Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Today, I bought an Indigo, because it was only 15 Euros and looked good on the photo's supplied. Seller sold it as "defect" and had intended to gut it and use the case for a mod project (fit in an ATX board).

I've just taken a look, and it is a entry level R3000A version. The good news is that it starts up, displays a nice image on a LCD monitor, and is maxed out memory-wise (all positions occupied). It also has a (giant) hard-disk installed. The graphics is just entry level, but with a standard VGA output, so that's fine. The case looks pretty good, some minor scuff marks only. It needs to be cleaned.

The bad news: the TOD battery is empty (of course), so Indigo does not get very far into the booting process. The hard-disk is in position 2 and is marked "spare", so it might be empty. And there's no keyboard or mouse.

I guess the first thing is to install a new battery, and check if the machine boots up and shows a login-prompt?

IIRC somebody, somewhere else in these forums mentioned that there's a timeout on the TOD clock error. Something like 2 or 2.5 hours. You might want to let it run for a bit and see if you can get further into the boot process.

(I can't find the post I'm thinking of right now. Anybody else remember that bit of info, or am mis-remembering?)

Hello,

A very great find for that price . It seems to be in very good shape. The R3000 is a wonderfull machine, and you have the chance to have a working PSU.

Your right, the first things is to change this battery. You need a TADIRAN SL-840 (old reference is 340). You can find them on ebay or in specialized shop (10€ or so). It's also easier to change this battery on R3000 than R4000.

http://www.sgistuff.net/hardware/systems/documents/indigo-battery-faq.txt

It's very cheap to change the graphics card to XS24 (from Ian for example) to have more accelerated graphics and get access to 1280x1024, but you loose the VGA connector. The only bad thing is to find the original Keyboard and Mouse at good price because they are not PS/2. You can also find adapter to have any PS2 device on it.

http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/Keyboards

It will be very lucky to have a working Irix in this spare hard drive (without password).

I really hope you will enjoy this mythical SGI machine.


PS : It seemed to be used in the past in a chemistry lab, if we referre to the sticker behind

New battery installed and the TOD error has gone. I now get an SCSI error (timeout) and a CPU board error (no keyboard and/or mouse present). I removed the SCSI drive and now get a SCSI cable diagnostic error. Powering up the SCSI drive out of the Indigo results in a burning green light, but no evidence of the disk spinning up (noise, vibration). Doesn't look too good. Maybe it needs to get a spin-up command explicitly?

Funny thing is, the machine doesn't play the introduction chime anymore after I replaced the battery.

Confused .....

Don't think so. There are drives with a jumper for controlling auto spin, but normally these are configured to spin up automatically. To make sure, just post the type of your harddrive and if possible a photo of the jumpers in their positions (or a sketch e.g.) - I'll have a look at it if this is of any assistance for you. Btw, some of these old SCSI 50pin disks just need a slight tip on the shoulder after powering up - but please use this cludge at your own risk.
<edit>
What does "hinv" from the Command Prom say about the diskd drive?
What does happen if you try ls dksc(0,x,y) in the Prom Monitor?
</edit>


I have a spare PS/2 Adapter I bought from Nekochan member "The Keeper" some time ago. It's nicely engineered and works flawless with an Indigo. Let me know if you're interested.


Well, this sounds kinda weird. I changed the battery on some Indigos (I prefer to neatly solder in a CR2032 battery holder, makes replacement easier and cheaper, but that's only my view) but the bootup chime never disappeared. I'll will have closer look at the mainboard of a R3000 Indigo tomorrow in order to see if there is anything speaker related e.g. in the vicinity of the battery connector which coud possibly be affected. Have you checked the environment variables in the Command Prom? Although it's still weird because it worked before the battery replacement...

