i960InFifoEmptiedTimeout

Ooh yeah, finally a good ol' obsession question I can sink my teeth into, heh heh (I work on these if you can't tell).  First off, if you don't already know, you can reset your cmos easily if you have Vsn5.1.1 or 5.1.0 by going into DOS (hold left shift on keyboard as it boots) and typing OBSNCMOS at the DOS prompt (or you can use a boot disk).  This program will reset your CMOS for you.  This program can be easily copied to a floppy and used on ANY version of software by the way.  But you will still have to reset the time manually of course or you will get a CMOS TIME AND DATE NOT SET error.  Anyway, it may very well be your CMOS battery that is the cause, but the following error lines are not actually errors;

01/01 00:00:50 004 BAD CMOS FILE EXISTS!
01/01 00:00:50 004 AND CMOS IS STILL BAD!

People often see this and think it is an error.  It is not.  These lines are part of the obsession program checking to see that the cmos is set correctly.  Why it was written to say that the CMOS is bad I do not know (something to do with Y2K), but these lines come up in every boot in any version.  In Version 5.1.x the OBSNCMOS.EXE program was included which will reset the CMOS automatically, which may be why it fails the first boot but not the next.

The second most common cause of ISA960 failures is low DC voltages.  Open the case and find the main motherboard power connector.  Put a meter on the red and black wires and if it is any less than 5 volts, there is a very good chance that voltage is dropping over a DC connection.  With the meter still on the main DC 5V line, wiggle the power connector coming out of the power supply on the power distro board.  Then wiggle the hard drive connections.  If you see the voltage suddenly pop back up to proper voltage, then you have some corrosion on the connections.  The biggest killer of almost all electronics is corroded low voltage DC connections and the 5 volt line is the first to be hit, which makes the ISA960 card the first thing to go.  I replace the main DC power harness on older models all the time, but I also eliminate the CPU fansink's hard drive power splice connector, which also drops voltage very commonly.  I put the power for the CPU fan now on the motherboard's fan connection beside the RAM.  If you want to make your own on your old fan, the pinout of the mobo's fan connector is GND/12V/GND, so just make sure the red wire is in the middle.  Otherwise, if your processor hasn't seen repair in a while, it would be a good idea to send it in, and I will go over it with a fine tooth comb, resolder a few things and make sure that all the inherent flaws and wear are dealt with.  It is usually a fairly inexpensive repair unless I end up needing to replace boards, which is rare.  If I find errors on your hard drive, it could be a little expensive, but not too bad.  Most of the repairs I do on Obsession 2s are free.

For your final question, no, there are no user serviceable items on the ISA960 card to check other than makings sure connections are tight.  If the card edge is lifted near the edge of the case, look underneath to make sure than the bottom of the card's metal flange is not stuck on the case, although I've never seen this be an issue.

i'll set triggers on the +5V and GND lines for a few days to attempt to confirm a distrubance prior to rerouting as suggested.

i don't doubt that this system will continue to operate correctly after applying the excellent information that's been provided; thank you kindly.

though minimizing the working set of showfiles and logs absolutely is sound, good advice, i would expect that an out-of-memory exception would be thrown and handled not when the FIFO in question is being "emptied", but rather when it is first allocated, which in this instance would have been just under 4.5 billion msec earlier.

so, if you're still in the mood for feasting, i've prepared a second course for you. feel free to bring a friend from dev/test:

Isa960Failure() is called by the i960InFifoEmptiedTimeout handler, which is invoked when its associated timer times out.

is that timer created with a fixed timeout value?

if so, is that timeout value of a duration that suggests that the timer is in place to trap:

component-level failures, such as a sag->reset on, say, 485 transcievers powered by the ISA bus?
single function performance, such as a for loop iterating over, in this case, 80686 (!) lines of message log?
long-running logic, such as an Acting Primary's attempt to transfer while in an SPS configuration?

