I have a Cisco 2500 router and I can't get it to boot up. It was working fine and now all of a sudden it won't boot up. I saw it go in to rommon> mode and then I just rebooted it and now it gets stuck on boot up.

I tried to hit ctrl-break to get into rommon mode within 60 seconds of powering down and back on. It gets the > prompt but no response from any keys at that prompt.

Anybody have any ideas. I think the router is shot and is now hazerdous waste.

See screen shots here.

I'm trying to figure out how to upload a picture of my router onto here.

I click on the "Browse..." button and select my pic off of my hard drive. The .jpg file shows up int the Attachment field box. Don't know how to upload it or make it appear on here.

Maybe the config register is wrong and is booting with different console port speed, if that happens the prompt would do strange things or nothing, try to test with all console speeds available.

kind regards

Thanks luismg.

I'm not sure what the console speed is. I'll try to research that.

I'm reading about it here.

As far as the configuration register, what I know is to 'show version' and see what the configuration register is at the bottom of the output.

Doug#show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IPBASE-M), Version 12.3(6a), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc4)
Copyright (c) 1986-2004 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Fri 02-Apr-04 19:17 by kellythw
Image text-base: 0x80008098, data-base: 0x80ECF498

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.2(8r) [cmong 8r], RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Doug uptime is 23 minutes
System returned to ROM by power-on
System image file is "flash:c2600-ipbase-mz.123-6a.bin"

cisco 2610XM (MPC860P) processor (revision 0x300) with 94208K/4096K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAE0821HSHW (130587219)
M860 processor: part number 5, mask 2
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
1 FastEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 Serial network interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
32768K bytes of processor board System flash (Read/Write)

Configuration register is 0x2102

Sheldon#show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) 2500 Software (C2500-I-L), Version 11.2(21), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Wed 15-Dec-99 22:13 by ccai
Image text-base: 0x0302320C, data-base: 0x00001000

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 11.0(10c)XB2, PLATFORM SPECIFIC RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
BOOTFLASH: 3000 Bootstrap Software (IGS-BOOT-R), Version 11.0(10c)XB2, PLATFORM SPECIFIC RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Sheldon uptime is 24 minutes
System restarted by power-on
System image file is "flash:c2500-i-l.112-21", booted via flash

cisco 2507 (68030) processor (revision K) with 14336K/2048K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID 18864296, with hardware revision 00000000
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 2.0, NET2, BFE and GOSIP compliant.
1 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
16 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 repeater port(s)
2 Serial network interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
16384K bytes of processor board System flash (Read ONLY)

Configuration register is 0x2102

Also, at this time it appears that the issue I had with the console terminal freezing up has gone away. The console now seems to be working fine. However, my new problem is that now I can't get my routers to talk to each other again over the serial link. It was working fine and now it's not working. I don't think any configurations have changed. I'm starting to wonder if my serial interface card crapped out on me or something. There doesn't seem to be much that I can do to try to test anything or to isolate the issue.

My home lab consists of 1 cisco 2600 router and 1 cisco 2500 router. The 2500 belongs to a co-worker here. I bought the 2600 on ebay for about 40 bucks.

It only had the FastEthernet0/0 interface. But had two blank slots for serial interface cards. I purchased a serial interface card for about 20 bucks on ebay.

Then I purchased a DCE/DTE short home lab serial connector cable on ebay for about 20 bucks. When I first connected the cable, Router 1 Serial0 to Router 2 Serial 0/0 it came up/up and I was able to configure IP addresses and ping between routers and telnet between routers and establish neighbor adjacencies and read cdp reports and life was good.

Now all of a sudden it won't work. Loopback testing is apparently not useful. I put local loopback on each interface and can't even see my own loopback. Not sure what the problem is. Would like to be able to put up a picture of my home lab setup here on this blog just for fun but can't figure out how to post a pic on here.

