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PLA-Support>Sun Systems>SPARC>Enterprise>SN-SPARC: Exx00
 
_Old GCS Categories>Sun Microsystems>Servers>Midrange Servers
 
_Old GCS Categories>Sun Microsystems>Servers>Midrange V and Netra Servers
 

Applies to:

Goal

Oracle Confidential (INTERNAL). Do not distribute to customers
Reason: Internal Only documentation and procedures

Description

This document describes how to perform visual inspection of board sockets and Centerplane pins to verify physical damage.

Inspecting for bent pins or socket damage involved the removal and close examination of System Board's (SB), I/O Boards (IB), or even Repeaters (RPs) on Sun Fire[TM] Midrange Servers.  For this reason, only Oracle badged service personnel should investigate a potential bent pin or socket issue in the field - NOT the customer. 

This document provides general advice in how to perform the visual inspection and provides photos of actual pin and socket damage that has been encountered in the field.  Use this as a reference as it will help show what to look for as trying to determine if a pin is bent or a socket is damaged.

Please raise a SR to Oracle Support in order to have Oracle badged personnel to go through the needed steps.

Basic Pin and Socket Information

• Pins are located on the Centerplane (CP) on Sun Fire[TM] Midrange Servers.
• Pins are tightly organized in rows and columns.
• Pins can become bent if they are even slightly misalligned and then a board is inserted into the slot.
• It is difficult to impossible to see these pins simply by looking into a single empty board slot.

• Sockets are located on the boards inserted into Sun Fire[TM] Midrange Server chassis.
• Sockets are tightly organized in rows and columns to allign with the CP pins.
• Socket holes are square in shape when undamaged.
• They are easily examined when the board is removed from the chassis.

Document Information

• This document is Step 1 in the troubleshooting path, <Document:1019646.1> Troubleshooting Interconnect errors on Sun Fire[TM] Midrange Servers.
• This document is Step 6 in the troubleshooting path <Document:1013120.1> Troubleshooting "can't power on" component errors on Sun Fire [TM] Serengeti or LightWeight8 systems

Solution

Oracle Confidential (INTERNAL). Do not distribute to customers
Reason: Internal Only documentation and procedures

Steps to Follow - Verifying a bent pin or damaged socket.

General Advice

Due to the ease of inspection, it makes most sense when trying to verify pin or socket damage to attempt to examine the board's sockets first.  This is true for a few reasons:

1. As indicated above, the board's sockets are easily examined when the board is removed.
2. The board has to be removed in order to view the CP pins anyway, so you might as well examine the sockets first.
3. Bent or misaligned pins often result in telltale scraping or damage on the sockets.

Inspecting Board Sockets

The basic advice is for the Oracle onsite engineer to perform visual inspection of the sockets of the implicated board.
To do this, the engineer should look at the rows and columns of the board's sockets in a well lit location and examine for any of the following damage:

• Perfect square sockets have been pockmarked (small holes in the plastic surrounding the actual engineered pin hole).
• Rounded over corners to the sockets.
• Scrapes appearing on the plastic surrounding the square hole.
• Triangular shaped side to what should be a straight edge of the socket.
• Verify the rows and columns are all aligned properly.
• Verify the gaps between columns are uniform.

Not all damage is obvious, so if you need to do so, examine the sockets more than once.  Ask the customer to verify what you see as well to confirm that your eyes aren't playing tricks on you and use a magnifying glass if desired or needed.

See the attachment (pdf) file for example photographs of such damage.

Inspecting Centerplane Pins

As indicated before, examining the pins which may be suspected as bent or misaligned may be very difficult with only a single board removed from the chassis.  The pins are located in the centerplane, thus you are looking into the center of the chassis which is dark and trying to visually confirm that there is a pin misaligned or bent.  Add to the fact that the lighting is bad, the damaged pin may be only slightly bent or misaligned.

To better enable the success of the inspection, the following advice is offered:

1. If you know where on the board the damage is located (based on which socket location was damaged on the board), you may be able to spot bent or misaligned pins on the CP rather easily by focusing on that same location.
2. Use a flashlight (or "torch" as it is called in some countries) to shine light in an upwards or downwards orientation in the slot that is being inspected.  
• A bent or misaligned pin will shine or twinkle differently than all the other properly aligned pins. 
• It will seem brighter, or reflect the light in a different direction.
3. If neccesary, consider removing the boards directly next to the slot being inspected.  The added room will allow you to get your head physically closer to the centerplane to inspect the pins more closely.
• When reinserting boards back into the chassis, use caution not to cause new damage - exacerbating an already invasive situation.

As indicated already, look for signs of pins that are misaligned in relation to it's neighbors.  Depending on your orientation, pins may appear to be missing, some may appear to be joined together with their neighbor, or crunched. 

See the attachment (pdf) file for example photographs of such damage.

Collaborate with the next level of technical support if you are unsure of the next step to take.

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