SGI: Hardware

OK.. so I guess whilst I'm waiting for the replacement O2 SCSI CD drive to come, I'll dismantle this external SCSI CD drive and get it hooked up to the internal connector and try again.

Thanks for your patience. I'm totally useless with SCSI stuff, UNIX stuff, etc! It's all a good learning curve though!

Stuck optical drive in from my caddy - no difference, regardless of whether I set the termination jumper on or off. I think I'm stuck waiting for this replacement drive from Ian now until I can truly be confident that everything else is connected as it should be.

Does the external 68 pin SCSI connector need terminating too if not in use?

Nope...

Thanks for confirming.

Evidently there's something more wrong with this system. I found an O2 optical drive in the disposals at work - the tray mechanism is broken (surprise) but the drive does at least show up in HINV so I figured it would at least terminate the bus and I could still install from my external CD drive.

No dice - am getting the exact same problems again. A load more O2's have been scrapped now (well, 5 total) so I'm going to try and find some time to assemble one that WORKS somehow as there has to be something weird going on with this one. I would of course welcome any ideas at this point.

Grab all 5 and bring them home, start swapping parts. But O2's can be the most tempermental, finicky computer in the universe. Once you get a collection of parts that work, I'd do the quiet fan trick then plug it in, turn it on and leave it on. Mine ran for a year that way until a power failure dropped it off. I haven't started it since ... blew the disk, I think. It was an old disk anyhow. O2''s are maddening. They are adorable, great size, quiet, good for lots of stuff. But they will drive you crazy.

Well - on the plus side at least, some of the O2's in disposal look like they could be R10K's

I'm going to have a bit of a scrapping / assembling session ASAP and see if I can get a working machine together.

OK - well after a good session of dismantling systems, building up new ones (including finding some skins in better condition), I seem to have gotten somewhere and got a good upgrade into the bargain.

It seems as though the mainboard / tray / CPU assembly in the one I was working on has an issue. I moved that board into a different chassis, and had the exact same problem. So I put that aside and found an R12K 300MHz board and put that into the original chassis and, lo and behold, I was able to boot into the IRIX installer with no problems! Also don't need the internal optical drive connected it seems and am able to boot the installer from the external optical drive no problems.

So - all I can say is THANK GOD. Frustrating too as no matter what drives I was going through, the board was bad all along. And on the plus side I got an upgrade to an R12K

Thanks for all the help and advice - it was much appreciated.

Congratulations!

Patient success is always a cause for rejoicing here at Sacred Heart...

And it's alive with 6.5.22 I'll have to stick a hinv up in the right section later today, when I've got the network up