Boot problem

[Denis Beauchemin]

Hi everybody,

I have a boot problem on many diskless stations.  They all share the same
Ethernet and server.  They're all 4 megs 3/50s running SunOS 4.0.1
(including a 24 megs 3/280 server).

The problem is the following: a station starts booting up and then puts
itself in sleep mode while downloading vmunix and returns to PROM level.
When the error occurs, the cursor seems to be spinning at the right speed.
If I keep asking it to boot, it will eventually do so (but it may take as
many as 10 tries).

Is there a fix to all this?  I would rather have them start up without any
help from us.

Here's a transcript of a typical boot on a diskless 3/50:
============================================================================
>b
Using IP Address 192.9.200.7 = C009C807
Boot: le(0,0,0)
Booting from tftp server at 192.9.200.1 = C009C801
Downloaded 126056 bytes from tftp server.

Using IP Address 192.9.200.7 = C009C807
hostname: uranus
domainname: dmi
server name 'terre'
root pathname '/export/root/uranus'
root on terre:/export/root/uranus fstype nfs
Boot: vmunix
Size: 409424sleep (addr 0x140CF8, prio 0x15)
sleep
>
============================================================================

Thanks.
          --> Denis Beauchemin, Analyste
              Departement de mathematiques
              et d'informatique
              Universite de Sherbrooke

          --> IN10 at UDESVM.BITNET
              (819) 821-7022