SGI: Hardware

Found a 600MHz R14K Fuel for a price I liked. It needs a new hard disk, but I can refurbish. Other than a crack on the front panel it's in good physical shape. Should be here next week.

I can't really tell from other threads here how it will do with a USB-DVI KVM (I use an Aten CS1764A because it works perfectly with Mac OS 9, one of the few that doesn't screw up scroll wheel support and cause certain other glitches). I also have a Griffin iMic I got from my bro-in-law ages ago that I now finally have a use for.

The Aten can emulate a hub; I assume IRIX's USB support can handle HID devices behind a hub? For my HP C8000 I wired a bypass switch around the KVM since the C8000 didn't like using a USB keyboard behind a hub for its console; it wanted the keyboard directly connected, at least to get through the PROM boot stage. Once HP-UX was up I could take the keyboard away from it (flip the bypass switch back to the KVM) and it didn't care then. Strangely, it didn't have this objection to the mouse. Hopefully the Fuel doesn't have any irregularities like that ... ?

if that's the only thing you worry about then you should be perfectly fine

Should be fine - you get a really weird address for the device but it does work. I only tried for a short time tho, so you may find glitches. Make sure to set up telnet or ssh early - you are going to get some practice deleting /etc/ioconfig.conf over the network

Congrats on the Fuel , they are nice.

I briefly tested a Fuel with an iogear GCS1764 usb/dvi kvm and the combo worked well during the test. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16727087&p=7354243&#p7354243

I believe Aten also makes the iogear kvms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten_Technology,_Inc . Though there are likely some firmware/functional differences, since both units share the 1764 model number hopefully they'll also share Fuel-friendly functional similarities (after you've had a chance to try the Aten, please consider adding your experience to the linked KVM thread).

Good deal. Then this might be doable after all. I'll keep the bypass hooked in just in case.



I bet. I saw some posts that said having PS/2 *and* USB keyboards connected to it (using the PS/2 as the emergency keyboard) can be troublesome. True?

Anyway, I'm excited. Love Big Red!

I never tried both at the same time but the system does not erase ioconfig.conf. So if you have ever plugged in a USB keyboard and now want to plug in a PS/2 keyboard, it can get confused. When it gets confused, you get nothing. Sometimes you can be lucky and plug the missing hardware back in and it will work.

Other times, no.

But at least the solution is simple - telnet in and delete ioconfig.conf, then reboot.

Any time I make a change now I delete ioconfig.conf, just in case. That includes serial ports, firewire, etc.

If you get a chance, grab a firewire card. Firewire card readers are handy. External firewire disks are okay but now that we have sata, not as essential.


They do have their quirks but overall, yes. Pretty nice

Congrats on the Fuel acquisition!

I recently got one myself and love it. Leaps and bounds ahead of the Indigo2 I started with and a much more usable machine I must say.

While you are getting used to it, keep a null modem cable handy because it will be your best friend.. lol..

Oh, I still love my Indy. It's still a great machine. But this one will complement my PowerPC stable very nicely in power and functionality. And love that red!

Picked up Big Red today. No hard disk, but that was expected. PROM hinv reports 512MB of RAM, but doesn't say what the video card is (any easy way to find out?).

With the KVM, the machine starts fine, but if I switch away the PROM monitor freaks and reports a message "usb_hid_reattach" or some such. Mouse still works, but I have to restart the machine. Hopefully it doesn't do this in Irix when the hard disk I have on order arrives. DVD-ROM seems to read the Irix install disc fine.

FYI, I've got a Fuel attached to a Belkin SOHO USB/DVI KVM and that works just fine. Or should I say, worked just fine, the Fuel's DALLAS ran out and with a garbled NVRAM it can be quite cranky when I power it up.

The command "serial all" run against an L1 command prompt will return lots of interesting info, including the part number of your graphics board ( there's an example of a Fuel L1 "serial all" in this post ). Depending on your PROM revision you may be able to get similar info from a PROM hinv if you include the -m (manufacturer) switch in the PROM command string (see man prom for details on syntax).

