Non Volatile RAM checksum error!!

[Wiltse Carpenter]

In article <1990Sep7.071805.22982 at ariel.unm.edu> jcmiller at hydra.unm.edu (Jeff Miller) writes:
>
>	I have had this repetitive problem with my SGI 4d/20 system that
>I am rebuilding. 
> :
>Non-volatile RAM checksum is incorrect: Initializing the non-volatile
>  RAM parameters.
>
>	I suspected that the problem might be a low lithium battery, but

The battery powers only the time of day clock and does not affect the
non-volatile ram (an EEPROM).

>	A friend said that the problem might be a bad NVRAM chip on the
>motherboard.

The non-volatile ram is actually on a small pc board with the reset
button connected to the motherboard by a small ribbon cable.  It
contains some of the stuff that gets printed when you do a ``printenv''
from the PROM's manual mode prompt (e.g. bootfile) and generally
gets set with the setenv command from the same prompt.  It also
contains the Ethernet address so that switching electronics modules
does not change the machine's address.

>	Any comments, solutions, remarks, etc. would be GREATLY
>	appreciated!

Perhaps the little cable is disconnected (try typing eaddr in the
PROM to see if your Enet address looks reasonable), or maybe the
EEPROM is bad.

	-Wiltse