Another alpha: XP1000

I still couldn't identify what happened with my Microway Screamer. I changed a CPU but problem remained the same. Memory testing with memtest on Socket 7 motherboard didn't show any errors too (however, it doesn't have ECC support).

I have never mentioned before but I had another Alpha system. It is XP1000 motherboard with 667 MHz 21264 Alpha CPU. I have it for more than a year. However, I didn't know how to boot it, so I have never used it until now. It has three connectors from power supply (one of them is a standard ATX or at least looks like it). I don't know about others, maybe, they have some standards too. But it would be difficult to find new power supply for it. CPU with RAM are located on daughterboard. Unfortunately, I don't have case for it. What is more, I accidently damaged it a little some time ago.

So I tried to boot it once again. Firstly I used the same method as in microway screamer (read about engineering fix). It reacted and PSU started to work. However, the system showed no signs of life. CPU heatsink was cold all the time, no video appeared. So I tried to find how to boot it using "front panel" pins. It wasn't an easy task because I even didn't know in which direction (horizontally or vertically) I should experiment. However, I finally found two pins which booted the system. This time motherboard booted differently. LEDs on the motherboard lighted up. However even after this system shut down automatically in less than 15 seconds. So I connected computer to another one by COM ports. I got only versions of palcode in hyper terminal. Despite this I suspected that it can be due to CPU fan which wasn't attached. I tried attach a standard fan and fan from microway screamer, they both didn't spin. It appeared that it has yet another wire sequence (screamer is not the same as PC too). After I changed wires and booted with CPU fan, system shut down almost immediately again. I tried to look at hyper terminal and this time got an error message that case fan was not working. At that time I was very happy because I was almost sure that after I would attach system fan, motherboard will boot successfully. And it did! Though, I didn't try to add a video card. I only played a little bit with srm console through hyper terminal.

Two biggest problems with this motherboard are its size and heating. Motherboard is much larger than standard ATX and CPU daugtherboard is quite big too. You can't use standard case without modifications. What is more, cpu heatsink became very hot in a very short time. I don’t know if it is ok or I need a bigger cooler. We will see.