Hi,

I recently purchased a used alphaserver 1200 from ebay, and found that upon 
booting, the TOY (time-of-year, real-time) clock fails test 3, and forces the 
system to issue an automatic halt assertion. Because of this halt assertion, 
I can't continue booting the system. At least that's my assesment, although I 
am new to alphas. It always boots into the SRM, and even if I set auto_action 
to BOOT, and issue a "boot dva0," it replies 

Halt is or has been asserted, BOOT NOT POSSIBLE

The "date" command replies

P00>>>date
127:255:255    255, 2155

And even if I try to set the current time with the date command, it seems to 
have no effect.

Has anyone ever had their TOY clock go bad? Does anyone know if it's a 
battery I am not finding that needs replaced(i've searched the whole 
motherboard, but haven't taken it out of the case to check the back)? Or is 
there some way I can force an override of this halt assertion to make it 
continue booting?

I know this is not specifically netbsd related, but I do plan on installing 
netbsd if I can ever get the devil to boot, and I figure you all have a 
wealth of experience to draw from.

I deeply appreciate any help!!

Thanks,
Martin