remote twinax connection problem

["Magnolia Steel Co. Inc." <magsteel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all-

I'm having a problem that's got me stumped.

We have an AS/400 (9402-200, v3r2m0) in our main office. About three
blocks down the street we have an office. An *SDLC line connects this
office to the AS/400. At the other end of the line we have a Perle 494e
controller with a twinax interface. There are three PCs (1-Win 3.1, 2-
Win95) in the office with twinax cards in them. We are running Netsofts
emulation software on each PC. The controller shows as an *APPC device
on the AS/400 and when the users sign on they show up as QPCSUPP
devices.

Normally this works fine - for weeks or months at a time. But every so
often the users will not be able to get a signon screen at the PCs. The
lines, controllers, and devices are all varied on and show active on
the  AS/400. If I reboot the controller it will pass the power on self
test and come up ready. If I take a 3486 workstation over there I can
connect it to an unused port and get a signon screen right away. I also
get a signon screen if I disconnect the twinax line from the PC and
connect it to the terminal. When I connect the PC back to the same line
- no signon screen.

Eventually the PCs will be able to get a signon screen again. It will
take anywhere from a couple of hours to a day and a half. When they do
connect it will be with the same software settings, cards, and cables
that worked yesterday, didn't work a few minutes ago, but are working
now. If one PC gets a signon screen then the others will too.

I've varied the line off and on (with and without the reset parameter).
I've also tried turning on the controller first then the PCs, and
turning the PCs on first then the controller. All with no luck.

I can't point to any one thing that makes the connection work. One time
the signon screens returned while I was driving from the office back to
the main office.

I've talked to Perle tech support about this. Their answer is that the
twinax cards in the PCs are defective. So how do three twinax cards
suddenly become undefective at the same time and then work for three or
four months?

Are there some system values or settings that I should be looking at on
the As/400.

Thanks
Bill Fortenberry
Magnolia Steel
root
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