SGI: Hardware

Hi

I might be so lucky to get a Crimson. I'm terrified of damaging the skins. I've looked through the Challenge manual available on techpubs and looked at the Onyx Teardown at iFixit.

How does one remove the small "skirts" at the sides, is it just by pulling at them?

Should I even try, the locking mechanism looks potentially brittle. Will removing the skins risk doing more damage than I might cause by transporting them left on?

Any help or suggestions will be appreciated.

iFixit instructions are usually pretty hopeless.
The Crimson is a single-tower, I only have direct experience with dual towers from that era. The way they work is that there are bullet-shaped metal tabs molded into the skins, that slip into spring clips in the chassis. So if you take a flathead screwdriver and _slowly_ pry between the side of the skins and the chassis, they will release and pop out. The location of the tabs are a few inches from the top and a few inches from the bottom. Try to release the tension on each clip slowly and rotate to the other clips before pulling them out all the way, you don't to create too much torsional force.
The skins will be protected much better by removing them than by transporting the unit with the skins attached. The only concern I would have is if they have plastic tabs like the Personal IRIS, those don't stand up well at all. But I'm pretty confident they don't.
There are special prying tools that might be even better than a screwdriver, but they aren't really needed for the metal clips. I believe the front and back plastic skins are held on the same way.

The Crimson is like the Onyx. The skins have barbed plugs scattered about hat lock into removable black plastic catches on the frame. I simply try to get my fingers around them and pull straight outwards, otherwise the fingers on the catches break and they don't work anymore (but good thing they are removable so they can be replaced and/or shuffled around)

Yuck.

Thank you!

@pentium: What is your general feel for the red plastic, is it brittle like the Indigo2 or Onyx2?

Pontus wrote: I might be so lucky to get a Crimson.

Congratulations to you, sir!

Pontus wrote: Should I even try, the locking mechanism looks potentially brittle. Will removing the skins risk doing more damage than I might cause by transporting them left on?

If you know what you're doing it's pretty straightforward, but it depends. I used a trailer to transport my Crimson and only took the front door off. I did wrap it in thick moving blankets and strapped it down, though.

Pontus wrote: is it brittle like the Indigo2 or Onyx2?

No, fortunately it's not because removing the skins is a rather "physical" act. It goes like this:

1. The front door (the entire assembly, not just the drive bay door) can be removed by prying a big flat screwdrive blade in the spring-like upper hinge. This forces it up and the door panel "falls out".

2. The skirts can be gently pried off.

3. The large side and back skin panels are attached with half a dozen or so of the black clips you see in Pentium's photo. I tried to gently undo them one by one but you'd have to flex the side panel in impossible ways. Instead, I usually crouch by the side I want to remove, place my foot against the chassis where the skirt was (us the metal handle for the back side), place my hands under the panel and with a swift pull you pull the entire panel off, towards you. This can be intimidating because it probably requires a bit more force than you feel comfortable with and that's why I'm happy they are *not* brittle. The top of the side and back panels goes underneath the top cover but it's not stuck there, it falls right out.

4. Finally the top. On the right hand side (looking from the front) there are two clips in the metal chassis, underneath the top skin. I forgot if they have to go (a bit) up or down, but they keep the top in place. The top comes off towards the front (or was it the left?) and again this can take a bit of knocking with an elbow or rubber hammer.

The black clips came in two flavors, the one you see in Pentium's photo is usually what you find in Crimsons and Onyxes. Older single tower PowerSeries had more rugged clips. The four 'fingers' seen in Pentium's clip can easily be bent out of shape if the panel is not 100% correctly aligned when you re-install the skin panel. This is mostly a problem with the side panels. The back side skin has alignment 'studs', and the skirts simply take a lot less brute force to put back. Fortunately the skins will stay on with half of the clips semi-broken or missing, but if you really run out I have some spares. Seems like something you could easily make yourself with a 3D printer as well.

Other hints for moving PowerSeries and Crimsons: they have wheels, but only roll forward/backwards. So if you place it sideways in a car (station wagon) and fill up the space with boxes etc, it won't go anywhere unless you have an accident. If you don't place it sideways it could knock the back window out of your car. The handle on the back of the chassis is strong enough to carry the weight of the system (on that side). Oh, and you might want to remove the disks before moving the system.