[rescue] SPARCEngine AXi NVRAM problem

[der Mouse]

>> As I said, the IDPROM seems to be set correctly to a valid mac id,
>> hostid, and checksum.  On a whim, I did an 'arp -a', though, and
>> discovered that the ethernet device seems to believe that its mac id
>> is all zeroes.

>> I can understand the zeroes if the battery were dead, but why am I
>> seeing a valid value in the IDPROM and banner?

> Dead or unpgrammed NVRAMs read all ones (e.g. 0xff) not zeros.

Indeed.

But I would point out that, with most hardware, the stored MAC address
is just there for the driver to look at; the driver can use any other
address if it happens to feel like it.  (I don't know whether the AXi
is an example, but practically every Sun I ever _have_ used is.)

So, this may be a software issue rather than a hardware issue.

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