SGI: Hardware

For scale, here's a pic of the "SGI Test Rack" (As it is appropriately labelled) next to the E10K.

I have to find my Irix media. Actually, I'm waiting on a friend. I sent it to him years ago, and now that I need it he needs to send it back I can use the external CD from my Indigo. It came to me with no disks, but I have scores of SCA disks in the basement, and an SCA to 50-pin converter, so I should be good there.

Be careful: the Challenge/Onyx uses HVD SCSI internally. That's *high* voltage diff and will destroy SE or LVD disks!. Usually the first scsi channel (on the primary IO4) is HVD, the second channel SE (for CD-ROM, tape, ...), and the rest mostly HVD again.

The IO4 has one daughter card per scsi channel. red=HVD, green=SE. All disk sleds are jumpered for SE or HVD operation and must match the channel(s) they are on. Finally, there are terminators and SE/HVD selector jumpers on the backplane of the drive cage.

So, it is possible to convert an Onyx/Challenge to SE operation if you know what you're doing. I did this with my deskside Power Challenge, and posted some pics here: http://www.vdheijden-messerli.net/sgist ... challenge/

Plus nuke your SCSI controller and IO4.

That is a good call!

Both drive cages up front are fed by red cables. They both seem to be connected to the same board, one is labelled SE SCSI and the other DE SCSI. I don't know if I trust the labels, though.

Looks like I was wrong about SCSI0 and SCSI1, btw: my Onyx claims to have SE SCSI0 and DF SCSI1 (sticker on the inside of the drive bay door). And the IO4 looks like that too:

scsi0 = green = SE, scsi1 = red = HVD.

It was a tempting lot, with respect to that MultiMax.

I know you're here for help with the Onyx, but if you have the time and inclination please feel free to post as much as you'd like over in "Miscellaneous Operating Systems/Hardware."

OK, so my labeling matches that layout, with the SE on top and HVD low, but both are using the scary red cables that preach "danger" to connect to the disk cages. I just need to trace through the right one, and probably use a Sharpie to label the drawers. Also, pulling the board out a few inches and verifying doesn't seem like a bad idea. It's not as notorious or as fragile as the centerplane on the E10K.

It isn't the drawer that decides which SCSI bus the disk is on, if you look at a drive sled you will notice a pair of connectors and a pair of jumper pins. You can mix and match SE and HVD in the same machine just by setting up the disk sleds. I have all of my devices set up for SE on the same bus, because it's the easy thing to do.

The default setup (at least for desksides) is SE on A and Diff on B. http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... /ch04.html

You might want to just pull the DIFF cable off. Unless you have a converter it's unlikely that you'll have much in the way of reasonably-sized HVD disks that aren't on their last legs, and having that channel disconnected is the safe way to go. Sure, you can't stripe across two 20MB/sec channels that way, but do you really want/need to? That way the system either works (proper channel) or doesn't work (wrong channel), you loose the exciting element of "will this smoke my IO4?", but it's probably worth it.

I had mine disconnected (Shel gave me that trick) for many years until I put in the second SE card.

OK, a few notes.

First, the power connector is a 330B6W which is not the same as an IP44. D'oh! I ordered an IP44 off of e-bay and it didn't fit.

Secondly, I went to hardwire it; I figure for testing it shouldn't be too bad. I hooked a 120V feed to the X & Y poles and my neutral/ground to the ground pole. I threw the breaker on the front and nadda.

Then I noticed on the front there are 3 power supplies. Well, slots for 3 power supplies, but I only have two. Will this Onyx-ish rack run with only two? Given I have no drives in the disk trays, and the 2nd VME cage disconnected, It shouldn't draw too much power while I run 'hinv -t' from the PROM (that's my goal for today.) Any ideas?

Good news - 2 PSUs=1-phase. All racks have the extra slot for the third PSU to go 3-phase if you wanted. The only config to come standard with 3-phase PSUs was the 3-card-cage model.

No idea if you can run the 3rd card cage on single-phase.

All IP44 means is how waterproof it is. Now how a certain manufacturer can call a certain widget IP67 when it fills up with condensation on merely a humid day is beyond me...

http://www.protectingpeople.co.uk/fire_ ... lained.htm

I re-wired my house and garage so now I have 220V going to my garage. This wasn't that hard to do, but it also makes my life easier if I ever want to put a nice air compressor or other tools out there. Plus I now have 20A service to some things instead of 15A, but that's another story.

With the right power hooked up, the system starts, but doesn't run.

On my first attempt, I got a POKA Error. There was one VME board with the red light, and that was the "main" system board with all the ribbon cables (don't know the p/n) but the system also has additional system boards with ribbon cables to other IO/break-out boards. After some STFA I saw that if you get a POKA, and have a board with a red light, pull the board, try again, etc. I tried again after pulling it and get a "-12VDC under voltage"

I'm thinking something is up with the power supply(s) and I may need some new caps or relays or something. Once that's fixed I'm betting the POKA will go away with the one system board and I'm good to go. Does anyone else have experience which jives with my hypothesis? Are there common errors with the power supplies and other threads showing how to fix them? (I haven't STFA on the "-12VDC under voltage" yet.)

The firmware gives a date of 1995 and revision of 3.2(?) [ I should have taken a picture. ]

The clock has also kept good time. The logs show the last time booted was 2005, and it showed today as being 7/13/2013. No idea how that worked, especially when I have dead NVRAM batteries on my Sun systems that are half the age of this (I figure this system is circa 1992; I have sun equipment circa 2000 with dead batteries!)

The Onyx/CHALLENGE power supply system takes the mains voltage and converts it to 48VDC in the OLS power supplies. From there, power boards convert it to the needed voltages (12V, 5V, 3.3V, etc.).

POKx errors have to do with these power boards.

Get the Onyx/CHALLENGE diagnostic roadmap from Ian here: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/chalonyxdiag/ .

Thanks for the link.

My IO4 board has a VCAM, 030-0500, and per the docs, and the LEDs the issue is with voltage regulation on the VCAM. So, I've pulled the VCAM.

Now, no more POKA error, but I still have -12VDC Under Voltage.

The, I realized that my IO4 board (where it was plugged in) had no connection on the backplane for the VCAM, which may explain the funky behavior.

Moving the IO4 with the VCAM re-installed to the appropriate slot, it seems much happier.

Now what? It's kind of hanging here..



And now it just sort of hangs. Monitor/LCD on the front says "Startup Complete."

Which board has the bad CPU? I assume I should pull that, try again and see what it gets me.

It's that simple.

The issue is I had a serial console connected, and I figured, that like a Sun, it would see "oh, no keyboard, I'm a serial console, look at me" and let me get to the boot prom. No such luck. I hooked up an LCD and SGI keyboard and we're in business. Here are some pictures

Thanks everyone for the help. I have some drive trays and drives to put things together on the SE bus. I figure an 18G SCSI drive should be more than enough for a basic install of IRIX 6.5.3 (latest I have) which should be more than sufficient for the machine.

Plus, entering "himv" just never works and is so sexist.

Congrats on the successful bootup That's quite a few CPUs you got there.

Kudos!

If you can get 6.5.3 on there, you can download the 6.5.22 overlays for free with your Supportfolio account (free to register). That would put you in shape to take advantage of Nekoware, if you wanted. OTOH, maybe you'd like to put those CPUs to work and build your own packages...

The system currently lives in the garage, so no air conditioning, lots of dirt, 90+ degree temps, etc. I ran it just long enough to see what it had then shut it down.

As the Indiana Computer Museum comes together, it will be running, hopefully close to 24/7