[c-nsp] AS5300 Console/Card Problems

[Mark Tinka]

Hello all.

Just powered up an AS5300, but I'm not getting a console response on neither 
Minicom nor Hyper Terminal. I have other Cisco devices whose consoles are 
working fine under both terminals. I've used 3 different roll over cables, 
but the result remains the same.

The AS5300 appears to be booting normally, from a visual standpoint - the OK 
LED lights up fine after a few seconds of power-up, the PRI ports and MICA 
modem cards all seem to power up OK too. Attaching a 100Mbps Ethernet cable 
lights up fine on both the 10Mbps and 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports, even after 
power-up, suggesting the Bootstrap, Bootloader and IOS have phased and loaded 
normally.

I have tested all COM baud rates from as low as 110bps to as high as 115.2Kbps 
(and everything else in between), just in case that was changed, with no 
luck! My initial console connection yielded 2 garbage characters; I haven't 
been able to even get those for all subsequent tries.

I then realised that I could issue commands to the console (was testing a 
Break and realised the router stopped "visually" booting up), but the 
terminal didn't provide any feedback. So I decided to "blindly" configure the 
FastEthernet 0 port and setup an IP address. As luck would have it, I was 
able to ping the box. I configured the VTY and enable secret password and 
managed to log into the box. Still no console access!

I then did a 'sh ver' and realised the Quad-PRI card and the 2 MICA modem 
cards weren't showing up at all, contrary to an earlier verifiable test that 
was sent to me prior to shipping, that shows they were there. IOS at the time 
was 12.2-2.XB6. We then tried another IOS, 12.3(12) and got the same result, 
the main 3 cards aren't showing up (despite the fact that they seem to be 
getting power - ACT LED on the MICA cards and 120 LED on the PRI card are 
lighting okay, no telco circuit attached yet).

The box is running 12.0(2)XD1 ED for the Bootstrap and 12.1(20) Bootloader. 
The 'sh controllers' command only displays the 10Mbps and 10/100Mbps port, 
not the other cards.

I was thinking the box could have been "hit" around during shipping, but it 
strikes me as odd that all 3 cards would fail. Also, do you think the problem 
with the console port is related to the problem with the 3 cards?

I can't seem to configure the speed on the console port. I get the following 
error:

Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#line con 0
Router(config-line)#spee
Router(config-line)#speed 9600
Failed to change line 0's speed
Router(config-line)#

This is very very strange, I haven't experienced this in all my years with 
working with this device. Any ideas are very welcome. Thanks.

Mark.