[OpenIndiana-discuss] Offtopic question to old SPARC users

[Hans J. Albertsson]

If I read that web site correctly, these NVRAMs are a little over 8 
years old.
This begs the question; has the shelf life of the included battery 
expired or not??

Internal leakage of these NVRAMs is minute in the disconnected state, 
but, depending on the version, remaining battery shelf life can be very 
short anyway.

I suggest buying a few, at least.

I can't remember any more, but there might be a way to measure the 
actual in-circuit battery voltage on external pins.



On 2013-11-24 02:30, Ray Butler wrote:
> You can get replacement NVRAMs from here
> http://www.memoryxsun.com/5251673.html.
> I have hundreds of still in production Netra AX1105's and this is the only
> source I've found for Sun NVRAM.
> They come pre-programmed with MAC/Host ID so if you need the existing
> config you'll have to program it yourself
> http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq
>
> Ray
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Lou Picciano <loupicciano at comcast.net>wrote:
>
>> Hello Jim,
>>
>> We've got a few of these old beasts around; the last of 'em still
>> anxiously awaiting its, uhhh... 'Retirement Party'.
>>
>> Seems to me we had to replace a battery on at least one of these at some
>> point, but don't think it was the CR2032 'button' type, as I recall. Happy
>> to send you some parts as needed(?), though distances probably an issue!(?)
>> Happy, too, to disassemble one to find battery?
>>
>> I do remember the project of flashing the EPROM when we got these
>> things...  Jumpers to be set, etc,; great fun!
>>
>> Lou Picciano
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Jim Klimov" <jimklimov at cos.ru>
>> To: "Discussion list for OpenIndiana" <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org
>> Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 5:45:19 PM
>> Subject: [OpenIndiana-discuss] Offtopic question to old SPARC users
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>>     My attention was requested to an old UltraSPARC E450 machine with
>> Solaris 8, whose clock was going slower and worse for the past few
>> days, maybe weeks. Since about today it has practically stopped -
>> or more precisely, loops over the same 2-3 second interval over and
>> over, even with NTP client enabled.
>>
>>     My hunch would be a dead battery on CMOS, or whatever the analog
>> of one would be. Any ideas where it might be located, and what model
>> it is (like CR2032 on Intel-compatibles)? Any more ideas?
>>
>>     So far they are doing backups and the machine will go into a diag
>> reboot; normal reboot did not clear the errors at least.
>>
>>     The beast is old, but serves as an appliance of an old database
>> which nobody knows how to manage or migrate nowadays, even if into
>> a Solaris8 branded zone on a newer SPARC, and the production payload
>> is needed and important. Nobody knows how it works, but they know
>> too well what for. Bummer...
>>
>> Thanks for any hints, hunches, anecdotes...
>> //Jim Klimov
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
>> OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
>> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
>> OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
>> http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>>
>
>