Re: 600au: SRM setting doesn't stick?

[hush <system%rsx11m.io@localhost>]

Mouse,

The CMOS battery should be on the mainboard, but the mainboard is not 
the mainboard if that makes sense. The PCI and ISA slots are actually on 
a separate board from the CPU/RAM/CMOS battery. If you remove the 
clamshell portion of the case and look where the PS/2, parallel, etc 
ports are you should see two lift tabs on a case-length PCB, this will 
be where the battery lives. It'll come up and out easily, then you can 
just slot it back in. Sorry if I am being unclear, I have the same model 
but it is late here so words are a bit hard x)

Just in case, here's the service manual, 5-12 and onward is what you're 
looking for: 
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/b30wwsma-60841c95f009e303767433.pdf

On 12/6/23 12:26 AM, Mouse wrote:
> I recently dragged out an alpha from storage.  According to the case,
> it's a 600au.
>
> It came up in what I think is ARC - a bunch of X3.64 escape sequences,
> prompting for keystrokes like F2.  I found enough saved doc to use its
> menu system minimally, and got it set to SRM.  And, with a bit of work,
> I even got it to boot.  (The NetBSD/alpha I had on hand turned out to
> be rather old - 2003 vintage 1.4T.  Cool that NetBSD that old runs on a
> real 64bit machine!)
>
> The reason I'm writing now is that the SRM setting doesn't seem to
> stick.  If I turn it off for more than about 250ms, it reverts back to
> ARC.  (To be precise, my sample size is two: the two times I have
> turned it off after setting SRM and left it off for more than about
> 200-300 ms, it has reverted; I have used a fast power-cycle as a reset,
> since the reset button doesn't seem to work in many cases, and it's
> worked fine, but it has been a *fast* power-cycle, and the SRM setting
> has survived those.)
>
> Am I correct in thinking this just means it needs a battery
> replacement, a la CMOS battery on i386 or amd64?  If so, can anyone
> give me a pointer to where the battery hides?  It's a nicely made
> chassis, mechanically, but it doesn't look particularly easy to
> disassemble; I'd rather avoid taking it apart to the extent feasible.
> So knowing where to look for the battery would be useful.  (I did take
> a look inside it.  I didn't see anything that looked promising, but
> only about half the main PCB was visible.)
>
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