HtH

Regards
HDC

That would be me, on an R4000 Indigo. Of course now that the battery has been changed, this doesn't matter anymore... and you need a lot of patience to wait for 2 hours to get a prom prompt, then 2 more hours for it to process your first boot command... I ended up soldering a new battery (and I plan to solder a CR2032 socket once the new battery dies)

Some progress,

I've managed to google a manual for the drive, a Conner CP 3540 540 Mb drive, which was probably quite impressive in 1991. As I expected, the drive was jumpered to prevent spin-up. This is most likely because the drive is marked as spare. Maybe it has never been used. The downside of this is that it may be totally empty. A less likely scenario is that it has a fresh install of Irix x.x.

The drive now powers on and spins up outside the Indigo. The bad news is that it does not start when fitted inside the Indigo case. I tested all three drive positions. When powering up, the green drive light lights up briefly, then goes out. I guess the next step is to power the drive with an external source to see whether the Indigo (PSU) can supply enough juice to start up the harddisk.

Using an external power source solves the problem with the drive, no error message on screen anymore. So it does seem to be a problem with the powering-up of the diskdrive by the Indigo. Maybe time to take the machine apart and check everything. Is it possible to remove the power supply?

Yep, it's modular. The PSU is the box over the drive cage with the speaker on the front.

I pushed out the PSU and investigated it. Looks very clean inside, no dust accumulation at all. Pushed it back in it's place. Problem not solved....

If you haven't already it might be worth investigating to make sure ( all of ) the necessary power from the supply is actually arriving at the molex plug that connects to the hard drive. During the last twenty years one of the leads to the molex connector in the sled might have gotten flexed a few times too many.

Well, a sad ending to the day. I wanted to write down the exact error messages on the screen when the Indigo is doing its initial diagnostics. While I was writing down the info on the screen it "blew up". A bang and my house went dark. A quick investigation revealed the fuse had been tripped. No damage to any of the computer equipment, but the Indigo is gone for the moment.

I pulled out the PSU and it smells very burned. It was still warm as well. So what happened? What would cause the PSU to blow up? Trying to supply too much current to a faulty part? Maybe the hard-drive? The chime at start up stopped working yesterday, maybe that was a sign of things to come.

Could the mainboard and graphics board have survived?

Usually power supply failures are confined to the supply. Common ones are failed caps (shorted, usually) or blown choppers (again shorted), but these shorts usually don't last long. I've never had a failing PSU trip the mains breaker - that's a lot of current unless you're running your circuit near the max.

For that kind of current I'd look at a failure before it reaches the primary rectifier first.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I'm in The Netherlands too -- mains fuses here are the 'fast' type, and a faulty PSU will almost always trigger it, regardless of what else is on the same circuit. This has happened to me a couple of times, dried up capacitors, blown rectifiers or PFC diodes. The biggest problem is usually not replacing the component, but damage to the PCB.

I've never seen secondary damage to the rest of the system <knocks on wood>

Well, the PSU went out with a moderate bang, so I was not surprised that the fuse was tripped.

Can't see any damage to any of the parts, but I'll perform an autopsy to the PSU tonight.

Jan-Jaap, you don't happen to have some spare Indigo parts lying around?

As a matter of fact, I do. I may even have a spare keyboard & mouse.

I have an entire R4K Indigo in the grey 'Siemens' look, these seem to be less in demand (and it lacks the front door). Just have to figure out how much I need as spares for my own systems. The place is a big mess because I'm halfway moving everything from the attic to the new computer room .

That's a good looking classic SGI-machine! I'm crossing fingers that you get the PSU in order again...

Well, I took the machine apart, as shown here:

http://www.catwhisperer.co.uk/indigo/index.html

Very easy to do. Did not find any apparent damage of the backplane, the mainboard, and the graphics board. Nothing black, no funny smells. The harddrive still powers up happily. Final item to check was the PSU. I managed to pry the PSU open and took a good look inside. No blown caps, no blackened PCBs, no signs of molten leads or anything. But then again, I don't know what to look for. The PSU smelled bad afterwards, and now that I think of it, the machine (PSU) also gave off a faint odor just before failing as if something was overheating.

This is a new one for me. I think I'm gonna be sick


added:
Why would you put in a system which is not only far more poorly designed, but isn't even as fast? by your own admission!:

and then...

Do not scroll too far down ...... The first part was useful.