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Home / I-Opener Areas / I-Opener Technical Stuff IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups OS startup locks or reboots the hardware

IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Yes, I looked all over this BBS and found nothing useful on this topic. I have an IOpener 2001 w/ the 5.0.0 BIOS from Badflash, a Pentium 200 MMX, 128MB SODIMM, and a 20GB IBM Travelmate drive containing Windows 2000, Progeny Linux, and FreeBSD 4.3. The OSes were installed on a Thinkpad 600E and were all tested extensively before installing the drive in the IO2001. When I go to boot any of the OSes (they're bootable from within FreeBSD's loader), I get a few lines of pre-boot stuff and then the IOpener either reboots or locks. In other words, Windows 2000 gets to the end of the character mode dotted bar indicator then reboots the machine; Linux gets to "Uncompressing kernel" and reboots; FreeBSD gets past the "hit enter to boot" and sits with the first character of the spinning bar, locking the system. I've set the CPU voltage to everything from 2.0 to 2.8 (the CPU is supposed to be at 2.8; others in this BBS have set theirs to 2.6 to fix erratic IOpener operation). None improves the situation. I've tried both the Rise 266 and Pentium 200 MMX processors. Both have problems. I've taken the 6.5GB drive out of my other (v3, I think) IOpener which I KNOW works and plugged it in. The OSes on that drive won't boot either, ending in a reboot. I've swapped the new 128MB SODIMM for the original that came with the IOpener. Nope. I've done everything except try another BIOS. So... Does anyone know if this could be a BIOS issue? Badflash does great work, but even the best of companies has a faulty chip or an accidental static zap every now and then. I see so many people here with success stories re: IOpener 2001s that I can't help but think that something new is causing this. The system booted fine with the original BIOS, but it booted to the IOpener built in stuff. Having swapped out everything that's new on this EXCEPT for the new 5.0.0 BIOS, I'm sort of suspicious. I don't want to bother Badflash if there's another alternative. If anyone knows of any, I'm all ears. If nothing comes up, I'll call Badflash and beg for another BIOS, or at least to have the one I'm using checked out. 06-06-2001 00:10:49

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile There are two things that may fix your problem....reseat the ram chip, clean the contacts on the chip and the socket, on one chip I had to clean the contacts with 800 grain sand-paper. The second thing and the most likely is the contacts on the BIOS chip...clean them well, try reseating the chip without pushing it all the way in, scrape the chip contacts with a small,sharp screw-driver, try tweaking the legs of the chip out slightly (be careful here). On the Badflash website, he talks about this very problem. Many different people have had your problem, or a variant of it. It depends on which chip leg isn't making contact. Good luck...P.S. DON'T USE A METER ON THE BIOS CHIP. 06-06-2001 03:28:11

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) laserfan Profile A clean pencil (or better, ink) eraser has worked well for me in the past in re: cleaning contacts. 06-06-2001 04:48:18

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile ckbone - I thought about the BIOS contact thing and will probably try it out just so I can say I've done it, but I'm pretty sure the people with contact issues are the ones that dug their BIOS chips out from under glue. The IO2001s don't have any glue, so I used a normal PLCC puller to get the BIOS out. Everything seemed to go well when I did that. I'll clean off the contacts, try to plug in the chip part way, etc. and see if that helps. Thanks for the response! 06-06-2001 06:11:12

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Okay, here's an update... I removed the BIOS, gently scratched the contacts on the chip and inside the socket with a small screwdriver (VERY gently), then re-seated the BIOS without fully pushing it in (it's solidly in the socket, though). With the Rise processor and the 128MB SODIMM and 20GB HD, I can boot Progeny Linux (Debian) but nothing else. It even sees the Sandisk (I've tried it with and without the Sandisk activated). Both Windows 2000 and FreeBSD 4.3 still don't boot. Windows still reboots right at the end of the dotted status bar thing and FreeBSD still sits at "Booting \" with no spinny thing. If I put the Pentium 200 in, I can't even boot Progeny (endless reboot loop). This is with various SW4 switch configurations. I tried this with both of the P200s that I bought (planning on a Pentium-less future, I got two). Nothing seems to work with the Pentium 200s regardless of the voltage set with SW4. So, unless there's something really odd going on, I'm guessing that the BIOS is okay and that what I'm seeing are OS issues. Perhaps FreeBSD doesn't like some other kind of hardware in my system. Ditto for Windows. Or, I'm up in the night and it just so happens that Progeny doesn't tap into that one screwy BIOS contact that's giving the other OSes fits. In other words, I'm still open to suggestions. I'd rather not run just Progeny (I'm a FreeBSD guy myself). 06-06-2001 06:53:57

