atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems ESI Telephones & Systems Comm Server 1000 failed

Have a customer with a Comm Server 1000 with two cabinets. We took over support of this about three years ago. Current software on the 1000 was .30.

CABINET 1
DLC12
D12
D12
D12
D12
D12
D12

CABINET 2
612
612
A12
A12
D12
ASC
D12

Customer said that all phones froze with date and time only. They did a reset by powering down both cabinets for a minute, then bringing up cabinet 1...then cabinet 2. Per ESI documentation both cabinets should be brought up at the same time. Apparently this happens on a fairly rare occasion, but resets normally bring the system back online according to the customer. Needless to say - it did not come back up.

TESTING:
-Power down both cabinets for 1 minute
-Power up both cabinets together. System appears to go through some type of boot cycle, but does not finish and it starts over again. Can tell this by various flashing of LED's (Primary / Mirror / Power). All Port Card LED's come on, blink once, then remain solid w/no change. This happens to Port Cards in the expansion cabinet as well.

-Powered down both cabinets
-Remove all cards from cabinet 1, except processor.
-Remove ribbon cable between first and second cabinet
-Power up cabinet 1. Nothing changed. Went through the same cycle of LED's but kept repeating. No laptop available to try reading the CLI

-Took a spare ESI-200 Plastic cabinet, processor & (6) D12's to the customer site. The thought was to bring up a DLC12 and (6) D12's at a minimum to at least get inbound/outbound calls.
-I was able to get the 200 to come up and configured with their PRI. The remaining (6) cards in the first cabinet of the 200 came up so we had about 84 out of 132 digital stations. No fax on analog ports but they were up and running - partially.
-Thought I would see if I could bring the expansion cabinet up. It turns out, coincidentally there was only one expansion cabinet on the ESI-1000, so that same expansion cabinet could work on the ESI-200 as long as we stay within card quantity limitations.
-I confirmed the quantity of cards used on the ESI-1000 were fine in that the ESI-200 can support up to (14) cards over two cabinets. The ESI-1000 the customer had, was also only using two cabinets.
-I reseated all the cards into cabinet 2, then powered down the first cabinet and connected the ribbon cable between the first and second cabinet.
-I powered up both cabinets at the same time. After doing this, the main cabinet (ESI-200) failed to boot, and all port card lights remained solid. Same thing on the expansion cabinet.
-I powered down both cabinets, removed all the port cards from cabinet 2 and then powered both cabinets on again. Same thing - port card lights remain solid.
-I powered both cabinets down and removed the ribbon cable between the cabinets.
-I powered up the first cabinet - and within a couple minutes it came back online
-We were able to get them up and running through the holiday weekend.

Now - looking forward...

-I plan on heading back out there with a laptop, but want to have as much ready to go as possible.
-I did review the documentation, and the expansion cabinet for the 1000 can be used with the 200 as well as the discontinued 600 from what I can see.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I want to get them up and running on this without them spending a bunch of money on an 8+ year old digital system...but long term I think they will be far better off moving away from this.

Thanks

Well then they need to way the cost of repairing a 8 year old system and keep it running for how long ?????
Or move forward whit todays technology.

You are correct there. Am looking for some help on the ESI to get them to limp by. Not a quick decision for them on over 130 phones, call center, etc.