Problem with SunPCI 3 co-processor card

Fornicator

unread,

May 29, 2011, 3:40:45 AM5/29/11

to

Hi,

I have a problem with a Sun SunPCI 3 pci card.
I installed the 3.2.2 drivers sucessfully, when I type "sunpci -l" it
detect my card correctly... When I start the "sunpci" program it
doesn't show me any error messages, but the virtual computer never
start, the program stick in the SunPCI splash screen... According to
the manual emulation is supposed to start automatically... Anybody
have any clues?

Thanks

Sami Ketola

unread,

May 29, 2011, 5:01:03 AM5/29/11

to

What Solaris version you are running it on?

Sami

Fornicator

unread,

May 30, 2011, 1:53:26 AM5/30/11

to

I use Solaris 10 u9...
I partially figured what was the problem. There is a bug in the 3.2.2
SunPCI software that make it unable to start after the year 2009... So
I found a forum where there are instructions on how to manually patch
the software with a hex editor, which I did, and I found that that was
the source of the problem... Oracle created a patch for the date bug,
but since now we need a Oracle support contract to get the patches I'm
stuck...

I suppose there are no kind souls on this newsgroup who have a Oracle
support contract who would accept to download patch 118591-04 and
post it for peoples to download it, I assume it's too much to ask :-(

Sami Ketola

unread,

May 30, 2011, 6:19:22 AM5/30/11

to

Fornicator <ab...@fghijklmn.com> wrote:
> I suppose there are no kind souls on this newsgroup who have a Oracle
> support contract who would accept to download patch 118591-04 and
> post it for peoples to download it, I assume it's too much to ask :-(

I guess you are referring to bug 6913785 SunPCi 3.2.2 won't start if the
host platform clock reaches Dec 31, 2009 or after

To be sure you should get a clear message in /var/adm/messages if it
is the issue:

"Your System Time appears to be set in the future
I can't believe it's really Thu Dec 31 18:01:23 2009
Please set the system time correctly"

Sami

Fornicator

unread,

May 30, 2011, 8:06:09 AM5/30/11

to

Yes that's exactly the message I'm seeing... Also after reinstalling
the 3.2.2 package the program works perfectly when I set the date to
2009, but it's a nuisance to have to reboot the computer each time I
want to use my SunPCI card...

Rich Teer

unread,

May 30, 2011, 11:18:32 AM5/30/11

to

On Mon, 30 May 2011, Sami Ketola wrote:

> To be sure you should get a clear message in /var/adm/messages if it
> is the issue:
>
> "Your System Time appears to be set in the future
> I can't believe it's really Thu Dec 31 18:01:23 2009
> Please set the system time correctly"

Yet another reason why I hate software that thinks for me, especially
without a means to force my will upon it.

--
Rich Teer, Publisher
Vinylphile Magazine

www.vinylphilemag.com

Barry

unread,

Jun 6, 2011, 8:18:00 AM6/6/11

to

Found this on a blog. It worked for me.

In a hex editor (ghex2) I changed the longword at offset 4CF8 in
sunpcbinary from 7FFFFE2E to 01000000. This replaces the call to
validate_system_time with a nop. With this modified sunpcbinary
managed to get SunPCI3 to boot without having to change the date.

>Sami

Fornicator

unread,

Jun 6, 2011, 4:05:30 PM6/6/11

to

Hi,

I tried that hack also, but even with it the sunpci driver that is
loaded at boot time give me an error message when I boot with a date
after 2010, and the sunpci software open fine but the emulation
doesn't start... In other words I have all kinds of odd problems so I
would prefer the official patch...

>>Sami