[SPARCbook] NVRAM problem

[Miles Nordin]

I am having the symptoms described in the ``Sun NVRAM and HOSTID FAQ'', 
such as:

 says I have a 3XP, when I have a 3GX
 host id is 80777777
 ethernet address is 00:00:83:77:77:77
 hangs at boot, LCD shows 099 after about 60 seconds

The date is correct.  I can make the beast boot if I press L1-A during 
the SPARCbook splash screen and then tyoe 'boot' at the ok prompt.  
NVRAM environment variables survive reboots.  Also, the serial number 
in the boot banner contains apparently-valid data even though the hostid 
does not.

I have my old Ethernet address written down, so I thought, ``walang 
problema.'' Unfortunately, the instructions in the NVRAM and HOSTID FAQ do 
not help me.  

I became distrustful of mkp and idprom? quickly, when I couldn't get them 
to report the existing values sanely, and the FAQ warns of using these 
commands on certain clones.

I did 

show-devs
cd /obio/eeprom at 0,202000       [i think.]
.attributes
-> address: ffee9000
device-end
reset

ffee9000 pgmap?
Physical: 0.7120.2000          [note the .2000 rather than sun4m .0000]
71203000 0 0 map-page          [note that I add 1000 as instructed.]
fe8 fd8 do i c? loop
-> 1 80 0 0 83 77 77 77 0 0 0 0 77 77 77 2          [note the valid checksum]
2 41 23 ae 0 0 0 0 41 23 ae 83 0 0 80 1 fe8 fd8 do i c! loop   [reset values]
fe8 fd8 do i c? loop
-> 1 80 0 0 83 ae 23 41 0 0 0 0 ae 23 41 2          [note the change sticks]
.idprom
-> Format/Type: 1 80  Ethernet: 00 00 83 77 77 77  Date: 0 0 0
-> Serial: 77 77 77  Checksum: 2 H/W Config: 352495  Write count:N/A
-> Reserved: c0 1d 1 6e 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
   [note the hostid is mislabeled ``serial''.  note the change does not stick.]
fe8 fd8 do i c? loop
-> 1 80 0 0 83 ae 23 41 0 0 0 0 ae 23 41 2          [note the change sticks]
   [note that .idprom is not resetting the values in memory.]


I have run set-defaults and reset before doing the map-page monkeybusiness.  
Always after I make these changes, they do not show up in the boot banner 
after a 'reset'.


I see in the technical document that serial number and hardware address 
are stored in the SEEPROM on the microcontroller---perhaps this duplicates 
the Mostek information?  Are these SEEPROM values copied into the Mostek 
at boot time?  

Note that my hostid is wrong, but my serial number still contains data.  
The serial number at boot is not similar in format or value to the one on 
the bottom of the case, but it isn't all 7's or anything silly like that.


I started having these problems after I found that my power supply was 
making a scratchy connection to the DCIN connector.  Before I fixed it, 
this power problem caused the backlight to go funky briefly as it does 
when the battery is extremely low, and then the machine had locked up and 
was unresponsive to Pause-O.  It took me one day and about 10-20 brownout 
reboots to fix this problem.  Have I damaged something?

It was during diagnosis of this power problem that I first discovered the 
incorrect ethernet address and the hangs with '099' at bootup time.  I 
have now fixed the scratchy power problem by alligator-clipping the 12V 
supply to the external battery connector's topmost pin (+) and the rear 
connector backplane (-).  It runs and charges just fine.  But the 
ethernet/hostid problem is still there, and I can't figure out how to 
reenter the values.  What am I doing wrong?

TIA for your help, everyone.