IBM 43p (7043-150) OS install help

[MindWalker]

Hi.

I bought an interesting re-branded IBM 43p; a "CreoScitex Brisque Impose":


The bottom sticker says "IBM Italia, Machine Type: 7043-150" so I believe it's simply an OEM thing with custom stickers slapped on to the case.

The machine came without a PSU or RAM, but since a helpful member here helped me I now have a working PSU and two 128MB RAM sticks.

The machine had quite a bit of corrosion on the chassis; around the rear connectors and the front next to the big chassis fan. The motherboard looks quite quite clean and since getting the PSU the machine does boot seemingly ok (althogh I've been getting RAM errors; removing one stick clears that so it's either a bad RAM stick or a contact issue on the second slot). For some reason the machine always starts by itself when I plug in the mains cable?

The machine came with two hard disks; an IBM 9,1GB and a Seagate 36GB. With the disks in, the machine attempts to boot into an AIX4 installation and eventually gets into a login prompt (just "AIX Version 4", copyright 1982, 1996) but seems to freeze there as I can't type anything. I am attempting to dump the disks (using a ZuluSCSI's initiator mode to dump the disk into an image file on the SD card) just in case there was anything special there (ie. something by CreoScitex if this were still the OEM installation) but I'd like to use the disks to install a fresh copy of AIX (which version would be recommended?).

I've been trying to at least boot the machine but I haven't had any luck so far. I've been using a PiSCSI and ZuluSCSI connected to the external SCSI connector with an adapter to 50-pin. This seems to work as the computer can see an emulated CD/hard drives I create from both emulators.

However I haven't been able to get any ISO image to boot at all: it's either:

• 20ee000c error (from the System Management Service / Install from... -menu, ie. it doesn't recognize it as bootable)
• it gets an AIX x.x.x as a boot option in the menu, but selecting that get's a neverending scrolling screen of "Unexpected Firmware Error: DEFAULT CATCH!, code=fff00300 at %SRR0: 00c18d30 %SRR1: 00002030"

I've tried various ISOs of AIX 4.1 to 5.1 but none has gone any further. The machine does have a working SCSI-CD-ROM drive so I could try burning a CD? There seems to be a network boot option as well, but I am not sure if can setup one to boot from...

 

[MindWalker]

Ok, I am making some progress here...

• The machine starting by itself when AC was connected was due to a missing jumper on the remote boot pins on the motherboard, fixed now.
• I was getting RAM errors but that was because I had it in wrong slots (the manual which covers 140, 150 and 240 models does say it, but I missed it the first time: the 150 needs to have the sticks installed from slot 4 downwards which I didn't expect..).
• I had issues with trying to use a ZuluSCSI to install from a virtual CD to a virtual hard drive but once I had a proper clean hard disk image I was able to run the AIX 4.3.2 install last night. Also had a failing SD card in the mix which I didn't realize at first.
• There is still something I don't understand about how the consoles work: when I booted the installer the VGA display comes up and shows a console, but at that point the PS/2 keyboard stops responding so I couldn't run the install from that. I was able to use a serial console to run the install but once the system was installed I saw just a list of services starting but never got a login prompt in either VGA out (just a grey screen with green underscore) or the serial console. I looked at my photos and I noticed that the VGA card might be in a wrong PCI slot at the moment. When I got the machine it was on slot 1 and during the cleaning I have put it into another slot. Perhaps this is significant? The adapter is a Matrox Mystique 220 and has an IBM part number so I was expecting that it would work?

Is the main chassis fan really supposed to run at full blast at all times? How could anyone use this as a workstation with that going on? The fan setup doesn't look all original; the fan is powered from a Molex cable (12V) and the RPM cable is split into two connectors on the main board (ie. there is no control of the fan so it does run at full speed all the time).

I tried to replace the fan with a smaller 12V fan but apparently the RPM reading wasn't high enough and the system won't boot with it (gives an error code).

 

[Juror22]

I suspect that you were able to locate the user and service guides through the links that were provided in the other topics, where you were assisted in fixing the PSU and RAM. Here is a different user guide that may provide some better insight into how to setup your console, since it covers a broad range of models.

 

[MindWalker]

I was just able to proceed with the install by trying another keyboard! For some reason the one I was using first worked fine in the System Management Service / boot but stopped working when AIX booted or the installation was started.

Now with another PS/2 keyboard I was able to get the installation going and I now have a basic AIX 5.1 install working. Network didn't work yet but I'll need to have another look. And for some reason I am now back to only 128MB of RAM, still might have a contact issue that manifested after I rummaged around the fan assembly just next to the RAM slots.

 

[MindWalker]

The installation on ZuluSCSI's virtual hard drive did work but as it wasn't quite fast enough, it was a bit sluggish to use. However I was able to use that to mount the old volume group in the bigger of the two original hard disk drive to pull out some files. The printing background was indeed present as there were several printjobs, both .PS and .PDF present and indicating that the machine was still used as late in 2014-2015!

Being happy to have gotten the files out, I was ready to wipe the drive as I really wanted to use it as the new system drive to do a clean AIX 5.1 installation (still the only version of which ISOs I've been able to get booted). The original 9GB drive might still have some secrets that I want to look at, and it was anyway the much louder drive so I was happy to go with the bigger and more silent drive.

Using the ZuluSCSI as a CD-ROM drive (with it's ISO-swap with a button enabled) I was able to do a clean install of AIX 5.1. It went thru and booted much faster (being a much faster, albeit spinning drive, this time) and it felt much more usable. I did crack getting networking going as well (the setup wizard shows two interfaces, en0 and et0 and I had mixed up those) so now I have a working system! I mainly have the base install and Netscape navigator, still need to figure out how to install KDE and GNOME (selectable during install, but I wanted to start with the basic CDE) and play with those as well!

The "Web-based System Manager" is quite something. It did help me to mount both the old drive volume, and the CD-ROM drives, so really quite useful as I surely couldn't have figured out how to do that from the command line!

Now to find some software to run...

 

[Juror22]

That is terrific - thanks for posting the results and what you did to get there. I love the CDE graphics and remember them fondly from a lot of time spent on HP-UX workstations. Once I started supporting AIX and Linux servers I almost never saw the GUI anymore, so enjoy it!

 

[MindWalker]

Thanks! This has been perhaps the most demanding build I've done so far... the case needed (and still needs) work, there was a bad SD card, plenty of non-working disk images, a keyboard that prevented me from installing, and quite a bit of learning curve on installing AIX and configuring network... But at least it's now bootable and somewhat presentable!

Regarding the KDE/Gnome installs; it appears that those are not on the five install discs that I've been playing so far. I read about the "AIX Toolbox for Linux applications" disc that apparently should have it, but there are several different versions of the same disc, and at least one I tried didn't work as the file "koffice" was missing. Do I need a specific version for my AIX 5.1 install or how does that work?

 

[legodude]

I've not gotten as far as you in looking at the Toolbox, but I did recently notice a couple available versions in my digging around:

OS Archive : /os/aix/Software/Toolbox

osarchive.org

index - powered by h5ai v0.29.2 (https://larsjung.de/h5ai/)

index - powered by h5ai v0.29.2 (https://larsjung.de/h5ai/)

fsck.technology

I have 5.1 running on the same machine (but black) so I will be embarking on similar adventures at some point in time. Although I do need to figure out a solution for my missing heatsink.

mike