Ok, I realize that you really want to catch the source of this little bugger, but honestly, I have never had this level of understanding be helpful to fixing problems.  This is partly because, even if it was, it would not be helpful to fixing it when I cannot even get to the card to do the physical troubleshooting required, and I don't have access to a very complicated logic analyzer (I have one, and have used it to find problems occasionally, but it is limited).  Even if I did have the tools and the ability to get the card in a position to troubleshoot (it will not work on a riser or slot bender due to timing issues), doing so would require a lot more time and frustration than simply going after more obvious problems. 

If the suggestions previously mentioned turn out to not be the source of the problem, then either you have cold solder joints on one or more chips, or you have a bad chip (or both).  Although it doesn't happen a lot, ISA960 cards are notorious for intermittent issues.  Most of these I have found to be attributed to the aforementioned voltage or show related issues, but occasionally I come across a card that simply doesn't want to work consistently.  If I do manage to get the problem to occur consistently, it is usually solved with a simple reflow of the solder on the card (mostly the 2 microprocessor chips that have tiny pins).  I also look for chips that are getting warmer than usual (or sometimes have a tiny dot of physical damage where a transistor blew) and replace them. 

In the other 1% of most instances, I just end up replacing the card.  I cannot send a repair back to a customer with questionable, intermittent hardware.  There has been only a couple of instances where I had thought that I had fixed the card when a reflow caused the issues to go away, only to have it come back in again later, and if I still cannot pin down the problem, the card gets replaced for free under repair warranty.  We don't mess around here, and we really hate it when things come back in for repair again, so we make darn sure it's fixed.

Basically, you are way over my head on the matter, and, although I understand what you said, I have no idea about the specifics of the ISA error itself because I have never needed it.  Programmers in R&D are the only ones who would have known the answer to your questions over 10 years ago, but now, not so much.  Sorry, but that feast is just a little too rich for me and a bit cold for R&D ;).

Wow, I really blather on and on in these posts, sorry. . .

Ok, I realize that you really want to catch the source of this little bugger, but honestly, I have never had this level of understanding be helpful to fixing problems.  This is partly because, even if it was, it would not be helpful to fixing it when I cannot even get to the card to do the physical troubleshooting required, and I don't have access to a very complicated logic analyzer (I have one, and have used it to find problems occasionally, but it is limited).  Even if I did have the tools and the ability to get the card in a position to troubleshoot (it will not work on a riser or slot bender due to timing issues), doing so would require a lot more time and frustration than simply going after more obvious problems. 

If the suggestions previously mentioned turn out to not be the source of the problem, then either you have cold solder joints on one or more chips, or you have a bad chip (or both).  Although it doesn't happen a lot, ISA960 cards are notorious for intermittent issues.  Most of these I have found to be attributed to the aforementioned voltage or show related issues, but occasionally I come across a card that simply doesn't want to work consistently.  If I do manage to get the problem to occur consistently, it is usually solved with a simple reflow of the solder on the card (mostly the 2 microprocessor chips that have tiny pins).  I also look for chips that are getting warmer than usual (or sometimes have a tiny dot of physical damage where a transistor blew) and replace them. 

In the other 1% of most instances, I just end up replacing the card.  I cannot send a repair back to a customer with questionable, intermittent hardware.  There has been only a couple of instances where I had thought that I had fixed the card when a reflow caused the issues to go away, only to have it come back in again later, and if I still cannot pin down the problem, the card gets replaced for free under repair warranty.  We don't mess around here, and we really hate it when things come back in for repair again, so we make darn sure it's fixed.

Basically, you are way over my head on the matter, and, although I understand what you said, I have no idea about the specifics of the ISA error itself because I have never needed it.  Programmers in R&D are the only ones who would have known the answer to your questions over 10 years ago, but now, not so much.  Sorry, but that feast is just a little too rich for me and a bit cold for R&D ;).

Wow, I really blather on and on in these posts, sorry. . .