Cleaning rust from transformer laminations?

I just thought that perhaps my last post was a bit fuzzy. Of course an induced voltage requires a changing flux, not just a non-zero flux. But in an AC device the flux changes constantly, so this wasn't at the forefront of my mind. My point is that, in the case of welds on the outer surfaces of the outer legs of the E only, the flux enclosed by the loop is always zero and therefore no voltage can be induced. At least that's what I think.

Back to fixing the computer...will check the group in sometime tomorrow.

Chris

Did you replace the clock IC with a Sun supplied item or did you get one from another supplier?

Some chips with the same part numbers won't work. I tried that and had the same result as you. I then took the old IC and cut the end open and soldered a new battery in place of the built in one and my U10 is now operational. There are instructions for doing the battery thing on one of the Sun support sites (not Sun.com)

Bill K7NOM

No I didn't. But the original Sun chips are manufactured by ST Microelectronics, so I bought an identical chip made by ST. Unless Sun do something very weird to the chips I can't see why it shouldn't work. And my computer is now behaving the same with either the old or the new chip. I am going to try doing a flash PROM update tonight.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Chris

PS: My hatred for Windows XP and Google Groups is growing by the hour...

I missed the context on this - you need some Sun hardware? I've probably got it. If you're in North America somewhere drop me an email and I'll see what I can dig up if you need anything.

Hasn't reached infinity yet? Hm.

Thanks for the offer. My Ultra 2's clock stopped working, so I replaced the NVRAM chip. Then my whole machine stopped working, with either the new chip or old, and fails to boot saying "Can't open deblocker package". I'm in England, so I'm guessing shipping would be prohibitive, but I might be looking for a new motherboard or bits of an Ultra 2 soon.

No, but it will. I can still remember liking 2000 Professional. A little. But then came the brightly-coloured "Fisher Price" look and fade-in menus bundled into a craptastic package which assumes the user is an XPert moron. I hate that.

Chris

Hm. That's the 28-pin DIP chip, made by Dallas Semiconductor, right? I'm out of Ultra 2's right now, but may have one or three extras for an Ultra5.

You might be surprised. If you find out that an Ultra5 Dallas chip would work, keep me in mind.

I have a personally-owned laptop that runs 2000 Pro. Tolerable.

I don't think the word "craptastic" gets used enough. Especially in IT contexts. I'll have to see if I can help it along as well.

Conductivity is an issue - the magnetic currents induce currents. The plates are normally isolated with lacquer or 'dope'. Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Robert Sw> Chris,

According to :

It isn't Sun who did something weird, but SGS-Thompson did. Their recent chips (new process) will not work in many Suns. This is based on reports in the usenet newsgroup comp.sys.sun.hardware, not personal experience.

I don't think that will do it. You need to be able to write the hostid and ethernet MAC addresses into the chip -- at least a hostid which has the right first byte for a Sun Ultra-2.

For the Ultra-2, that is: 80XXXXXX. The X characters make up the system's serial number.

The tricks are:

1) Finding at what addresses these values are located.

2) Building something which will allow you to program those specific addresses.

Go to:

to read about the problems -- and they start out with the information about the newer chips not working, so you have something from someone other than me telling about that.

It seems that they have now discovered an easier way to edit the hostid and ethernet part of the NVROM.

Good Luck, DoN.

Thanks for the offer. The NVRAM is a 28-pin DIP package, but I'm now pretty sure I now have two functional chips! I'm starting to think I have a motherboard fault. When I try "boot disk" at the "ok" prompt I get "Can't open deblocker package". When I try "boot cdrom" I get "Can't open boot device". There are no noises indicating that the machine is attempting to read from the disks. I tried a spare power supply but it didn't fix the problem (in the past I've found that a failing power supply can cause the weirdest errors). The only thing I can think of trying now is a flash PROM update over ethernet, but I only have a PC to act as the server, and I'm not sure it's worth trying. Looks like I'll probably have to buy a new Ultra 2 motherboard, or perhaps a whole U2 for spares. The pity is that I spent =A320 on that replacement NVRAM chip to fix the clock. I'm not sure if I dare send it back for a refund now that it's been inside my computer. Damn. Anyway, I'll bear you in mind for small Sun parts in the future.

