[rescue] Ultra 5 NVRAM problems, boot command = bggt

[John Edwards]

Hi

I had my last Ultra 5 die in the middle of the night this week 
and when I tried to reboot it complained about the boot command 
being set to "bggt". Running the 'printenv' command at the 
Openboot prompt also showed a few other important setting were 
wrong, eg:

output-device was "screef" instead of "screen"
diag-device was "fet" instead of "net"
pcia-probe-list was "1$2$3$4" instead of "1,2,3,4"
pcib-probe-list was "1$2$3" instead of "1,2,3"

Some values are OK, such as numerical values or those set to 
true or false.

When I try to correct the wrong values (eg changing to "boot") 
they are still shown as the wrong value (eg "bggt").

There is a pattern here - each of the letters that are wrong are 
eight less then they should be. Not sure what could cause that.

Also there is no VGA output, possibly because the "output-device" 
is wrong, but that's not too much of a problem as I mainly use a 
serial cable. Other symptoms include not finding the hard disk or 
CDROM devices.


I did a few web search but the only page I found that mentioned 
this problem was in Korean:
  http://www.solarisschool.com/qna_new/view.html?board=qna1&no=18854&start=&sselect=&mode=&qry_string=

Which from a babelfish translation seems to be talking about the 
NVRAM battery. Which made sense to me at the time because if the 
battery was starting to fail it might not be holding values 
correctly.


So I ordered a replacement NVRAM battery (M48T59Y-70PC1) from 
Farnell and it arrived today. I then followed the "quick and dirty" 
instructions at the great Sun NVRAM FAQ:
  http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html

But after replacing the NVRAM battery the problem persists.


Serial output with original NVRAM battery back in place are:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting real time clock...
This slot excluded from probing...
This slot excluded from probing...
bad databits '$'
bad databits '$'
screef not found.
 not found.
Starting real time clock...
This slot excluded from probing...
This slot excluded from probing...
bad databits '$'
bad databits '$'

Sun Ultra 5/10 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-IIi 333MHz), No Keyboard
OpenBoot 3.25, 256 MB (50 ns) memory installed, Serial #15795685.
Ethernet address 0:0:20:f1:5:e5, Host ID: 80f105e5.


The IDPROM contents are invalid


Evaluating: bggt
bggt ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------


Running 'show-devs' does not show the IDE, network or VGA:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
/SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi at 0,0
/pci at 1f,0
/virtual-memory
/memory at 0,10000000
/aliases
/options
/openprom
/chosen
/packages
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/SUNW,CS4231 at 14,200000
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/flashprom at 10,0
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/eeprom at 14,0
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/fdthree at 14,3023f0
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/ecpp at 14,3043bc
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/su at 14,3062f8
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/su at 14,3083f8
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/se at 14,400000
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/SUNW,pll at 14,504000
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/power at 14,724000
/pci at 1f,0/pci at 1,1/ebus at 1/auxio at 14,726000
/openprom/client-services
/packages/sun-keyboard
/packages/SUNW,builtin-drivers
/packages/disk-label
/packages/obp-tftp
/packages/deblocker
/packages/terminal-emulator
----------------------------------------------------------------------


Has anyone got any ideas on what to investigate next?


-- 
#---------------------------------------------------------#
|    John Edwards   Email: john at cornerstonelinux.co.uk    |
#---------------------------------------------------------#