SGI: Hardware

kubatyszko wrote: I asked about BOTH Fuel and Octane V12

You're right. Sorry But what no one bothered to mention to a newcomer is that they are totally different animals. There were a gazillion Octanes sold. Parts are pretty reasonable these days. There were not so many Fuels and Tezros sold. Everyone wants the V12, there aren't so many available. Much different price. This is similar to the situation with the Octane 400 mhz cpu and the O2 400 mhz cpu. Same chip, totally different prices. If you have an Octane, you can get a v12 easy and a reasonable retail price (not "Look what I scored on Ebay !!") will be aournd $250 - $350. For the Fuel and Tezro, it will be a fight and whatever you pay will be based on luck. I blew it on a $150 Fuel V12 recently, still kicking myself.

btw, the late Fuel / Tezro V10's, V12's are exactly the same. If one of our talented hardware/software guys figured out the secret sauce, s/he could make a fortune doing conversions.

I would probably bet on some small ID in the Card which tells the OS whether it's Fuel or Tezro - and the workaround might be similar to the one for TG3 Gig Ethernet in Fuel's - couple small changes in the driver and that should be it
Now - who has a spare Tezro V12 then ?

hamei wrote: btw, the late Fuel / Tezro V10's, V12's are exactly the same. If one of our talented hardware/software guys figured out the secret sauce, s/he could make a fortune doing conversions.

Leaving Octane out, I can identify these versions:

'AST' is for 'Asterix', the codename for Fuel. 'ODY' is short for Odyssey, the codename for VPro graphics.

If you scan the 'hinv' forum, you will see that in all modded O350's with a V10 or V12, it identifies itself as ASTODY, ASTODYB or ASTODYV10. Looks like nobody butchered a Tezro to mod an O350

Now, I suspect that changing the contents of an EEPROM is possible from the L1 using some more or less undocumented calls (this is an entirely different discussion ), but changing the part number is a different game. Unless they changed everything for VPro on Fuel/Tezro, the part number is stored in a NIC chip, which is written once (at the factory) and cannot be modified. It would have to be replaced with a new one with the correct part#.

Inside the IRIX kernel, a device driver can scan for NIC part numbers using nic_vmc_add(): http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... info_set.z This would be the logical way to make the software tell the two cards apart. It is also how IRIX activates the keyboard & mouse ports on an (Onyx2) IO6G, but not on an Origin 2000 (IO6).

So, in order to "make a fortune", you would have to
1) Have a bunch of the correct late rev. V10's
2) Have a bunch of dead V12's to rip the NIC chips off.
3) Hope you can actually change the EEPROM
3) Replace the part# label stickers on the cards

... and even then, (if the customer is actually SGI themselves), you'd better cross your fingers, because SGI probably has a database of part#/serial# for support purposes, and all your serial#'s (the ABC123 thingie) would show up as V10 parts ...

IMHO there are less cumbersome ways to make a few bucks.

jan-jaap wrote: So, in order to "make a fortune", you would have to

Of course, 'fortune' is a relative term. But given that unemployment is running a good 15%, I'd think that more than a paltry few people would consider a few thousand dollars extra per year to be a reasonable facimile thereof

Dr D had a different theory (Recondas can dredge it up in about thirty seconds, I bet) but if you are correct :

1) Have a bunch of the correct late rev. V10's

How many V10 Fuels are there out in the wild ? How many owners would pay $100 to upgrade to a V12 ? That's your 'target' customer.

2) Have a bunch of dead V12's to rip the NIC chips off.

I'm going to assume that those chips are commercially available. I know, with SGI you can never assume anything like that - their serial port cards use their own wacked-out chips. But the Fuel was built fairly recently.

3) Hope you can actually change the EEPROM

There's the tricky part

3) Replace the part# label stickers on the cards

Even I can do that

... and even then, (if the customer is actually SGI themselves)

Why would you waste your time with SGI ? It's all the Fuel owners who want V12's. SGI has the prints. If they are too stupid to make more of their own parts, too bad for them.

And please don't tell me how much it costs. I live in China.

IMHO there are less cumbersome ways to make a few bucks.

You must be a 1%-er

hamei wrote: Dr D had a different theory (Recondas can dredge it up in about thirty seconds, I bet).

hamei is probably referring to one of these Dr. Dave posts, though if you haven't already seen it, the entire thread is worth reading.
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