[Sunhelp] THIS SUCKS!!!

[James Lockwood]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Alan Rubin wrote:

> well, you didn't want to do this, but i will mention it anyways. you can
> take out the prom chip, put it in backwards and turn on the power for 1
> second, and turn it off.  this will clear out the chip.  you can then put
> the chip back correctly, and the default settings should be restored.  

The PROM chip is read only and very few good things will result from
plugging it in backwards.  The NVRAM chip may be cleared by doing this,
but at the great risk of frying both the chip and motherboard.

Stop-N should work, if you press and hold these keys immediately after
poweron until something comes up on the screen.  If this still doesn't
work, try attaching a terminal to serial port A and breaking into the ok
prompt from there.

If nothing else works and you really want to clear the NVRAM...

   Take a 24-pin chip socket and clip off one of the address or data
   lines. Pin 1 is A7 and that works fine.
                             
   Remove NVRAM from motherboard.  Plug the socket into the motherboard
   and the NVRAM chip into the socket.
   
   Power the system on.  You will get an NVRAM checksum error.  At the ok
   prompt, type anything that induces an NVRAM write (set-defaults
   works).
   
   Power the system off.  Unplug the NVRAM and socket, then plug the
   NVRAM back into the motherboard.  Power on and you will get another
   checksum error.  You can now program the NVRAM to your hearts content.
   
   It sounds more complicated, but it's really quite fast and easy as you
   don't have to worry about killing any hardware while the power is on.

-James