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile I had a similar problem when my k6III+ chips started any program that executes the hlt instruction. I don't know if either of the os' you mentioned make use of it, but you could try looking there.. what worked for me was increasing the voltage a bit. try going into the bios and loading the default options to see if that helps. try turning off the quick post. 06-06-2001 07:03:36

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Programmer - I'd try increasing the voltage, but I'm already operating at 2.6v-2.8v which seems to be as high as it goes, at least for the processor. Is there some other voltage that you're refering to? If there is, I'm willing to try anything. (I have already set the BIOS back to defaults but it didn't change anything. Good thought, though. I'll have to double check the quick POST setting. I'm pretty sure I've enabled the parity checking and other things that make the POST more detailed. I don't recall any specific quick POST option in the Award BIOS setup, though.) 06-06-2001 08:14:17

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile I found a few links that may be of use in solving the FreeBSD "lockup" issue (I'm putting them here to keep as much info in one thread as possible). One goes into how hitting TAB when the initial graphic screen pops up will enable FreeBSD to be seen. With the new V5 BIOS, there is no screen to TAB from, but it seems someone with a V4 I-Opener had success flashing _back_ to an old BIOS version so he could get a graphic screen to TAB away from. VERY weird... The second link goes into a FreeBSD kernel hack that eliminates the need for any of the TAB stuff. When my system stops at FreeBSD's "Booting \" step (the "\" being the state of the spinny bar thing when everything on the screen stops moving), I can occasionally hear the hard drive being accessed. I can't reboot, but it does seem that the drive is still moving, so it's possible there's a console issue here as described in the first link. I'll probably try compiling a new kernel on my drive with the new C code and see if that changes things. It'll be my new midnight project, I guess... http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=technical&Post=1197&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session=ratster.99184521640427 http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=technical&Post=1406&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session=ratster.99184521640427 06-06-2001 09:57:06

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile Even though you don't see a picture, the IO is still in graphic mode. To take care of it, download http://bethie.net/~programmer/BI4.com change the name to bi4.bin, and cbrom it into your bios with cbrom <biosfile> /pci 8000:0 bi4.bin then flash the new bios to your system, and the graphics mode will be set to mode3 (color 80 column) just before boot. (it will also set the settings to fix USB and change your memory interleave to 4) 06-06-2001 10:23:45

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Programmer - Good plan... I'll have to locate a new BIOS image from somewhere (I don't have one yet; I just have the Badflash V5 BIOS, pre-made), but I did get the .bin file from bethie.net and I found an old link to CBROM130.EXE, so I'm part of the way there. It seems like there should be an easier way (I got the impression that the V5 BIOS was the I-Opener Holy Grail, eliminating most of the hacky BIOS issues), but I'll try anything once... 06-06-2001 10:45:22

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile The v5 bios gives us an easy way to get the v5 running with a HD and sound.. At the time it kindof was the holy grail, because it doesn't infringe on any copyrights.. :) and it lets you use the audio in the v5.. There are still modifications to be made, some things that were never bios issues to begin with, and others that are just annoyances. you can get a bios image from your bios with awdflash. 06-07-2001 06:26:34

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Programmer - Yep, I can see the benefit of having this new BIOS for sure. I'm now thinking that the issues I'm running into booting Windows 2000 and FreeBSD are OS issues. I'm in the process of patching boot2 on the FreeBSD partition so it won't gag on the graphic Award opening screen, and I may just take Windows 2000 off of the system. Progeny (Debian) Linux is the only OS so far that boots fine without modification. Of course, what still baffles the hell out of me is why so many people here dropped in Pentium 200s that work fine, yet I can't boot anything at all (even Linux) with a Pentium 200. Only the Rise 266 CPU will allow anything to boot. I've been looking around for more info on other voltage adjustments in this IOpener, but it's a slow process and I'm not really up to speed with electronics like I should be. Grrrr... I got this thing free so it's no big deal if it turns out to be less than what I'd want it to be (the Rise processor really does work okay in a pinch). It just seems that if other people can drop in P200s, so should I. Maybe this is a broken IOpener. Maybe NP changed the hardware. Maybe this is all one big bad dream. :) I'll keep looking. 06-07-2001 06:41:53

