Dead DS30

The three techniques to restore it

In this post, ‘Dead DS30’ learn three elements to help you restore a defective digital station module. As part of the Control Unit providing extra resources, the DS30 serves 30 digital stations (DS), providing extra capacity to add more side cards or DSS-Consoles, and interconnect the 4400s series phones, which won’t work when connected directly to the IP500.

Not so long ago, I was dispatched to troubleshoot a down system. When I arrived to the customer site, and met with site contact to review their issues, I learned that a portion of the of the office’s phones were inoperative, I also noticed the receptionist taking calls, which let me to believe immediately that the IP Office main control unit was working fine.  As I walked into the IT Room, I noticed one of the DS30 center LED was solid red. The “techie” in me came alive immediately, as I tried a few things, such as rebooting the entire system, unplugging the stacking blue cables or TDM patch cords, but nothing seemed to work. That is when I decided to start with these three basic troubleshooting steps=

• 1.- Understanding the LED Status Light
• 2.- Connectivity and Grounds
• 3.- Troubleshooting Commands

1.- Understanding the LED Status Light

The system has two sets of LEDs that you can associate to different events or elements. For instance, the LEDs located above any digital port, especially in the IP500 DS daughter cards, which display if a digital phone is plugged in. The same is true for the DS30, which LEDs are grouped together in the center of the module representing the same status.

The big center squared LED – Normally indicates the health or activity of the expansion unit(s). You might see it changing colors as you upgrade, transfer files to the unit, or just can’t communicate with the IPO Control Unit.

• Red On= Error
• Red Slow Flash= Initializing 
• Red Fast Flash= System Shutdown.

See the resources portion of this post for more information on the LED.

2.- Connectivity and Grounds

Grounding is essential, and it is very important to make sure that we have our systems grounded properly.

Racks (wall-racks, 2-post-racks, 4-post-racks) When using racks it is important to peel the paint off the metal bar where you are installing the grounding-bar. This will ensure that the rack is grounded properly.

Grounding-bar – These are installed with a cable already connected to the building ground installed by a certified electrician.

Grounding Cable – Based on Tech Tip 101 listed below, Avaya recommends a solid insulated cable AWG #14 color green and yellow attached to the Control Unit and expansion modules grounding port (screw located in the back).

TDM Blue Patch Cord – Each expansion module comes with a blue patch cord which the RJ45 plug is made of a silver material with the purpose to protect and efficiently interconnect the expansion modules.

3.- Troubleshooting Commands

The most common issue related to a bad DS30 is when the module can’t find the BIN files or firmware necessary to bring it back to a stable state, causing the center LED to be lit red at all times.

The firmware is located in the IP500’s SD Card or IP Office Manager’s PC. In order to reset the module, and force it to obtain the files back, you must follow these six steps=

1.- File Server Connectivity– If there is no Voicemail or Manager dedicated PC for the IP Office, configure your laptop by assigning a static IP Address of 192.168.43.5/24 then connect to the WAN Port or LAN2.

2.- Getting the files ready – By checking the Control Units under the IP Office Configuration file, you can check the release and version loaded in the system. This will help you provide the right files. Best case scenario is to take the existing files and make those available. If not head over to the http://support.avaya.com and download them if available there.

As a good practice, always download the files available in the http://suppot.avaya.com and keep them accessible to you at all times by keeping them in an external hard drive.Making IP Office Bin files available without the need of accessing them through the Avaya portal.

3.-File Delivery – The IP Office system uses the TFTP protocol to deliver its files among the expansion modules and legacy equipment, through port 69. The IP Office Manager acts as a TFTP server whenever you have selected the options through Preferences/Enable BootP and TFTP Servers.

Check your windows firewall settings and rules to allow Manager to communicate through port 69.

4.- Making the right connections – A null-modem DB9 Male to Female cable is needed to connect to the module’s serial port located in the back of the unit.

COM Ports – In order to use the DTE or Console port of the DS30 you must use the communications port from your service laptop or the IP Office Manger’s PC. In case you don’t have a physical COM port allocated in your machine, use a USB to serial adapter. See below for more info on which adapter to get.

5.- Application Console (Hyper Terminal or PuTTy) – In order to run the maintenance commands to the expansion module, an application is needed to do this. PuTTy is the most commonly used nowadays allowing us to set the following settings=

Bits per second: 38400.

Data Bits: 8.

Parity: None. Stop Bits: 1.

Flow Control: None.

Keep in mind to check through the Window’s Device Manager application / Ports (COM & LPT) to verify which COM port the USB comes up as. (In my laptop, it comes up as COM7)

6.- DTE Commands – Once connected to the expansion unit, utilizing the null-cable-modem male to female and the USB-to-Serial adapter (or  PC’s COM port), you can open PuTTy with the above settings, then proceed to reboot the DS30, while booting up, press the ESC key multiple times until the loader shows up, and follow these sequence of commands=

DCP(16/30) V2 Loader 1.6 (Will appear as you press ESC multiple times)

FPGA Doesn’t need to be programmed
C8T
AT (Type this command to verify you are connected successfully)
OK
AT-X (Then run this command)
Multi-Sector Erase
OK
AT-X2 (Finally erase the NV RAM configuration)
NV Config Sector Erase
OK

Note – Before running these commands make sure that you have your TFTP Directory pointing to directory containing the bin files, e.g. C:/ProgramFiles/Avaya/IPOffice/Manager/

Here is an example of a Dead DS30. When connected using PuTTy=

• Error
• FreeMem=258340(3) Buff=1 320 370 0
• 1354089 ms, HATRIC=186 TICK=1 INTVL=186 SCC=0
• Hello>LEDTICK::Host TDM clock lost at 1949066 ms
• LEDTICK::Slip Error at 1949769 ms
• LEDTICK::Slip Error at 1950499 ms

 

Question

When troubleshooting expansion modules, do you replace the unit? or do you spend time trying to restore it?

 

Resources

Download the LED Description PDF

Tech Tip – 101 – IP Office Grounding Cable Specifications

USB to Serial Adapter – I personally use one very similar to this one, and have been using it for about 5 years now.

Download PuTTy