sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems NEC Telephones & Systems Is my elite mail DOA?

I've got an Electra Elite 192 with Elite Mail. at 7:15 am this morning, the voice mail worked fine -- and always has, in the 6 years we have had it.

By 9:15 am, the Vmail button on all handsets was lit, we could not connect to voice mail even by manually dialling 201 [it just rings and rings], and the automated attendant is non-functional.

I tried a restart of the Elite Mail card in the box by moving the on/off switch to "off," waiting about 1 minute, and moving the switch to "on." No change in status. My local NEC guy says that given the lack of success in the above procedure, the card is probably fried. BTW, this card was bought with the system in 1999, and has a small hard drive onboard. I believe it is the 4 port card.

Question 1: are there any other troubleshooting techniques to try, other than that described above?

Question 2: would a complete 192 shutdown and restart make a difference? If so, is there any special procedure for shutdown and restart other than turning off the switch on the front of the 192, waiting a while, and turning it back on?

Question 3: If I have to buy a new card, how much should I expect to pay? Also, are there online sales sources I could consult for discounts?

Question 4: If I gotta spend $2000 or so, should I be looking at any other alternatives to Elite Mail that would work as well or better?

Thanks for your help.

5 years is not a bad run with this mail if it has a regular hard disk..

You could try booting the mail with dip switch 4 set to on and try and connect to it with Cossesion and run the maintenence routines. If it won't boot I guess it's a new mail. AS for price I won't comment but the new flash ROM mails starting at 10 hours/200 mail box storage(128Meg flash) they are not a bad deal. The new top end VMS have 2gig flash roms..

Refurbs may run (depending on type and ports) from $1000 - $1500. New, again, depending, $1800 - $3000?

Since Elitemail is an in-skin solution, it integrates really well with the 192. So I'd advise sticking with Elitemail. Also, the Elitemail / NEC / Activevoice line are darned good voicemails. My favorites by far.

just went on the same thing today at a vet's office. same year too! and as everybody else has said and as i told the doc, 6 years non stop for a hard drive is pretty good!

the card itself is probably ok. the drive is probably toast. you can get a replacement from your dealer or from the grey market.

and as TG said, it goes well with the system and is specifically made for the elite series. you can get a CF based vm (still by activevoice/nec) that might give you warm fuzzies if you're concerned about using another drive based vm.

NEC just released an upgrade/replacement for VMS -U10 & U20 hard drives. They now have an SDD or SSD drive available. It is kind of like a flash drive, no moving parts to fail. You can also save the old data (if your HD boots) & transfer it to the SDD drive. This is a very cost effective option. If your provider can't get one, I can. Email me if needed.

Re NEC Elite VM...I have 2 passwords I need to reset for users, I download a couple of manuals and I see how you would do this with a direct connect..but is it possible to do over the phone/dtmf? I see the defualt password is '???' but how do i test this password/i.e. reach the admin mailbox and a menu that allows this function...or is that possible?
Thanks guys
I can help with Inter-Tel/WIN questions??


(no passwords in the forums please)

you would dial into the vm and use that password (if it hasn't been changed) go to the manager functions, edit a mailbox, delete the password

Thanks, tried that but after I enter ??? (???) it prompts for another password and ??? and other attemps are not it....guess it will have to go back to the factory to have it defaulted.


PLEASE DO NOT POST PASSWORDS

Thanks for the replies. After I posted the original query, I switched off the VMS card, then switched off the entire 192 system. After bringing it back up, voice mail worked fine. I thought it was the end of the problem, but now, about 40 hours later, same problem, same fix.

I'm now worried that I'm in the middle of a card failure or hard drive [on the card] failure. My local dealer hypothesized that the power supply might be failing. Before replacing the HDD or the power supply, any thoughts?

Another question: What is Cosessions? I've got System Administration Terminal and a program called DESI, but no Cosessions. If I need it, where do I find it? Available online?