SGI: Hardware

A silver cube with lots of goodies. It ran in a rack previously so all skins have been stripped, even the bottom wheels. Therefore i cannot turn it on yet without frying the machine, so i have to wait until the skins arrive which should be somewhere next week.

So visual inspection gives:
- Two node boards
- standard null-router
- GE16
- RM10 256
- RM10 256
- DG5-2

Which makes it an InfiniteReality3 machine

and in the XIO section
- IO6G
- Shoehorn! with Qlogic 2200 FC card

The guy also has the two Barco projectors still in storage, so curious if they still work.

More to come..

Nice freebie

Assuming all panels are installed, you cannot really fry it as long as you put it on blocks so it can blow the hot air out the bottom?

Was that an "official" rackmount or a deskside stripped naked? I still have some of the Onyx2 rackmounted deskside skins / rails, if you want to properly mount it in a rack. It's not as pretty as a deskside, but the metal front has a no-nonsense "don't mess with me this is serious business" feel to it, and it solves airflow problems.

It's a stripped deskside. you're right Jan-Jaap, i can probably find some wood to place the machine on top of it.

Is there any trick in removing the nodeboards btw? I'm testing removal on my old Origin2000 and it feels like i have to apply an unreasonable amount of force. I removed the blanking plate next to the nodeboard, but i cannot find any extra screws of latches holding the boards in place.

(btw there is this gooey rubber on the blanking plate which protected the large compression connector on the backplane for years. The rubber is now sweating and partly ripped apart after i took the plate out. My most logical conclusion i could muster is that re-inserting the blanking plates would result in smudge and dirt on the compression connector so i remove the rubber.)

That is a VERY nice freebie .

dexter1 wrote: Is there any trick in removing the nodeboards btw? I'm testing removal on my old Origin2000 and it feels like i have to apply an unreasonable amount of force. I removed the blanking plate next to the nodeboard, but i cannot find any extra screws of latches holding the boards in place.

You need to release both the two screws and the two 7/64" hex bolts.
It can take quite a bit of force to release a nodeboard. Use a foot to keep the chassis in place and pull with both hands

jan-jaap wrote:

dexter1 wrote: Is there any trick in removing the nodeboards btw? I'm testing removal on my old Origin2000 and it feels like i have to apply an unreasonable amount of force. I removed the blanking plate next to the nodeboard, but i cannot find any extra screws of latches holding the boards in place.

You need to release both the two screws and the two 7/64" hex bolts.
It can take quite a bit of force to release a nodeboard. Use a foot to keep the chassis in place and pull with both hands

waitaminute, 7/64 Hex bolts? As far as i can see there are only two spring-locked screws, one at the top and one at the bottom. I've looked in the owder's manual but i can't find any reference to hex bolts.

UPDATE: Aha! the Red cyllindrical bolts in the middle. I mistook them for some NMI jack or something other vague

Nevermind, i have a go at it later. Thanks anyway for the help.

dexter1 wrote: UPDATE: Aha! the Red cyllindrical bolts in the middle.

Orange, but yeah, those are the ones.

Beware that using European, metric tools won't work (or you're going to damage something).

I ordered a set of 'inch' hex keys online, but apparently Harley Davidson shops have them as well

Also, the common wisdom is to release the hex bolts first, then the screws on the top and bottom. When reinstalling, secure the screws, then the hex bolts. Supposedly this is to reduce the excess weight on the compression connector. I learned this after doing it the 'wrong way' a couple of times and it didn't hurt anything, but I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.

Congrats, sounds like a great setup there!

Got serial and a hinv:


The graphics pipe apparently is programmed for some oddball resolution, since i get a black screen on one Sony Widescreen 90W11monitor and the other one says "out of scan range" which leads me to believe the first Widescreen is defective. I checked it with a Sony 20D11 and i do get gfx, but way out of sync.

Next task is cram in a disk and install IRIX so i can reset the resolution on the IR EEPROM

My second Onyx2 was a freebie as well, but was kind of rusty and required many hours of love&cleaning.
As for your refresh rate issue.. I believe you can simply set that directly from the command line via a terminal to something sensible.
No need to reinstall IRIX, if no root password has been set on the machine.. Please just check the man pages on ircombine
and what resolution combinations you have installed.

Regards


Ryan

PROM version lists 6.103 and appears to be one of the first revisions for these systems.
Which explains why i cannot netboot this system into miniroot, but i can netboot fx.64 . Very odd

My Spare O2K can netboot fx.64 and miniroot install just fine from my Linux workstation, i just verified it.

Hm

The CDROM doesn't like my 6.5.25 install CD, so i guess i have to hunt for another CDROM player, hook it up the backside and try to install using CD's.

Will let you know if i succeed.

Success!

It turned out that there was some POD cruft lingering in the machine PROM, so a followed by some resetenv and setenv console d switching, i finally got him to recognize my UltraPlex40 so i could DiskJockey an 6.5.25 installation. That installation brought my firmware of the nodeboards and the IO6G to 6.156 so that is in good shape.
I'm now running 1600x1200 at i think 60 hz on my 90W11

I still have some messages about memory banks missing dimms, which didn't go away after the pod command sequence. I don't think myself they were missing after all, since 4GB ram is installed and a quick inspection shows banks 0 1 2 and 3 occupied with 512MB sticks on both boards

dexter1 wrote: I still have some messages about memory banks missing dimms, which didn't go away after the pod command sequence. I don't think myself they were missing after all, since 4GB ram is installed and a quick inspection shows banks 0 1 2 and 3 occupied with 512MB sticks on both boards

enableall ?

Pretty neat new toy, dex. Sounds like it would be great for running Fireflop 3

The guy who gave me the Onyx2 says that he cannot find the skins in their basement anymore

Which means i now have to get hold of some alternative skins for this machine. I actually like the odd Onyx2 Rackmount skin from Jan-Jaap's Onyx2 acquisition, and since the ABS skins are crumbling within a couple of years, i might be interested in those metal fronts.
I also am going to find a steel/aluminium workshop to craft something for the top and side panelling, since you wouldn't want anything liquid spilling over the top side. Paint purple. Done.

Thanks to the Spare O2000 i have some spare parts concerning sleds/wheels/PSU/Power-cord and fan tray, though the tray has recently been serviced. Looking inside the machine i kinda understand why this component has been serviced, since the machine is totally covered in black soot from the inside.

So how to clean such a beast? I can take out the node boards and graphics, but that would leave the compression pads on the back plane unprotected.
I was planning to tilt the machine so that the pads would point down and i could clean the soot by simply hoovering/dusting.

Any insight on this would be very helpful