Broken SUN 3s: what can be done?

[Nikolaos Fotis]

[ PLEASE!! Don't follow-up my posting, because our expire is at 2 days.
Instead, post to me your replies and I'll summarize. Also, don't tell me
buy a SPARC, please -- nfotis ]

I'm asking some questions about two broken SUN 3/50M , with 4 MB of RAM.

Background:

Number One :

destroued its video chips(?) - result, the image on the monitor goes like
crazy (flicker plus huge letters from the upper left corner of the frame
buffer) result: No video, usable only from a text terminal

Number Two :

doesn't pass the diagnostics on  a cold reboot - it seems that some
EEPROMS have errors in their contents.  (It doesn't pass the Segment Map
Wr/Rd Test, and then restarts the diagnostics.  Some time ago it wrote
some strange address errors) result: it doesn't boot.

>From what I know, the local dealers offer a motherboard swap for the
number One machine for an outrageous amount of money (about 7,000 US $,
because the machine would go to the northern Europe for the job).  I don't
know about the second machine.

And here are my questions:

a. What is possible for the Number One machine? I think that an (or even
better, two) used 3/60M motherboard(s) could give us something more for
VERY less than the money the local dealer asked us.

b. If the EEPROMS are the trouble in the second machine, what's needed in
replacing them? (we saw that these are non-standard EEPROMS you could get
in a hobby shop, and their connectors make extremely hard to pull them
out. We don't want to risk our last functional 3/50 for trial and error
methods...)

c. Finally, where there are good/cheap places for fixing old/dead
workstations not supported anymore?

Nikolaos Fotis			E-mail:
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Athens, GREECE			FAX: (+30 01) 77 84 578