AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem

On Sun, 1 May 2016, Robert Jarratt wrote: I can't help with the chip, except that the manual states it's a 64-Kbyte part. But something has struck me: "When the SROM code has completed its tasks, it normally loads the DROM code and turns control over to it. The SROM checks to see if the DROM contains the proper header and that the checksum is correct. If either check fails, the SROM code reads a location in the TOY NVRAM. The location indicates which console firmware (the SRM or the ARC) should be loaded." -- I think it's highly unlikely that DROM is corrupted *and* it passes the checksum test *and* corrupt DROM code works well enough to progress through any POST stages at all (i.e. change LEDs to anything beyond what SROM has left). So I wonder what else might be causing the symptoms you have seen. SROM console output undoubtedly might help here as DROM might be reporting what it does not like, about NVRAM presumably. One possibility I have in mind is it's something peculiar about DRAM. As you may have been aware DROM code isn't run directly, it's loaded by SROM into DRAM. If it fails a specific bit pattern at a specific location for some reason, then you might see symptoms like these. So shuffling DRAM modules might change something here. Other than that maybe it's NVRAM after all. But what could it be then that did not show up in your testing? Could it be that the settings and environment variables stored there are protected with a checksum (or a signature) which happened to be correct for the random contents after power was restored and that in turn confused DROM diagnostics? Can you wipe NVRAM with your program, reinstall the DROM chip and see if the error returns? I start running out of ideas, and sorry to have misled you into thinking it might be DROM contents which are wrong -- given the checksum protection I think it's highly unlikely after all. Maciej