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Hi all,

I just thought I'd post a message here before I buy a new motherboard
for my Sun Ultra 2. I've already asked this question at
comp.unix.solaris, but I thought that perhaps different people read
this group.

A few weeks ago my Ultra 2's clock started losing time. I reset it a
few times. Sometimes it kept time while the machine was switched off,
but other times it didn't. After searching the web and asking a
question at comp.unix.solaris, I bought a new NVRAM chip from
www.farnell.co.uk. The new chip is from the same manufacturer and
carries the same model number as the original. After I fitted the chip
I couldn't get any output on the monitor, but I now suspect this could
have been due to a loose chip or monitor cable. I made quite sure I
inserted the chip the correct way round. After exchanging the chips
again I got an output on the monitor, but couldn't get the machine to
boot. Now it won't boot with either the new or old chip. I get the
message "Can't open deblocker package" if I try to boot from disk, or
"Can't open boot device" if I try to boot from CD-Rom. There are no
sounds indicating that the machine is attempting to read from the disk
or CD-Rom, but I have heard some extremely faint beeps from the
speaker. I'm not sure if the beeps mean anything. I wondered if perhaps
the PROM had got corrupted, but I can't easily flash it because I can't
boot from CD-Rom.

Anyone got an idea what might be wrong? I've tried a different power
supply and I'm starting to suspect the motherboard, but I wouldn't want
to replace it unnecessarily.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Chris Tidy

christopher.tidy@gmail.com wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I just thought I'd post a message here before I buy a new motherboard
> for my Sun Ultra 2. I've already asked this question at
> comp.unix.solaris, but I thought that perhaps different people read
> this group.
>
> A few weeks ago my Ultra 2's clock started losing time. I reset it a
> few times. Sometimes it kept time while the machine was switched off,
> but other times it didn't. After searching the web and asking a
> question at comp.unix.solaris, I bought a new NVRAM chip from
> www.farnell.co.uk. The new chip is from the same manufacturer and
> carries the same model number as the original. After I fitted the chip
> I couldn't get any output on the monitor, but I now suspect this could
> have been due to a loose chip or monitor cable. I made quite sure I
> inserted the chip the correct way round. After exchanging the chips
> again I got an output on the monitor, but couldn't get the machine to
> boot. Now it won't boot with either the new or old chip. I get the
> message "Can't open deblocker package" if I try to boot from disk, or
> "Can't open boot device" if I try to boot from CD-Rom. There are no
> sounds indicating that the machine is attempting to read from the disk
> or CD-Rom, but I have heard some extremely faint beeps from the
> speaker. I'm not sure if the beeps mean anything. I wondered if perhaps
> the PROM had got corrupted, but I can't easily flash it because I can't
> boot from CD-Rom.
>
> Anyone got an idea what might be wrong? I've tried a different power
> supply and I'm starting to suspect the motherboard, but I wouldn't want
> to replace it unnecessarily.
>
> Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Chris Tidy
>
I think I read an earlier thread that indicated you had already tried
Stop-N; if not, that would be worth a try.

I guess it might also be worth trying a net boot before giving up.
If you could do that, you might be able to do some additional diagnosis.

The weird thing to me is that error sounds like an OBP problem rather
than a problem with the NVRAM ; as I recall, there's a backup copy of
the OBP on the Ultra 2 -- perhaps you could try that?

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've already tried <Stop-N>. Do you know
where I can find literature about using the backup copy of the OBP?

I just tried running "probe-scsi-all" at the "ok" prompt
systematically. The results are really making me concerned about the
motherboard. It's behaving quite erratically. First time I got this:

/sbus@1f,0/SUNW,fas@e,8800000

Target 0
Target 1
Target 2

unexpected message in 13

Next time target 2 was replaced by target 6, the unexpected message bit
was gone and the machine hung, and the third time it didn't find any
devices at all. The fourth time it did the same as the first. There
should actually be targets 0,1,2,5 and 6 on this controller, and they
all have unique IDs. My SBus SCSI controller performs consistently.