030-1726-00x is the V12 jackpot - 030-1725-00x or 030-1826-00x are V10s.

If you aren't already familiar with the Fuel's L1 controller, normally it can be accessed with a serial terminal connected to the 9-pin serial header on the system board. There's a photo showing the (not immediately obvious) location of the L1 port and some basic terminal configuration parameters in this post.

Never had a reason to switch KVM focus while in the PROM, so I can't offer any person experience on the issue. IRIX only recognizes a very limited (and somewhat proprietary) subset of the USB standard , so it's possible USB support in the PROM firmware might not get past keyboards and mice (and like hot swapped USB gizmos even less). I wouldn't abandon hope until I'd tried it with IRIX running.

Wow, a blue Fuel! Awesome!

Thanks, recondas, I'm going to try that when I get home. I also have to drop by WalWart and pick up a couple small tabs of Velcro. As mentioned the front door has a (repaired) crack in it, but it also apparently lost its locking tab, so I'm just going to give it a tiny smidge of Velcro to hold it shut.

030-1726-005! Woohoo! It's a V12!

The Fuel is (finally) set up with 6.5.20. I'm now considering what my next step should be to get it Nekoware-ready (see other thread). For future sojourners bringing a Fuel up from scratch:

- KVM is, as mentioned, an Aten CS1764A DVI-USB KVM.
- The PROM monitor worked fine with the USB KVM, but when I booted from my 6.5.20 overlay CD, the miniroot required a PS/2 keyboard; it would not respond to the USB keyboard on the KVM, even though it could see it and complain about it when I switched focus. The mouse still works.
- After installation, I unplugged the PS/2 keyboard, telnetted in and removed /etc/ioconfig.conf and let it redetect its devices. It looks like this now:



Yes, there are two meeses. 2/3/mouse appears to be the one actually in use; if I remove it, the mouse is not detected. However, even if I remove 2/4/1/mouse, it just comes back. I might need to fiddle with the KVM's mouse emulation to figure out why that is.
- In general the KVM just works (it still emits usb_hid_reattach errors to the console when I switch away, but unlike the Command Monitor, it redetects it fine when I switch back), *except* in this one case: if I log out as any user other than root. Then the mouse stops working and I have to restart the system. The keyboard works fine, but the mouse stops functioning. However, switching focus is fine, and it doesn't seem to happen if I log out if I was logged in as root. I wonder if there's a permissions problem somewhere, and I don't know if it has anything to do with "the two meeses."

(well, by fine I mean the PROM monitor starts with it, but switching away you lose the keyboard but not the mouse)

pretty big step up from the indy.
Nice box (so is the indy).

I used my Fuel as a desktop for many years, mostly for email + mathematica; and, occasionally to watch movies; a really nice workstation, without a doubt, very capable, even today.

Somewhere on Techpubs it explains the USB and firewire addressing. The extra digit

vs

is because the hub (or kvm ?) adds an extra addressing step.

the kvm thing is a pita

@mia, yes, compared to the Indy it flies! Especially those V12 graphics. My folks were visiting and my father was captivated by the demos. He particularly enjoyed the "demograph."

@hamei, no, I figured that's what it meant. But why is it detecting *two* mice? That's why I think there's something afoot with the KVM's mouse emulation feature. Perhaps Irix is seeing both the emulated mouse and the actual HID mouse device on the hub. The real question is whether that's confusing it, or the "lose mouse on logout" issue is something different. Maybe this gets better with later releases of Irix.

@ClassicHasClass: Funny, I never really use the graphical capabilities of my Fuel, mostly MIPSpro and Mathematica, I had a V12 octane before that, so I've never really seen a big change, nevertheless, it's still a very capable box, are you going to move it to gigE?

Unfortunately, I don't think so. Firewire made a huge jump at about 27 or so, but the usb got to where it would mostly do a mouse and keyboard, then stayed there.