[sclug] Sun SPARC help

[Neil Owens]

Matt

Great minds think alike.  I did the same with the NVRAM chip - your's is a
little more elegant with a proper holder for the lithium battery (Mine's a
little more 'Blue Peter' - a plastic paperclip and some sticky tape)

It seems you're in competition with http://www.obsolyte.com/sun_ipx/  ;-)

Tried the RAM from the working one - tried STOP-N from a Sun keyboard only
to discover the 'n' key doesn't work due to a coffee spill.  I'm getting a
new keyboard tonight (?15 :-(
so will give that a go.  If not, it's landfill or a rather large door stop.

101 uses for a dead IPX......

But the working one runs Debian really well as a web/FTP server.  Learning
lots - if there's another open day I'll bring it along as I've a gazillion
questions about running a secure web/FTP server and I'm getting bored of
just reading HOWTO's

Neil

P.S. - Anyone got a PowerUp processor chip they want to donate?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matt" <matt at bodgit-n-scarper.com>
To: <sclug at sclug.org.uk>
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 11:29 PM
Subject: Re: [sclug] Sun SPARC help


> On Sat, 2004-11-20 at 17:57, Alex Butcher wrote:
> > On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Neil Owens wrote:
> >
> > > I have no way of knowing what it's doing - there's no output on 'A'.
> > > Sending a Break ( either by 'STOP A' on a Sun keyboard or by sending a
Break
> > > from TeraTerm) has no effect.  I don't get as far as the OBP. I can't
see or
> > > find a 'reset CMOS' jumper anywhere.  even if the NVRAM battery is
dead it
> > > should still get me a OBP prompt......
> >
> > Hmmm... are you sure about that last bit?
> >
> > It's been a while since I've seen a SPARC with a dead NVRAM battery but
my
> > dodgy DRAM is telling me that it just hangs, and you don't get to do
> > anything.
> >
> > Is it worth trying to swap the NVRAM with the one from the working
machine
> > to be sure?
>
> A dead NVRAM battery will just get you the infamous MAC address of
> ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, etc. when the banner is displayed, it should still
> come up to OBP (possibly complaining as it goes).
>
> If you have the keyboard, try hitting/holding Stop+N when you power the
> machine on, that should reset the NVRAM to defaults, including resetting
> the serial port A settings, etc. so you should be able to get a console.
>
> You might want to check flowcontrol on your terminal settings, (if
> you're not totally sure they're correct), IIRC I had hardware
> flowcontrol enabled in minicom and that stopped a Sun console coming up.
>
> Other things to check might be RAM, if it hasn't got any, or its duff,
> it's about the only replaceable item in the IPX that could cause it to
> not work.
>
> Matt
>
> [0] http://www.bodgit-n-scarper.com/sun.html - Shameless plug
>
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