Hi Andreas,
great that there are still some people looking into the
old SPARCbooks from Tadpole. I have got a 3GX up and running.
> Sadly there seems to be almost no documentation available
> in the net for a Sparcbook 2
Yeah, that is really sad. Also do not have got any information!
Just to report from my work on the 3 series ones (which are
probably not to different from the earlier ones):
Mine works without battery pack, so there is some intelligence
in the battery pack (for power management), but using a power
supply it is working even without that pack!
> - after trying to reboot the unit will be almost dead.
> While pressing the power on button the LEDs on the left
> upper side of the display will
> be lit shortly, but nothing else will happen.
Hmm, that sounds strange and I never observed this due to
lost NVram values. But what I observed is the yellow/orange
Tantalum caps going bad in the small power supply piggy back
PCB inside the unit. A short prevents the notebook from
working (and sometimes even some inductors release smoke and
completely destroyong the PCB depending on which cap went
short).
After a longer time powered off, the faulty cap can recover
explaining your observation. Fortunately I had some spare
PCBs and replaced all caps in my live one which works nicely
now...
Good luck,
Erik.
