What does this alarm mean: 972 NMI occurred in other module

Hello,
This happened yesterday and this morning when the machine was not running. It is the first time ive seen this alarm. The alarm screen is not the normal one. It is totally blank except the message:

System Alarm
972 NMI occurred in other module
slot 02
930 CPU interrupt

then this morning it said the same thing except the end was
916 DRAM parity

the alarm clears with a shut down but Im assuming that something in the control is dying. either a cable or board? Anything to have the machine tech look at next time hes here? The machine is from 96' so its starting to hit that golden age of glitches :)

its generally a problem with a non-CPU board or some other main component of the CNC unit.

The manual says "972 NMI OCCURRED IN OTHER MODULE. NMI occurred in a board other than the main CPU board.

Check what board is in slot 02

For 930 the manual says "The CPU Board is Faulty"

Similar errors can occur if communication between boards is broken. For example fiber optic cables etc.

First thing you should do while it still works is backup parameters, PMC params/ladder, SRAM, hidden macros etc etc. there are 1000's of posts on CNCZone where similar things happened and the person didn't have a backup and nothing but trouble resulted.

Thanks ford. Ill back up my parameters and wait for the inevitable.

Can you or anyone else point me to a post about making a parameter, ladder and macro backup? or if its simple just explain how? Its a Fanuc LE control but its similar to a 16i.

Thanks again

***edit: i got the parameters and macros backed up -how do I backup the ladder. I dont see a "punch" soft key under any menu

You should be able to get to the backup by holding (i think) the right two soft keys while powering up. You will need a ATA flash card to do it. Follow the screen prompts once your there. (do a SRAM backup while your there, much quicker to restore a machine).

The alarm your getting I have seen. It's either a fiber optic cable to the drives, probably just not plugged in all the way. Or if it has the new Alpha i drives, there is a daughter card that slides in the very front panel of each drive. I've had those come loose as well.

I found the card slot on the main control box inside the power cabinet. I put a card in and tried to "backup sram". when I vhit execute it just flashes "memory card mount error. Hit select key" and it cancels the transfer.

Ive tried to reformat the memory card from the "bios" boot menu and when I hit execute with that it gives me a "930 CPU interrupt" with 31 groups of 4 digits below it.

Whats that mean? any thoughts? It still runs fine... is there any other way to export the memory?

I suspect the 'NMI' stand for Non Maskable Interupt . This implies a problem of high importance has occured that the kernel will not allow the current process to mask out. I'd suspect either one of the other intellegent cards or maybe a RAM fault.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MCImes

I found the card slot on the main control box inside the power cabinet. I put a card in and tried to "backup sram". when I vhit execute it just flashes "memory card mount error. Hit select key" and it cancels the transfer.

Ive tried to reformat the memory card from the "bios" boot menu and when I hit execute with that it gives me a "930 CPU interrupt" with 31 groups of 4 digits below it.

Whats that mean? any thoughts? It still runs fine... is there any other way to export the memory?

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Wrong card. Try either a smaller one or you may need an Sram flash card.

Thanks guys. I was using a 4gb card so ill dig around the shop and see what the smallest card I can find is. Or tell the boss to buy me a sram card :)

Update: tried with a 256mb card, same error :(

The manual says "Memory card could not be accessed. Check that the memory card is normal"
What do you think "normal" means?

no help here on the backups... Ive backed up our 16 once long ago, pretty sure it was a 256m ramcard. if you have fladderII you can download it to a laptop also.

on the fiberoptic stuff, if you use a cellphone camera, you can look into the unplugged cable end, one fiber should appear very bright on the camera, compare to other end should look similar- one fiber sends(lights up) other recieves(dark) other end will be the reverse.

if the cable is 'bruised' - usually from someone accidentally bending it too sharp, cracking some fibers, you can also just use a flashlight- have someone shine it thru one end, look at the other end while they move the light around- you shouldnt see any dark specs in the little optic bundles- they might flicker as the light moves but there shouldnt be any 'always dark' specs in the bundle- usually if a cable is damaged the thing wont run at all.
the IREDs though in the COP connector though do have a finite lifespan, when they start to fail they usually look real dim or flicker if viewed with a camera- sometimes they only dim out/flicker when they get warm. Fanuc used to sell the COP connectors for about 60 bucks, only 4 or 6 pins to desolder to replace- if you can 'see' which one is bad.

try looking at your tv remote IRED with your camera, you'll see what I mean- infrared is quite bright in MOST cameras, even if invisible otherwise to the eye.
Tim

are effectively communication cables which are failing

No update since? People need to know many of these controls will not accept a memory card and you must use a SRAM card. The control is likely fine just do a reset. Everyone of our fanuc machines will do this if we attempt to use a memory card. Either Sram or better yet get a RS-232 to USB adapter and that will alleviate any further issues. There seems to be a lot of misinformation regarding memory cards and nobody ever follows up to clarify the issue and so others go read and presume they have to start replacing main boards. Hope this helps anyone who has purchased an old fanuc control.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MCImes

Hello,
This happened yesterday and this morning when the machine was not running. It is the first time ive seen this alarm. The alarm screen is not the normal one. It is totally blank except the message:

System Alarm
972 NMI occurred in other module
slot 02
930 CPU interrupt

then this morning it said the same thing except the end was
916 DRAM parity

the alarm clears with a shut down but Im assuming that something in the control is dying. either a cable or board? Anything to have the machine tech look at next time hes here? The machine is from 96' so its starting to hit that golden age of glitches :)

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