atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Inter-Tel Telephones & Systems InterTel T1C Card Issues

Hi folks. I'm working with an Intertel system (currently non-production) that's equipped with the following:

1 CPU/PCM-F Card with daughter board
1 T1C Card w/ ISDN daughter board
1 DKSC16 Card
1 Power Supply

The CPU card is running firmware rev 6.009.

The issue I'm having is with the T1C card. When inserted into the cabinet the board comes online and the "Card On-Line" LED lights up. Right away the Yellow Alm. light also begins to blink. (no T1/PRI connected). When I connect the T1 to the "T1 Span" port the alarm never clears. In fact the Blue Alm. LED begins to blink. However, when I remove the T1 both lights continue to blink. I've confirmed that the settings on the board are correct for the T1 (B8ZS, ESF, National ISDN2). But it doesn't look like the board is seeing the signal. The T1 is known good, and the same thing happens if I put a hard loop in the T1C card's T1 Span interface.

Is the fact that the Yellow Alarm LED starts blinking right away and never goes away - even when a red alarm condition exists - in indication of a physical or firmware problem with the card? Any advise would be appreciated.

Have you checked that the software rev. on the ROMs on both the T1C and ISDN (PRI) match the CPU rev?

I had considered that myself. I was running 5.119 on the CPU and upgraded it to 6.009. My understanding was that the CPU card would push the code down to any lower rev'd cards. I did however try to manually upgrade the T1 card using the Board Utility and the t1_us6_0.ss code from the Axxess 6.00 disk, but the system gives me a generic error about making sure you are connected, etc. Is there a way via the Session Mgr to see the current rev of the T1C card. I looked but could not find it.

Thanks

At 6.0 you are looking at an upgrade to the T1C -the CPU won't do it automatically. No way (that I know of) to view T1 rev. level info in Session Mgr.

What are your chip part numbers on the T1 card?

827.8980 in U4 and 827.8981 in U5

Thanks.

Your right when you say the CPU should auto update the T1. While the card is updating, both the red and yellow led's flash at once. Then the card resets and the green led lights.

Do you have a T1C card with the PRI daughter board?

When you tried to upload the code, did you plug in to the T1C directly (correct) or the CPU board?

What exactly happens when you loop back the card? Sometimes a loopback wont loop back a T1 card depending on the settings. I have seen this happen and dont remember what the settings cause this.

Are you familiar with on-line monitor by plugging directly in to the T1 card?

I should preface this by saying that the card came out of used inventory. I have no reason to believe that the card is bad but it is possible. That said. . .

For the upgrade I connected to the CPU board and, using the board util, pushed the 6.0 bin to the CPU board. I then connected to it using the Session Mgr. and confirmed the upgrade was good. I even connected 2 keysets to a DKSC16 card to verify that I could place station to station calls. It worked fine.

Next I put the T1C card in hot. It does have the pri daughter card. As you said, I expected to see the LEDs flash indicating the upgrade. That did not happen. Upon inserting the board the "Card On-line" LED lights up right away. Then the Yellow Alm. light starts flashing. I found this very strange as with no T1 plugged in there's no yellow alarm to be had. If anything it should be red alm. Anyway, it just sits in that state. If I plug a known good T1 into the T1 Span, the yellow alm continues to blink and the blue alm LED starts to blink with it. The funny thing is, when you unplug the T1 BOTH LEDs continue to blink, and do so until the card is reset.

I did try to connect directly to the T1C board and manually upgrade it, but the system kept erroring out as if I wasn't connected.


Thanks again.

Oh and when I plug a loop into the T1 Span, it has the same result -- yellow alm continues to blink -- as when I plug the T1 in.

This morning I plugged the same loop into a production system and the card performed properly. Red alm, yellow alm both blink. Red Clears. Yellow Clears. The only LED lit is now "Card On-Line".

>>Are you familiar with on-line monitor by plugging directly in to the T1 card?

No, I'm not. I imagine that would help a ton. I'd love to be able to see the card POST. Is this a util that should be on the axxess cd?

There is no gui util for the card. You connect using the same programming cable and hyper terminal. All the commands for this is something you learn when you take the T1/isdn cert. You get a handy book a certification and a handshake. This type of discussion is way above the scope of this board.

It is possible that the boot sector of the T1card got corrupt and there is a way to reload that file but again its way over the scope of this board.