We have suddenly begun to experience a rash of System Failures on our
HP-3000 Series 70.  We could use your suggestions on troubleshooting the
problem as we're no longer on software support.  (The box has been
stable on Platform 2P for ages (last COLDLOAD tape was created
11/95!)).  We have had the following failures:
 
Wednesday 9/11
    SF 19  @09:56
    SF 625 @14:15
    SF 310 @17:30
Thursday 9/12
    SF 617 @12:25
Friday 9/13
    SF 617 @08:47
Sunday 9/14
    SF 19  @17:50
Monday 9/15
    SF 310 @03:20
 
We have run FLD's with no hardware errors identified.  We did a
COLDSTART of the system on Thursday(?) after the failure.
 
The SF19 is not documented in my manuals.  Any thoughts?
 
I can't seem to search HP SupportLine's Web site for information about
similar problems (the server reports service not available).
 
The only thing we can think of that might be aggravating this situation
is that we've begun to move more and more folks away from direct
connections and are using VT-MGR sessions more heavily.  That still does
not explain the suddenness of the problem.  BTW, we've installed no new
software or hardware recently that I'm aware of.
 
I have analyzed the dumps from a couple of the failures.  The latest
SF#19 seems to point to a problem with networking (Stack marker trace of
the failing process shows ININ, IOVTERM0, IOVTERM0, HARDRES(SYSIOPROC?),
HARDRES(P'ATTACHIO), HARDRES(ATTACHIO), FILESYS1A(EXFUNBREAK),
MORGUE'ABORT(EXPIRE), and MORGUE'ABORT(TERMINATE')).  This session was
"lost" by the user earlier in the day (circa 15:30) and the operator had
made several efforts to abort the session w/o success.
 
We do have Platform 3P available and could install it. We held off
because we didn't want to destabilize the machine and really couldn't
afford to spend the time to do the upgrade properly.  Should we consider
installing that to assist with solving our problems?
 
Your comments/suggestions greatly appreciated.
--
Glenn A. Mitchell               mailto:[log in to unmask]
Director, Computer Technology   http://www.mmc.org
Maine Medical Center
Portland, ME  04101