sun ultra 5 nvram/tod replacement question

[cgonan]

I have an old Ultra 5 that cannot hold a current date. I do not see a battery that can be replaced. After doing some reading I see an NVRAM/TOD chip that I thought might be a problem.

Does anyone know where the battery is, if this nvram/tod chip is all that needs to be replaced, and what else it holds that I may lose in case I replace it.

Thank you

 

[mrn]

The battery is in the top part of the chip. It can be replaced but you'll need a soldering iron.... See

http://www.bhargavaz.net/nvram/nvram.html

for howto (with pic's). I wouldn't attempt it. It's even a pain to replace with a new one, a phone call to Sun might be in order.

Mike

"A foolproof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

http://www.airport-parking-site.co.uk/

 

[cgonan]

Thank you.

I am simply doing this because the date/time on the machine doesn't stay correct. Will this fix it or is there something else?

What would be the consequences of replacing the entire nvram/tod chip with one from another machine?

 

[cndcadams]

cgonan;

I don't know if you already replaced your nvram but the only thing that will happen is your nvram settings may be different. If you have setup nvramrc or aliases for other drives those will be gone. Also make sure the nvram you take is from another ultra 5. Also double check the date and time when you boot up.

Thanks

CA

 

[Annihilannic]

Isn't that also the chip that contains the system's serial number... or something? I seem to remember something about changing NVRAM chips breaking software that was host-locked. Obviously irrelevant if you don't have any software licensed like that...

Annihilannic.

 

[cndcadams]

Annihilannic;

You are correct on that. If you were running Veritas or Oracle the license would be assigned to the hostid contained on the NVRAM ( can't believe I forgot to mention this). Since this is an ultra 5 I would suspect it would not be used for such applications but you never know. There are ways to change the hostid to your original nvrams hostid. Look on

http://www.squirrel.com

for changeing hostid on your nvram.

Thanks

CA