Restoring a Sun SPARCstation IPX Part 1: PSU and Nvram
5 days ago
- #hardware-repair
- #sun-sparcstation
- #vintage-computing
- Sun SPARCstation IPX was a coveted UNIX workstation in the early 90s, known for its advanced features and robust environment.
- The SPARCstation IPX featured a 40MHz SPARC CPU, up to 64MB RAM, and specialized hardware for multitasking and UNIX performance.
- Common issues with the SPARCstation IPX include failed electrolytic capacitors in the power supply, often due to aging or poor-quality components.
- Replacing the NVRAM (M48T02) is necessary when the battery fails, as it stores critical data like the MAC address and hostid.
- The OpenBoot PROM (OBP) firmware allows configuration changes and requires reprogramming the IDPROM after NVRAM replacement.
- Despite successful repairs, some SPARCstation IPX units may still display NVRAM errors, requiring further troubleshooting.
- Solaris 7 was successfully booted, revealing logs from the year 2000, but an older Solaris 1.x release may be more period-appropriate.