>> okay, apparently it boots (i told it to boot last night and went to
>> bed) so the problem is the just the console, which simply stopped
>> working.  after i tell the machine to boot, either on the keyboard or
>> via the serial port, the console stops responding and/or emitting
>> things.
>> 
>> any clues?
>
>It needs a beer from DBA's ;-)

duh!  gosh...i would *never* have made the connection.  :)

>Did you set any environment vars or such in the PROM that may have been
>lost in the power cycle?  A new kernel option which was installed, but
>never rebooted?  Does generic boot properly?

no new kernels.  no new boot blocks.  anything that was set that got
lost, i reset.  i recall always having to reset bootdef_dev,
boot_osflags, boot_file, auto_action (sort of pointless, considering
that it all gets lost anyway), and and console.

>Just shots in the dark...

yeah...i've tried all that.  i think now that i was thinking it wasn't
rebooting is because i have it configured to run dhclient at the cable
modem and yesterday the cable modem wasn't talking to the alpha.
that's since been fixed.

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