I am a technical writer and part-time consultant, but have never worked on phone systems before. One of my clients has a relatively new NEC Electra Elite 192. No one for three counties will touch the thing, so now it is up to me.

Installed ETUs are a CPU-B300-U10, COL8-U10 and COL4-U10, five ESI8-U10s, and a VMS4-U10. Unfortunately the only system hardware manual I have is for the Elite 48.

We had a power outage recently, and now it won't boot. With just the CPU board in, after a second or two of power I get two small red LEDs right next to each other, one solid and one blinking. After about 20 seconds they seem to reset. With the other boards in, they all come up with blinking red LEDs that reset along with the CPU board.

First suspect is the PSU. I was able to test the PSU both on a bench and at the ESI and it seems to be functioning correctly. It is on a surge protector, so perhaps the PSU actually is okay.

Following the flowchart in the Elite 48 manual, I am instructed to plug a terminal into the first ESI(8)-U10 unit---but there is no place to do so on the Elite 192.

Any help is greatly appreciated. My next step is to simply unmount the thing and send it to someone.

thanks

Following up on my own message---

I had a talk with the great folks at Federal Telecom supply. The tech I spoke with agreed with me that it is most likely the CPU, since the PSU tests ok. A new CPU board is only $350, but the reprogramming promises to be a nightmare.

I have the cheat sheets (thanks Tom!) and the correct programming manual. I will probably be posting here for more advice in the near future. If anyone knows an NEC tech who could travel to do this, I'd be glad to know of them. We are in northwest California.

thanks

going back to your parts list a sec.......

you have a coi8-u10 & coi4-u10 not a col (no such animal).

depending on what slots have what boards determines where port 1 is. i'll guess that your system is laid out like this:
slots card
1 coi8
2 coi4
3 esi8
4 esi8
5 esi8
6 esi8
7 esi8
8 vms4

if this is the case my guess would be that port 1 is on yellow/blue pair in amp cable #1.

Thanks for the response, you are right about the coi vs. col---my handwriting needs work.

The layout is actually:

slots card
1 esi8
2 esi8
3 coi8
4 coi4
5 esi8
6 esi8
7 esi8
8 vms4

While speaking with the parts guy I popped out all cards except the CPU, and it still would not boot to a green light. I will try hooking up a line to the pair you suggest, but I am guessing the CPU is toast.

I don't think any of the NEC 192 cards would ever boot to a green light. (the only exception is the VMS/FMS cards - only the motherboard/bios led becomes green.)

The cards are supposed to boot up to a flashing red LED state. I think the key here is for you to try and get to an ESI port and plug in a display phone to see if you get any displays.

With your setup, it should be the first AMP connector, the first pair (blue/white). If no response, try swapping the ESI from another slot into that 1st slot and see if you get any action. But bottom line, flashing red LED should be what you are looking for on each of the cards.

Good luck.

I am certified on Nec and located in Chico. I am willing to come give you a hand. E-mail me with further questions.