Chris

Thanks for the suggestions. I've now managed to program the NVRAM and ".idprom" at the "ok" prompt gives the correct information. I just can't get the machine to boot from either disk or CD-Rom (I get the errors "Can't open deblocker package" and "Can't open boot device" respectively). I'm starting to wonder if there is something wrong with the motherboard.

Best wishes,

Chris

I have never, in 15 years of wrangling Sun hardware, seen that error message. Anything useful if you google the phrase?

What does it think the boot device is, and what does probe-scsi (or probe-scsi-all) show - do they match?

I wonder if you can boot from the cdrom using the /dev/... syntax rather than the device alias of "cdrom". I think we're back to what probe-scsi shows you is out there, which tells us a couple things actually.

"Can't open deblocker package" doesn't bring up anything useful on Google. I tried "probe-scsi-all" a bit more systematically. Oh dear. Bad news. 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.

I'm really starting to think my motherboard is dying. Damn.

Chris

Is that SCSI chain properly terminated? If so, then you're running out of fix-able hardware...

Yes, it's properly terminated and has worked fine for 18 months or more. As an additional test I removed the external devices (CD writer and hard drive), replaced them with a terminator and tried "probe-scsi-all" again. The output was still erratic, so I removed everything from the controller apart from the root disk. It ceased to be erratic but still can't properly identify the disk. It just lists it as "Target 0" whereas it would normally say "Fujitsu MAxxxxxx" or something like that. It still won't boot with just the root disk installed. The guys at comp.unix.solaris think I should try a network firmware upgrade, but this would involve quite a lot of hassle and I'm at all sure it'll solve the problem.

Best wishes,

Chris

Now it died completely. No output on the monitor, and no exchange of graphics cards, hard drives or power supplies will resurrect it. Looks like I have a few options. Get a second hand U2 motherboard, although I'd probably get better value buying a whole U2 for spares. Get an Ultra 60 and populate it with the components from my Ultra 2 (I've always fancied one, and I need SCSI). Or build a PC with SCSI, some variant of UNIX and possibly Windoze too. My immediate inclination is to buy another U2 for spares. Any thoughts?

Best wishes,

Chris

For just a few quid more, you can get a U10, U20, or U60. I'd hit eBay and see what's out there. Pretty sure those all speak SCSI. If not, external controllers, cables, and enclosures aren't rare, at least not in my basement...

I was under the impression that the U10 was a "economy" IDE machine. Certainly the ones I've used are sloooooooow compared to my U2 with dual 296 MHz processors and 1280 MB RAM. I want something of a similar speed and preferably able to accept my U2's disks. I could never understand why people bid high on U10s a few years back. I was never a big fan of them. U20 I've heard is a new x86-based machine. U60s look nice but I've never actually used one. I'll do some research.

Thanks for the help

Chris

You're right, it's the big brother to the U5. My memory is good, but short.

Dunno what they're going for, that'll be more local than anything else. I get to buy (8) 4900s for my next project at work, looking forward to that ;)

Ah, more complications! A guy from comp.unix.solaris suggested that I leave the machine for a while. It seems to have spent 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour doing POST before putting anything on the monitor. I never expected it would take so long. Anyway, it eventually said "Power On Self Test Failed. Cause: SysIO U1001". U1001 is a large IC on the motherboard, so I immediately assumed that my suspicion was confirmed and that I'd need a new motherboard/machine. But I found an old message at Sun Managers from someone who had at least partially fixed this problem by updating the OBP. I e-mailed him to ask if he ever managed to completely fix the machine or if it turned out to be a hardware failure. I'm really not sure what to think now.

Best wishes,

Chris