March 12, 2008
DIY Antistatic wrap
Some people are more resourceful then others. I received these as a return, complete with tin-foil/aluminium-foil to fight static (or ward off mind rays?).
Posted by spiffed at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 28, 2005
Repairing Intel's D865GVHZ Motherboard
In my hands for less then 30 minutes, I had Intel's D865GVHZ motherboard installed and hooked up. Of particular note, is a new case fan hooked to the front fan connector. I knew the board worked from a past test, so the large *bang* from the machine, and the billow of smoke from the new case fan did not overly worry me. The PSU tripped from an over-current on the 12V line and the system shut down properly. Some tears for the deceased case fan, a power supply reset, and another attempt at power. *Nothing*... CPU fan spun up, lights on, no post, no video, and no immediate response to the power and reset button.
Some investigation would reveal a blown trace coming from under the IDE connectors toward the front fan connector. (see above image) With a small alligator-clip cable connecting both sides of the trace, the board booted normally. Without, nothing. Some probing with a voltmeter revealed this to be a 12 volt rail (of unknown origins).
Further quick probing showed the IDE header side to supply +12, while the fan header side should have received it. A quick google for the 3-pin connector pin-out shows the centre pin supplying +12 volts. A frankenstein union of a 3-pin connector and a 4-pin molex fan connector was wired up to supply +12 back into the broken trace through the fan header. (see above images)
With the completed assembly connected, the board powered on and operated normally, crisis averted.
Obviously, once it's been established that this hack works, the broken trace should be cut away and carefully covered.
Deciding why Intel designed the board with the +12 volt line to the fan header powering useful electronics, and why the fan header was not current protected is left as an exercise to the reader.
Posted by spiffed at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2005
Resetting the NVRAM on a Sun Ultra 5/10
So you managed to source an Ultra 5 or 10 and it has a f**ing setup password set. You really only have two options at this point: try to guess the system password (hit stop+a at boot time and then login) or clean the NVRAM.
To clear the NVRAM you can either buy a completely new unit (they're ST part number MT48T59Y available from Mouser) or you can reset the one you currently have.
If you choose to reset the one you currently have, you'll need some little object to pry it out, and some kind of 28pin SRAM. I happened to use a Dallas DS1225AB NV-SRAM chip, but regular 62XXX SRAM should work too.
With the original NVRAM chip in the machine, boot and record the machine's MAC address and host ID; if you miss this step, don't worry, new ones can be made up later.
Remove the original NVRAM and replace it with your own. The NVRAM is the rather large black chip with an orange label underneath the PCI slots. To remove it, grasp the protrusions on the end of the chip and (carefully) pull.
Boot the system. It should get upset about invalid idprom and NVRAM data, this is normal. If you're not at the 'OK' prompt, push <STOP> + <A> to bring you there.
Now carefully remove the temporary chip and carefully replace it with the old one.
From the console run 'set-defaults' (type that followed by an enter at the OK prompt).
Your machine now no-longer has a password; unfortunately, your machine no longer has any settings either.
From the 'OK' prompt, enter the command 'setenv diag-switch? false' (followed by an enter), and your machine should respond with diag-switch? = false. Again at the OK prompt, type the six hex-pairs of your MAC address separated by spaces (eg '80 0 20 4E 5F 61') then another space. Enter the six hex digits of your hostid (eg 'F00BA5') then another space. Finally enter 'mkpl' followed by an <enter> ('M' 'K' 'P' 'L'). Your full command should have looked like '80 0 20 4E 5F 61 F00BA5 mkpl' <enter>. If you forgot your MAC or hostID, feel free to make them up; the first three digits of your MAC should be '80 0 20' (Sun's prefix). If, after entering the previous command, you get an 'OK' prompt and no other output, you're ready to go.
Typing 'reset' at the console will power cycle your Ultra.
Sources
Mark Henderson's NVRAM guide.
Posted by spiffed at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 4, 2005
An Apple G4 Keyboard under Windows NT/2000/XP
I fell in love with the feel of the modern Apple USB Keyboards since I first played with a G4. Unfortunately, their not cheap as new hardware; fortunately, they can be found for about $12 including delivery on eBay. Unfortunately (again), these tend to be from the G3 or early G4 era and are a far more non-PC friendly layout then the more modern version. (On the up side, they're smaller then conventional PC keyboards and you can likely fit them + your mouse into a regular keyboard tray.
To begin with, you'll find that Windows identifies it as a regular HID keyboard, and if you have USB Keyboard support turned on in your BIOS, DOS and the BIOS recognise it as a regular Keyboard as well.
Finding all the right keys can be tricky at first; for the most part, keys are labeled correctly, and in general, if a key has a label, it's mapped that way. The key in the lower left labelled 'control' is the 'ctrl' key, the key labelled 'option' (with 'alt' above it) is the 'alt' key and everything else you can recognize is what it should be and the Apple key (or 'command' for those Mac savvy) is now the Windows key on both sides.
If you're required to hit 'ctrl+alt+del' to login to Windows, you'll find that the number pad's '.' key functions as both a '.' key (with numlock on) and the 'del' key (with numlock off). To log into windows, hold down the keys labeled 'control' and 'option' and push the '.' key on the number pad. If this doesn't work, push the 'clear'/'num lock' key once and try again.
Now comes the fun part. If you're not a fan of the default layout, you can remap most any key to most anywhere else. Microsoft provides a free tool to do this in the "Windows Resource Kit" (yes, this is the 2003 version, but it works in XP and 2000). The program is called RemapKey, and if you happen to forget where to get it, a quick Google for 'emacs' and 'windows' will turn up thousands of pages of EMACS folks whining about using it to swap the control and capslock key. Once you have the kit downloaded and installed, go to run and type in 'remapkey' and click 'OK'.
It's beautifully simple to use, simply drag the correct key action from the keyboard at the top of the window to the key you'd like to push on the keyboard at the bottom of the window. Conveniently, a manual is avliable. In order to effectively use the program, you'll need to remember to look at the names of the keys, and not necessarily their location on the virtual keyboard, and that the Apple keyboards 'Apple' key is the Windows key, and the 'help' key is really the insert key.
Personally, I remapped the left 'Apple' key to 'alt', the 'option' key to the 'Windows' key, and the right 'Apple' key to right 'ctrl' just to keep with how a PC keyboard normally feels. Additionally, I remapped the 'help' key (called insert) to the 'del' key because it felt like a good place for it.
Good things: It feels good, almost all the keys are where they were before, you have a new 2 port USB hub, you have more room where your keyboard goes.
Bad things: you're missing some keys (not any good ones). (Also, I don't think the keyboard's power button does anything now.)
Posted by spiffed at 7:35 PM | Comments (0)