Can't get PathPilot to boot up and run

Hi all. This afternoon after a while since I’d last turned on my 2018 770M, I’m in a condition where the little Giga ‘brick’ PC can’t seem to get past a certain point in booting up and I can’t get PP up and running so I can use the machine. I’ll upload a photo of the screen I get and maybe someone sees the problem? I’ll also upload a photo of the PP screen that’s ‘frozen’ and can’t proceed. I tried replacing the disk battery in the Giga brick (was ~ 2.9 VDC, new one 3.3 V), no luck or change there. I’ve tried restarting a number of times and no dice. It’s pretty cold out in my shop (~ 55F) and maybe that’s part of the trouble? Any thoughts on this would be very appreciated. –


Charley in Colorado

@Charley_Hale after the battery replacement, did you go through the BIOS date and time?

Thanks for the reply. No, I didn’t do any BIOS stuff thereafter, is that my problem? I’m back at work now (not shop) and I know I’ve got notes on hand associated with the battery going dead and what I needed to do after putting in a new one, so I’ll find that stuff later today. So I suppose by taking out that ‘old’ battery for few seconds before putting in the fresh one, I caused myself to have to do that BIOS stuff, eh? That makes sense…

Certainly possible. Just in case you need another copy of the doc: https://tormach.com/docs/download/assetlink/asset_id/633

Thanks, Sam. I did not in fact have that doc, and it is certainly useful to have on hand. I still seem to be stuck here, though. Yesterday when I traded out the ‘old’ (2.9V) battery in the BRIX for the fresh (3.3V) one, I evidently did that so quickly, that the Date/Time values in the BIOS were still ‘right’. Today I took the battery out for several minutes, and indeed had to then reset the Date/Time to today’s values and save/exit the BIOS. But the BRIX still ‘hangs up’ at the PathPilot splash screen. There’s one “Fail” listing in the DOS-like list on-screen, “Starting read required files in advance”, and the BRIX then proceeds on to a lot more start/stop operations, ending on the line, “Starting enable remaining boot-time encrypted block devices”. I suspect that ‘final’ line is where the BRIX is hanging up and not proceeding to load PathPilot? Not sure what to do next… --Charley
—attached a quick Word/pdf file with descriptions of these two lines in the Linux (yes?) lines I see on-screen. –
BRIX startup lines of concern.pdf (470.6 KB)

@Charley_Hale I would do a partition restore in this case.
PP v2 restore from drive.pdf (482.7 KB)

Sam,
Right on, will do! I’ve printed this off and I’ll see if my caveman-like Linux/PC skills are up to the task here. Thanks–Charley

Sam, would you have a recommendation as to which of the three Options for ‘Restore PP V2.0 from Hard Disk’, I ought best to use? I can say that in my case I don’t have a lot (any, perhaps?) of custom fonts, thread data, or special subroutines to lose, if I choose one of the two Options that result in loss of those things. Thanks–Charley
–what I do have, are a lot of ‘Post’ .nc files that I’ve loaded over the past few years from a USB stick that I use to port them over to the machine. I suppose it’s not the end of the world to lose all those (I still have all of them, on my work PC, USB stick, etc., should I ever need any of them again), but, just wondering about that. –

@Charley_Hale If you still have access to those programs via other means, I would use option 1, that wipes everything.

got it, will do, thanks–

Sam, this worked! I still have to actually hook it back up to the machine to confirm for sure, but it certainly appeared to get me all the way up to PP running and shut back down. Thanks!

Would you hazard any guess as to why I had to do this? Do you think my BRIX may be getting close to the edge of failing or anything? It’s the original unit as far as I know (I purchased this 2018 770M used in 2020). Anyhow, this is great, I look forward to actually making the part I need to make, now : ) --Charley

Hard to know for sure. Controllers tend to act pretty weird any time the battery comes into play.

Got it. Well, this BRIX has a nice new battery in it now as a result of this issue, so that’s good at least. –