🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Fieschko (75453.2240@CompuServe.COM) wrote:
: I just took over support for 2 SPARCstations. Although I know SysV I'm a little green on the sun.

: One of the SPARC 1+ machines has what I believe to be a memory problem. Can anyone here help? It does not finish booting up; and ends up with the PROM prompt.

: Here are the messages the 1+ displays:

: SPARCstation 1+, Type-4 Keyboard
: ROM Rev. 1.3, 40 MB memory installed, Serial #16743919
: Ethernet address ff:8f:bf:7f:2f:9f, Host ID: c5ff7def.

: Testing
: Testing audio chip
: listen for a beep
: Synchronous Error Reg Test
: Synchronous Virtual Address Reg Test
: Asynchronous Error Reg Test
: Asynchronous Virtual Address Reg Test
: System enable Reg Test
: Memory Test
: Cache Tag Memory Test
: Cache Data Memory Test
: Probing Memory Bank #: 1 2 3 4 5
: Booting from: le(0,0,0) vmunix
: The IDPROM checksum is incorrect. [msg repeats 3 times]
: Internal loopback test ---
: Did not receive expected loopback packet.
: Can't open boot device
: Available devices:
: SCSI disk [disk-device] (sd)
: Floppy Disk [disk-device] (fd)
: SCSI tape [tape-device] (st)
: le [network-device] (le)

: Type b (boot), c (continue), or n (new command mode)
: >

: ------------------------------------------------------
: It appears the machine can't find devices listed in /etc/fstab; but it starts 
: off complaining about memory, so maybe it can't "find" the devices because it
: has no memory to work with.??

: Help will surely be appreciated. I'll probably call a Sun tech to check it out,
: but has anyone experienced this before?

: Thanks,

: Pete Fieschko

Yes, I had the same problem. It is caused by the machine being turned off
before the PROM monitor has had a chance to _completely_ sync the buffers
to the HD. Although not documented, I believe the checksum hex digits 
(repeated 3 times for redundancy at the end of the EEPROM, "mirrored" at
/dev/eeprom) are marked "dirty" so if a normal shutdown is not completed
the next time, the default PROM settings will be invoked, including, as
you can see from the above, booting from the ethernet device "le" (Lance
Ethernet). The partial solution is to simply type at the (old) PROM monitor

>b sd(,,)
or from the new PROM monitor:
boot sd(,,)

This says boot from SCSI disk 0, SCSI unit number 0, partition 0.
Substitute if necessary for the different parameters of your system.

As for the long term solution, the "bootfile" and "bootdisk"(?)
parameters should be changed to reflect the above. However, that darned
checksum prevents the new values from "taking", but at least you'll have
a computer back (whew!).

While you are at it, make a hardcopy of all parameters from the eeprom
using the "eeprom" ("nvram"?) command. Believe me, you will wish you had
some day.

I haven't solved this problem on my own SparcStation 1+ at home, but only
because I just plain haven't had time, but it can't be too hard. So... do
me a favor and reply by followup your solution to same, or advice from Sun
"support"; I would be much indebted.

Good luck.
-Brian