Weirdness with AlphaPC 164: installing SRM firmware, etc.

[Joel Votaw <jovotaw cs nmsu edu>]

I recently purchased an old AlphaPC 164 motherboard and processor, and am
having a hard time getting it running.  Specifically, I am trying to
replace the AlphaBIOS with SRM and just can't get it to work.  I'm also
having some funkiness with the built-in IDE and floppy controllers.

I know all of this has been answered on this list before, but after
digging through the archive for an hour I haven't found solid answers to
all of my questions.  So.... please excuse the repetition. 


1.  I have Tru64 UNIX here, which includes the SRM Firmware Updates CD.  I
copied off the AlphaPC164 directory to a FAT-formatted floppy and tried
"Update Firmware" in AlphaBIOS.  I get blinky lights for 3 seconds, then a
"device error" without further info. 

2.  Interestingly, AlphaBIOS seems to be recognizing the floppy only if it
is plugged into the first port on the cable; that is, the one before the
twist.  If it is plugged into the end (after the twist) it will recognize
it, but only as a secondary floppy.  Isn't this backwards? 

3.  I have tried running fwupdate.exe directly ("Run a program: " with
either "a:\fwupdate.exe" or "multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)\fwupdate.exe") and
get the same behavior as in 1.) above.  Yes, I have tried different floppy
drives and cables.  Yes, I have them plugged into the motherboard with the
red wire on the 1 pin. 

4.  A Fail Safe Boot firmware update accesses the floppy drive for about
50 seconds, with the screen blank, but nothing is different when I reboot
after that. 

5.  With the Firmware CD in an ATAPI CD-ROM drive on the secondary IDE
bus, I get the same behavior as with the floppy.  Tried blind, dumb
"upgrade firmware" as well as permutations on "run a program".  Don't have
a spare ATAPI CD-ROM to try to make sure it's not hatred for this specific
drive.

6.  With the Firmware CD in a SCSI CD-ROM drive attatched to an Adaptec
2940UW SCSI controller, I get nothing ("device error" again I believe) 
when I try an "update firmware" from the main screen.  If I try to run it
directly (run program scsi(0)cdrom(4)fdisk(0)\alphapc164\fwupdate.exe) I
get an "Invalid image" error.  Which I take to mean that the executable is
not valid for some reason...? 

7.  Installing Windows NT from CD-ROM (with the SCSI CD-ROM) works great. 
It dies when it can't find the floppy drive for the drivers floppy (only
have a two connector floppy cable right now, so NT would have to look to
drive B: I guess, which it won't do), but other than that it works fine.


I'm going to continue trying different permutations (ATAPI CD-ROM on the
primary bus) and work arounds (disguise fwupdate.exe as the NT installer
program; put fwupdate.exe on a hard drive; etc.), but I wanted to make
sure I wasn't doing something obviously wrong.  Could the power supply
(only 275W, from PC Power & Cooling) be too weak, thus causing some subtle
brown out, such that everything works fine except the firmware update?

Likewise, I have the green ATX soft-power wire grounded to the side of the
power supply (both ends of the wire: PS and motherboard ends).  Should I
instead ground it to the neighboring black ground wire?  Is this perhaps
subtlely screwing things up?

Maybe a dying CMOS(?) battery?

Finally, I saw in the May archives that someone had a work around for
updating the firmware when it just wouldn't work the way it should... but
I couldn't find the details of the actual work around.  Does anyone
remember what it was, or if it would apply to this situation? 


Thanks in advance for any help,

	-Joel