[SPARCbook] 3GX: Reboot wedged at 0C0

[Tim Strobell aka Griffy]

 |>comes on.  The status display shows the battery charge level
 |>and runs through the sequence: 0D0 (very briefly), 007 (for
 |>several seconds), then 0C0 where it hangs.
The same thing has happened to my poor Sparcbook GX as well.

 |>Every now and then
 |>it will beep, flash a 'Watchdog reset' message and run through
 |>the sequence again.
I er...removed the annoying speaker, so mine doesn't beep.
However, I don't see the Watchdog reset message, nor does mine "restart." 

The watchdog timer is a counter (in the NVRAM?) that the OS (PROM? OS low level interrupt handler?) tracks. Should the OS be hung hard, the counter won't get updated and the system will detect this and restart itself. 
This not-so-useful feature is available as 
setenv watchdog-reset? true
in the OBP, IIRC.

My own presumption is that the counter is based on some value that has overflowed. Though if this were true, all SBs would have this problem. I think the watchdog is disabled by default.
Since the NVRAM is well...NV (and assuming said counter is in the NVRAM) a probable solution is to somehow clear the NVRAM. 

Am I nuts, or does this sound feasible? :-)

Tim

--
Tim Strobell aka Griffy, griffy at math.umd.edu
Assistant Sysadmin and Server Janitor, Math Dept., University of MD