Corrupt BIOS on Sun w1100z Opteron box

Hi,

I've got one of those Sun Opteron boxes on my desk (Sun Java

Workstation W1100z). Actually, it's more of a foot stool now,

because the BIOS is corrupted and the machine won't boot. How

did I manage to corrupt the BIOS? Well, the BIOS was showing a

fan fault, even though the fan was running okay. So I attempted

to update the BIOS to R01B4S3 using the Supplemental CD-ROM.

However, the update hung part-way through and now the BIOS is

corrupted. According to SunSolve, this is the "fan pulse" issue.

It says:

# Problem Statement:

#

# The Sun Java[TM] Workstation W2100z/W1100z may hang during BIOS

# upgrade, due to"fan pulse", a known issue in BIOS R01B4S2.

#

# The FAN pulse issue was addressed in BIOS R01B4S3, so the BIOS

# upgrade is required to solvethis issue.

#

# Resolution:

#

# To avoid the hang during BIOS upgrade, setup the"System Cooling"

# parameter to"Aggressive" mode, so the upgrade can be done

# successfully.

#

# When the upgrade is complete,return the"System Cooling"

# parameter to"Normal".

However, the System Cooling *was* set to "Aggressive", and the

system hung anyway. And the warranty expired on March 31st, so

Sun won't do anything about it.

This is a catch-22 situation, so other people out there must have

encountered it. How does one recover from this?

What I'd like to do is simply order a new BIOS chip and install

it myself. However, Sun doesn't have a part number for this.

Does anybody out there know where I can get a BIOS chip from?

We have other Sun Opteron boxes on our network, so I could try

a hot-swap, but I might end-up with two dead BIOS chips and

maybe a dead mother board. Has anyone out there tried a hot

swap of the BIOS on a Sun Opteron box?

Thanks in advance for any advice,

John

[2216 byte] By [hebron] at [2007-11-26 6:49:43]