[rescue] rescuing an ailing U10

Scott Quinn compoobah at valleyimplants.com
Sun Sep 30 11:37:29 CDT 2007


> OpenBoot is fun stuff.

Yep, my favorite consoles are OpenBoot and SRM (but I don't have much 
experience with the "real" lights and switches type). Don't like the 
Open Firmware/CHRP types as much, not nearly as user-friendly.

One thing to remember for Sun equipment that you're not sure about is 
that some OBP commands work only when "diag-switch?" is set true (for 
instance probe-pci, which will quietly do nothing if diag-switch? is 
set false). Once you're done you need to set it back false if you want 
quick booting, though.

Does anyone know if there's a way to speed up the tests on an E3k? 
Neither the diag variables (that I know of) nor the keyswitch position 
seem to affect self-test time (putting the key in "diag" displays where 
it's at, though). So far in "modern" class Sun H/W (Ultra) I have a 
U10/440/SCSI/Creator3d, U2/2x200/Creator3d, and a E3k/2x250/TGX (which 
I might be getting a brace of 400MHz boards for). I'm trying to decide 
whether to keep all three. The E3k (in common with my HP 9000/G70 and 
RS/6000 3CT) takes forever on the self-tests, which might just mean 
that I need to plan ahead when I want to use it (isn't it amazing how 
long ~7minutes can seem?).



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