SGI: Hardware

My (at the time) recently acquired Indigo2 IMPACT failed about 4 months ago, and since then I've been patiently hoping a friend of mine will have some spare time to effect the capacitor replacement based on the guide published by Ian Mapleson - I've linked to the Google Cache copy as his copy seems dead? Clearly my friend is pretty busy as we've not been able to pin down a time to do this and I'd love to get my Indigo2 working in the meantime!

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... ent=safari

Anyway I did a bit of Googling around and turned up a company based in the UK who refurbish / overhaul power supplies. I looked on lists of known components and was surprised to see that the Indigo2 PSU I have is on a 'known list' of supplies they can quote for and work on:

http://www.advanceproductservices.co.uk/RepairsZ.html

Specifically the Zytec 22943507.

I've emailed to get an idea of a quote as I have no idea what the likely cost of this kind of work is. I'll update the thread if / when I get a response I guess it'll either go one of two ways - be surprisingly cheap, or more likely, horrifyingly expensive...

Ian moved his site: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2psu.html

jan-jaap wrote: Ian moved his site: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2psu.html

Ahh great - thanks

Just as a follow up, had a few good emails this morning from the chap - he was initially reluctant to quote without having examined the power supply but subsequently said subject to the kind of work needing doing, it could be anywhere from £80 to £200. The survey / quote process is free so he's advised me to send in the power supply so he can quote more accurately so I've decided to get it sent in as given the skill required to work on these types of power supplies, that seems very reasonable.

Also has to be a better option than getting a second hand power supply as it'll come warrantied and there's nothing to say a second hand PSU wouldn't fail in exactly the same way.

You are right with your last comment - I bought a 2nd power supply from Ian and it worked for a while and packed in. I don't hold that against him as clearly any stock is going to be 'vintage' these days.

Will be interested to hear on how you get on as I have an Indigo 2 Impact in the same state, in the UK.

Oh, BTW, I did the mod recommended by Ian on my original supply and it didn't make any difference. Clearly there is more than one problem that can result in the same failure mode.

Will keep you posted!

I've got 3 dead octane power supplies, maybe he do our nekochan collective (at a massive discount).

I'm sure if he can fix this one for a fair price, he could end up seeing some good repeat business - I certainly read plenty about dead power supplies on this place!

uunix wrote: I've got 3 dead octane power supplies, maybe he do our nekochan collective (at a massive discount).

I've got two and would like to have at least one repaired. Since mine exploded I've noticed there's a few out there that have died. I just posted I was looking for someone to repair them to my FB account - might as well pee in the wind. Electronics repair is becoming a thing of the past in our disposable society.

Update.

Good news is they say that've repaired the power supply. Bad news is the bill is £190, and that I wasn't actually asked if I wanted to proceed - it was just done. So I pretty much have to pay it. In hindsight I'm not sure I would have gone ahead with it really as I don't think an Indigo2 IMPACT is an especially valuable system, but then looking around I doubt I could have found a good second hand power supply for anything less than £100 and at least this is warrantied for 12 months.

Ho hum. It'll be nice to have it running again I suppose!

I'll report back when I receive it and of course first time I fire the IMPACT back up!

Actually the bill was nearer £230 once VAT was taken into consideration. Jesus.

I paid less than half that for the complete Indigo2 IMPACT system with a monitor, keyboard & mouse, external CD ROM drive, external DAT drive and external hard drive.

ouch!

chicaneuk wrote: I'll report back when I receive it and of course first time I fire the IMPACT back up!

Did they say what was replaced? Maybe its a common problem.

I've no idea yet. I'm hoping there will be some kind of report in the box when it arrives on Monday. I will keep you updated.

Sounds like 2 hours of work plus a couple of bucks for parts -- that's how life is.

If it's anything like a car garage, they will supply the failed parts when they send back the PSU. Those parts could then be added to the shortlist of parts to replace by someone of the "I don't know what I'm doing but I know which end of a soldering iron gets hot" persuasion, in addition to "all small elcos".

I think for that kind of money I would pretty much demand a full breakdown of exactly what components they replaced.

There is no breakdown on what has been done but they've certainly had the supply open.. when I sent it off I couldn't even see inside as there was so much crap and fluff in there, but peering inside now it looks pristine. So that's promising at least. Will be trying it out when I get home this evening so... will report back.

The excitement quickly turned to the usual kind of predictable disappointment as I hooked up the power supply, and pressed the power button to be greeted by nothing.

On closer inspection I can see basically the same symptom as before... the first time mains is applied and the power button is pushed the front intake fan spins for all of a second and nothing else happens. No output on the serial port.

I guess the power supply is going back to them then, as I'm not sure it could be anything else to blame?

Problem is not having any spares or identical systems to test swapping parts round on to rule them out.

bummer... wish I could help you out.