Best wishes,

Chris

christopher.tidy@gmail.com wrote:
> message "Can't open deblocker package" if I try to boot from disk, or
> "Can't open boot device" if I try to boot from CD-Rom. There are no
> sounds indicating that the machine is attempting to read from the disk
> or CD-Rom, but I have heard some extremely faint beeps from the
> speaker. I'm not sure if the beeps mean anything. I wondered if perhaps
> the PROM had got corrupted, but I can't easily flash it because I can't
> boot from CD-Rom.
>
> Anyone got an idea what might be wrong? I've tried a different power
> supply and I'm starting to suspect the motherboard, but I wouldn't want
> to replace it unnecessarily.
>

Try checking scsi cable and terminator. Is system stable when disk and
cd-rom are disconnected? How about with disk only? And cd-rom only?

Does net boot function?
Does test-all print any clues?
Does enabling diag mode show any post failures?

christopher.tidy@gmail.com wrote:

> Thanks for the suggestion. I've already tried <Stop-N>. Do you know
> where I can find literature about using the backup copy of the OBP?
>
docs.sun.com

If you have trouble finding it, let me know and I'll dig through
my stack of papers and see if I can find the doc name/number. It
involves changing a jumper on the motherboard (which might help you
construct a search to find the doc, BTW).

> I just tried running "probe-scsi-all" at the "ok" prompt
> systematically. The results are really making me concerned about the
> motherboard. It's behaving quite erratically. First time I got this:
>
> /sbus@1f,0/SUNW,fas@e,8800000
>
> Target 0
> Target 1
> Target 2
>
> unexpected message in 13
>
> Next time target 2 was replaced by target 6, the unexpected message bit
> was gone and the machine hung, and the third time it didn't find any
> devices at all. The fourth time it did the same as the first. There
> should actually be targets 0,1,2,5 and 6 on this controller, and they
> all have unique IDs. My SBus SCSI controller performs consistently.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Chris
>


--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

christopher.tidy@gmail.com wrote:

> Thanks for the suggestion. I've already tried <Stop-N>. Do you know
> where I can find literature about using the backup copy of the OBP?

Here it is:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/802...jumper+&a=view

>
> I just tried running "probe-scsi-all" at the "ok" prompt
> systematically. The results are really making me concerned about the
> motherboard. It's behaving quite erratically. First time I got this:
>
> /sbus@1f,0/SUNW,fas@e,8800000
>
> Target 0
> Target 1
> Target 2
>
> unexpected message in 13
>
> Next time target 2 was replaced by target 6, the unexpected message bit
> was gone and the machine hung, and the third time it didn't find any
> devices at all. The fourth time it did the same as the first. There
> should actually be targets 0,1,2,5 and 6 on this controller, and they
> all have unique IDs. My SBus SCSI controller performs consistently.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Chris
>


--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

I checked all the cables and removed the external devices. I put a
terminator on the back of the machine. The output of "probe-scsi-all"
is still erratic. Sometimes it shows nothing, and other times it shows
the devices, but just as "Target 0", "Target 1" etc., then hangs. It
seems to do these alternately. Removing the CD-Rom just removes it from
the list of devices found. The behaviour is a bit like what happened
when I put a differential SCSI terminator on the back once and it hung
the SCSI bus. But I've checked the cables and it's been working fine
with these devices for over a year.

"test-all" gives the following message for the SCSI controller. It
isn't explicitly a failure message. I'm not sure what it means:

/sbus@1f,0/SUNW,fas@e,8800000
CE DMA fill from address ffeea000 for 80 bytes

Thanks for the help,

Chris

christopher.tidy@gmail.com wrote:

> I checked all the cables and removed the external devices. I put a
> terminator on the back of the machine. The output of "probe-scsi-all"

Also check the internal scsi cables and try removing (then later
reattaching) the internal devices too. If there's a sbus scsi card,
remove that too.

Tried all that now - no luck!

Will continue sometime tomorrow...

Chris

christopher.tidy@gmail.com wrote:
> Tried all that now - no luck!
>

In the thread you posted on comp.unix.solaris, you mentioned
probe-scsi-all still doesn't respond correctly with the hard drive
connected to the controller. The next steps I would suggest are to see
if probe-scsi-all responds correctly with nothing connected, then see if
the response is correct with only the cd-rom drive connected.

As already suggested, it's best to try and isolate the problem by
testing with a as few components as possible. Namely, remove as much
hardware as possible.

The symptoms, aside from the NVram issues, appear to be trouble with
scsi controller, cable, terminator, or device (it can be any device and
the hard drive is one suspect). One bad device can affect the entire
scsi bus.