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile do you have an extra power supply? you might try switching that out.. if the system draws more power than the supply can deal with all of a sudden it can cause the system to powercycle.. You can tell whether it thinks it is a cold boot as it will not rerun the memory test on a warm boot. 06-07-2001 12:33:03

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Programmer - Nope, no other power supplies. I'm pretty sure the auto-reboot is a cold reboot (I seem to recall that the memory is reported every time the system comes back up), but I'm not sure about that. Right now, the hard drive is connected via a converter to a spare PC of mine so I can debug why the Netgear USB ethernet adapter isn't working with Progeny, and so that I can recompile the FreeBSD kernel w/ the boot2 patch. I'll try playing with it again this weekend, I'm sure. Is there an easy way to use an external power supply from Radio Shack or some other accessible electronics store and somehow use that instead of the built in power supply? Remember, I'm not an electrician and my experience with twiddlin' soldered on parts is limited, but I'm willing to try just about anything. I'm doing this for fun, after all. :) 06-07-2001 20:24:50

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile do a search on the BBS for power supply.. (I can't think of anywhere off the top of my head) there should be some good lead.. maybe BadFlash has one.. 06-08-2001 07:07:17

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Got it. Found a source that was listed just a week or two ago (compugeeks.com, I believe). The extra juice may be just the thing I need to make this thing work. 06-08-2001 20:40:40

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Extra juice didn't do jack... I have the new power brick attached to my IOpener 2001, and all OSes still cold reboot the machine if a Pentium 200 MMX is used. Also, Windows 2000 still cold reboots even if the Rise processor is used. In fact, the new power brick hasn't made any difference at all. So, I guess I can rule out power as a culprit, at least as far as power bricks go. The mystery continues... 06-16-2001 22:12:09

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile hmmmm.. This is sounding somewhat peculiar.. let me verify.. 1) IO is still configured for 3x66Mhz 2) IO ALWAYS hangs/reboots at the same spots 3) IO is a V5 (already configured to split pane voltage) 4) you haven't done any soldering? If all of the above is correct then I'm stumped.. .. except maybe that when they were installed on the pentium II they configured something(a driver) that is preventing them from booting properly on an older cpu... try dumping the win2k install disk onto a partition and installing it from the IO.. 06-18-2001 06:29:50

RE:IOpener 2001 and unexpected reboots/lockups (modified 0 times) ratster Profile Programmer - I guess you and I are both stumped, then... :) No soldering has occurred, nope. And as for this being a v5, I'm starting to doubt that. The I-Opener 2001 seems to have something funky about it that renders v5 "hacks" to be only occasionally successful. At this point, I have to suspect that either (a) I have a lemon [albeit one that runs Progeny Linux flawlessly], or (b) Netpliance dinked with the IO2001s in such a way that older processors -- at least the P200MMX -- would not work. No biggie... I've decided for now to put my office back together again, so I installed Progeny over the entire hard drive, re-assembled the IO2001, and decided to just be happy with that for now. At some point I would like to try installing W2K from the Sandisk (I've been working on a bootable Sandisk image built from FreeDOS, but I haven't picked it up and played with it for a week or so). I'll leave that for Winter, probably, unless some other enterprising individual decides to give it a whirl and gives me new hope. For what it's worth, plugging my W2K drive into my v2/v3/whatever I-Opener didn't work either (cold reboots right after the boot progress indicator hits the right side of the screen). In the interim, I've re-installed Windows98 and Progeny on my older I-Opener and will use that as my Windows/Linux box. It actually works quite well. I'll let the IO2001 sit on the shelf for a while. Maybe it'll learn its lesson... :) (By the way, thanks for sticking with this woeful thread for as long as you have!) 06-19-2001 09:52:48

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