SUN Fire V240 OBP downgrade problems

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Darkstar
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SUN Fire V240 OBP downgrade problems

Post by Darkstar »

Hey,

I'm having trouble with a OBP/PROM upgrade (actually a downgrade) on a Sun Fire V240 box.

I currently have this:

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ok .version
Release 4.16.2  created 2004/10/04 18:22
OBP 4.16.2 2004/10/04 18:22 Sun Fire V210/V240,Netra 240
OBDIAG 4.16.2 2004/10/04 18:23
POST 4.16.2 2004/10/04 22:43
I want to downgrade the OBP to 4.11.4 (anything before 4.16 actually) to be able to use non-SUN branded CL2.5 DIMMs in the machine (as described here for the V250).

I have the correct firmware file for the SUN Fire V240, patch 116056-01 from here, which says that it applies to the Fire V240:

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OBSOLETE Patch-ID# 116056-01
Keywords: sun fire v210/v240 netra 240 security
Synopsis: Obsoleted by: 116056-03 Hardware/PROM: Sun Fire V210/V240 Netra 240 
...
Relevant Architectures: sun fire v210/v240 netra 240
...
      Available Firmware Revisions
      ----------------------------
 
-LATEST flash-update-SunFire240-latest
	OBP:  4.11.4 created 2003/07/23 08:04 Sun Fire V210/V240,Netra 240
	POST, 4.11.4 07/23/2003 11:42  
...
When I boot that file from the obp, it again shows that it applies to the Fire V240, but then aborts due to an unsupported model number:

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ok boot disk /flash-update-SunFire240-latest
Probing system devices
Probing memory
Probing I/O buses

Sun Fire V240, No Keyboard
Copyright 1998-2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
OpenBoot 4.16.2, 512 MB memory installed, Serial #64367735.
Ethernet address 0:3:ba:d6:2c:77, Host ID: 83d62c77.


Rebooting with command: boot disk /flash-update-SunFire240-latest
Boot device: /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/disk@0,0  File and args: /flash-update-SunFire240-latest
/

Standalone Flash PROM Update Utility, Rev. 2.8
                        Ultra(tm) 1
                        Ultra(tm) 2
                        Ultra(tm) 5/10
                        Ultra(tm) 30
                        Ultra(tm) 60 / E220R / Netra T1120/1125
                        Ultra(tm) 80 / E420R / Netra T1400/1405
                        Ultra(tm) Enterprise(tm) 250
                        Ultra(tm) Enterprise(tm) 450
                        Sun Blade(tm) 100
                        Sun Blade(tm) 1000
                        Sun Fire (tm) 280R
                        Sun Fire (tm) 480R
                        Sun Fire (tm) 880
                        Netra(tm) T4
                        Sun Fire (tm) V210/V240,Netra 240
                        Sun Fire (tm) V440


**ERROR: The system part number (SUNW,375-3225) was not recognized,
         therefore you may not upgrade any flash PROM in the system.


Program terminated
ok 
However, the device tree on the PROM shows that my machine is indeeed a SUN Fire V240:

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ok cd /
ok .properties
boot-retained-page
banner-name              Sun Fire V240
model                    SUNW,375-3225
idprom                   01 83 00 03 ba d6 2c 77 00 00 00 00 d6 2c 77 3b ...
scsi-initiator-id        00000007
stick-frequency          00b71b00
clock-frequency          09f437c0
breakpoint-trap          0000007f
#size-cells              00000002
name                     SUNW,Sun-Fire-V240
device_type              jbus
Analyzing the update file shows the following part numbers are in the binary:

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$ strings flash-update-SunFire240-latest | egrep "^SUNW,[[:digit:]]{3}-...."|sort|uniq|xargs echo
SUNW,254-0078 SUNW,370-3202 SUNW,370-3274 SUNW,370-3697 SUNW,370-4116 SUNW,370-ZZZZ SUNW,375-0009 SUNW,375-0066 
SUNW,375-0096 SUNW,375-3063 SUNW,375-3084 SUNW,375-3107 SUNW,375-3119 SUNW,375-3120 SUNW,375-3122 SUNW,375-3149 
SUNW,375-3150 SUNW,375-3166 SUNW,375-3167 SUNW,375-3178 SUNW,501-2486 SUNW,501-2836 SUNW,501-2996 SUNW,501-3082 
SUNW,501-3132 SUNW,501-3139 SUNW,501-4134 SUNW,501-4143 SUNW,501-4291 SUNW,501-4300 SUNW,501-4450 SUNW,501-4681 
SUNW,501-5168 SUNW,501-5270 SUNW,501-5440 SUNW,501-5672 SUNW,501-5673 SUNW,501-5819 SUNW,501-5938 SUNW,501-6230 
SUNW,501-6323 SUNW,501-6344 SUNW,501-6560 SUNW,501-6768 SUNW,502-4681 SUNW,525-1410 SUNW,525-1411 SUNW,525-1414 
SUNW,525-1448 SUNW,525-1662 SUNW,525-1669 SUNW,525-1672 SUNW,525-1681 SUNW,525-1701 SUNW,525-1718 SUNW,525-1776 
SUNW,525-1780 SUNW,525-1793 SUNW,525-1807 SUNW,525-1887 SUNW,525-1970
...and indeed, the SUNW,375-3225 is not in there.

So what kind of strange version of a Sun Fire V240 do I have here? Is there any way to change the model string in the device tree properties for the downgrade? Or do I have to pull the flash chip and flash it externally? Googling seems not to help much, since all links and references to any sort of SUN documentation have disappeared by now (since SUN was acquired by Oracle)
I upload stuff to archive.org from time to time. See here for everything that doesn't fit BA

wbyte
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Re: SUN Fire V240 OBP downgrade problems

Post by wbyte »

I'm not familiar with V240. I have few V100 and they store the configuration on an external card.
You could try with setenv banner-name and setenv model, but I'm not sure its supported in obp on this model.

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SYSTEM V/68 Release 3.0  Version 1-Rev_A  M68020
sysV68
Copyright (c) 1984 AT&T
Copyright (c) 1985 Motorola, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

Darkstar
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Re: SUN Fire V240 OBP downgrade problems

Post by Darkstar »

wbyte wrote:I'm not familiar with V240. I have few V100 and they store the configuration on an external card.
You could try with setenv banner-name and setenv model, but I'm not sure its supported in obp on this model.
Since these are properties from the device-tree and not boot variables, you cannot simply set them with "setenv"

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ok printenv model
Unknown option: model
ok setenv model foo
Unknown option: model
ok
Since I really don't want to buy those expensive CL2 DDR modules from eBay, my next idea would be to re-flash the SPD EEPROM with the CL2 settings... :)
I upload stuff to archive.org from time to time. See here for everything that doesn't fit BA

sunscreen
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Re: SUN Fire V240 OBP downgrade problems

Post by sunscreen »

tl;dr: your system board is too new to run with OBP < 4.16

the system handbook has

375-3225 . V210/V240 0MB FRU . 1 × 1.336GHz US IIIi November 2004

Patch 116056-01 is dated Oct/24/2003, which means it's certainly too old to recognize your board.

Unfortunately, it seems there is no patch that has firmware < 4.16 that's newer than Nov 2004 (116056-02 has 4.16 and is probably too old for your system and also seems to have some bugs. 116056-03 is dated Oct/04/2004 and has 4.16.1, and is probably the oldest that will support your system).

You could try hacking some strings in the firmware, but this might brick your system.

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