEDs Code Table (Port 80h Codes)
POST
Code
Diagnostic LED Decoder
(G = green, R = red, A = amber)
Description
MSB LSB
07h Off G G G Uncompress various BIOS modules.
08h G Off Off Off Verify password checksum.