Doug#sho ip int brief
Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
FastEthernet0/0            10.100.100.9    YES NVRAM  up                    up
Serial0/0                  192.168.2.9     YES NVRAM  up                    down

Doug#sho int serial 0/0
Serial0/0 is up, line protocol is down
  Hardware is PowerQUICC Serial
  Internet address is 192.168.2.9/24
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec,
     reliability 255/255, txload 1/255, rxload 1/255
  Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set
  Keepalive set (10 sec)
  Last input never, output never, output hang never
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
  Input queue: 0/75/0/0 (size/max/drops/flushes); Total output drops: 0
  Queueing strategy: weighted fair
  Output queue: 0/1000/64/0 (size/max total/threshold/drops)
     Conversations  0/1/256 (active/max active/max total)
     Reserved Conversations 0/0 (allocated/max allocated)
     Available Bandwidth 1158 kilobits/sec
  5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
  5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
     0 packets input, 0 bytes, 0 no buffer
     Received 0 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
     0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored, 0 abort
     55 packets output, 1582 bytes, 0 underruns
     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 29 interface resets
     0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out
     54 carrier transitions
     DCD=up  DSR=up  DTR=up  RTS=up  CTS=up

Sheldon#sho ip int brief
Interface              IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
Ethernet0              unassigned      YES unset  administratively down down
Serial0                192.168.2.10    YES manual up                    down
Serial1                unassigned      YES unset  administratively down down

Sheldon#sho int serial 0
Serial0 is up, line protocol is down
  Hardware is HD64570
  Internet address is 192.168.2.10/24
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, rely 255/255, load 1/255
  Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set, keepalive set (10 sec)
  Last input never, output 00:00:15, output hang never
  Last clearing of "show interface" counters never
  Input queue: 0/75/0 (size/max/drops); Total output drops: 0
  Queueing strategy: weighted fair
  Output queue: 0/1000/64/0 (size/max total/threshold/drops)
     Conversations  0/1/256 (active/max active/max total)
     Reserved Conversations 0/0 (allocated/max allocated)
  5 minute input rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
  5 minute output rate 0 bits/sec, 0 packets/sec
     0 packets input, 0 bytes, 0 no buffer
     Received 0 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
     0 input errors, 0 CRC, 0 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored, 0 abort
     90 packets output, 2225 bytes, 0 underruns
     0 output errors, 0 collisions, 33 interface resets
     0 output buffer failures, 0 output buffers swapped out
     65 carrier transitions
     DCD=up  DSR=up  DTR=up  RTS=up  CTS=up

Stretch did a really nice job on this community lab and discussion forum. Great idea. To my knowledge the first and only one with the free lab to go along with the message board. And the message board is head and shoulders above any other message board that I have seen so far and easier to read and easier to post to and use.

Your console line speed is fine otherwise you would not get any input on the screen. Config register 0x2102 is also the default setting for these router models and is not the cause of your issue.

With regards to your serial link you need to stipulate a clock speed on the router with the cable marked DCE connected to it. eg:

clock rate 64000

Thanks Evan!

I knew that but I must have forgot it amidst all of my confusion.

Sheldon#sho controllers serial 0
HD unit 0, idb = 0x95A24, driver structure at 0x9A7A8
buffer size 1524  HD unit 0, V.35 DCE cable
cpb = 0xE1, eda = 0x4940, cda = 0x4800
RX ring with 16 entries at 0xE14800
.....output ommitted......

Doug#show controllers serial 0/0
Interface Serial0/0
Hardware is PowerQUICC MPC860
DTE V.35 clocks stopped.
idb at 0x8198F1F8, driver data structure at 0x81996F94
.........output ommitted.......

Sheldon#conf t
Sheldon(config)#int ser 0
Sheldon(config-if)#clock rate 64000
Sheldon(config-if)#end

%SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
%LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial0, changed state to up

Sheldon#show interfaces serial 0
Serial0 is up, line protocol is up
  Hardware is HD64570
  Internet address is 192.168.2.10/24
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, rely 255/255, load 1/255
  Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set, keepalive set (10 sec)
  Last input 00:00:04, output 00:00:02, output hang never
.........output ommitted.......

Sheldon#ping 192.168.2.9

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.2.9, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 28/28/32 ms