Hardware For Sale/Trade

Received!
Put in SGI
hinv - good 2GE/2RE/4Mb TRAM
boot
run demos (atlantis/buttonfly/tex_cube) - bad
every alternate pixel line isn't textured, it's red
The phong/flat shaed demos are OK. Textured ones have problems.
anyone know if this is TRAM problem ? config problem ?
My other MaxIMPACTs don't do this.
Put in another SGI - same result.
This one is from Canada, but I don't think it's a PAL/NTSC problem!
I'm going to swap boards with my good MaxIMPACTs to try to narrow it down when I get time (or reseat the TRAMs when I find out where they are)
Ian - you still got TRAM modules for sale ?

Yes, that's most likely bad TRAM(s). Swapping boards is a pain - with 2 TRAMs per board, it can be hard to isolate the fault.

I'm not sure if I have any spare, had a request for some from the OZ airforce. I'll know next week.

Ian.

Good chance it's lifted pins on the tram chips... It's every other line beacuse I believe the system interleaves between tram modules. I have had the same problem (but with black lines instead of red) with my Octane MXI. It may be curable:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16718092

I was suggesting this same thing. That board was definitely working 100% when it was in my Indigo2. After I got it installed in my machine, I know I went through all the apps and Demos on my Indigo and tried them all. I never saw any artifacts on the screen.

The package travelled via ground from Canada to UK. I packed it very well with lots of cushioning, but, it could have jarred something lose.

I hope you can track down the issue.

guardian452 wrote: Good chance it's lifted pins on the tram chips... It's every other line beacuse I believe the system interleaves between tram modules. I have had the same problem (but with black lines instead of red) with my Octane MXI. It may be curable:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16718092

I had that with an Octane MXE board. Reseated the TRAMS and the problem went away.

Good point, try a TRAM reseat, ya never know.

Ian.

@Nyebodnye just watching your signature, with all those Max Impact's, and all those TRAM's there's no fear of having cold next Winter, just saying

Tried swapping the TRAM module from a working MaxIMPACT board. Same result.
Going to try swapping individual boards when I get time.
Got a Teal Indigo2 GR3-Elan (?) off of Ebay.
Last person had all the dev kit on it. graphics libraries, SGI compilers.
Keeping the 2Gb drive.
Putting Irix 6.5 on a 36Gb drive for it.
Hopefully I can get the dev kit transferred.

@cybercow
if I have them all powered up at the same time, they would generate a lot of heat.
and I don't have enough keyboards and mice to accommodate them.
I have a KVM but still..
Generally, they are all off.
If I want to, I usually turn one on, do things... for a while.. , then turn it off.
so nae danger
Please don't be moocow!

Tried re-seating the TRAM module and tried using a TRAM module from a known good MaxImpact - same result.
Anyone know how many TRAM boards there are in a MaxImpact set and if there are more than one, where the other one is ?

MaxImpact has two TRAMs. IIRC, the 2nd one is on the middle PCB.

Yes, it's on the middle PCB.

Careful how you extract the 2nd TRAM. Remove the end plate first (the one that goes over the monitor
and stereo socket), then remove the top 4 locking screws. When you bend the board upwads, don't
force it all the way to 90 degrees. Just keep it at around a 50 to 60 degree angle. Use a pair of tweezers
or needle-nose pliers to extract the plastic locking pins from each end of the TRAM. If you use anything
like a flat-bladed screwdriver to lift up the TRAM away from the PCB, be careful to do so at points on
the PCB where there are no surface mount components that could be harmed.

When you're testing a Max set, do so with either no TRAMs installed, or both. Don't try it with just one
TRAM. This is why I tried very hard to find a HighIMPACT set so that I could test TRAMs one at a time,
then move pairs onto a Max set once I had 2 TRAMs that are ok.

Also, do not test IMPACT boards with TRAM installed when the top-lid for the Indigo2 is not fitted.
Alternatively, use a separate fan to help cool the TRAM on the top board if the top-lid is not in place.
I use a fan connected to the molex cable of a disk sled in the upper disk bay.

In all the above, observe antistatic precautions and make sure the bottom PCB does not scrape
against any surface or object which might result in other surface mounted components failling off.


The most common fault with TRAMs is the Alpha channel. Use the tex_cube demo to check initial
Alpha functionality. The image should appear consistent whether the window is small or large. If it
works ok, check more complex Alpha features with the Macau demo - watch how trees and lamp
posts appear, look for artefacts around the billboard edges (press T to show the billboard shapes),
and also watch how building textures in the distance appear - they should not show any dithering
or 'rolling' pixel effects if the TRAM is working ok.

If the Alpha is working ok, I then test more basic texturing using the Mirrors demo, Matterhorn, Huge
Engine Model (including transparency mode, and test shading/wireframe with textures off), A10, F18,
and of course try an IrisGL task aswell (I use Beethoven model from buttonfly).

Other symptoms:

- If running a 3D app causes the display to lock up and then resets the X server back to the login
screen, this is normally a fault with the GE board. Often this is the case when the display looks ok
after initial power on and after the system has fully booted and logged in, ie. the DG and raster
elements are ok, but a bad GE isn't exercised until a 3D app is executed. This fault results in gfx
timeout errors in SYSLOG.

- If the display is already bad after initial power-on, ie. when the Press ESC for Maintenance message
appears (typically visible as lots of jagged horiztonal line effects), then this is normally a bad DG board.

- If the system makes a normal power on tune and sounds like it's booting ok, but the screen is black,
this can be the result of one of the TRAMs not being seated properly. Check by removing both TRAMs,
ensure the base Max set is ok, then refit the TRAMs, ensuring they are correctly seated.

If you decide to swap boards between Max sets, be very careful. Don't use the tiny levers to disconnect
the ribbon cables, they are too fragile; I use a small flat-bladed screwdriver to just lift up the connector
either side of the socket. Take the opportunity to remove any dust with a soft brush and/or inert air duster.

Don't bother using the PROM ide for testing, it's not accurate, often reporting false positives.

If you can, use the lower three slots to test Max sets. This gives better cooling for the TRAM at the top.

Ian.

That's great Ian, thanks - just linked to that post from the I2 page in the wiki.

Thanks!

I've added some extra info. Thought I may as well since it's fresh in my mind atm having just
sorted out two Max sets and four extra TRAMs for a simulation company.

Ian.

Many years lapse...

Nobody realises that the Volkswagen is actually a Porsche

Actually I think that's been on QI...

mapesdhs wrote: Don't bother using the PROM ide for testing, it's not accurate, often reporting false positives.

Since we're doing thread necromancy anyway: I'm afraid I have to disagree with this statement.

<engineering hat on>

I repaired a pair of TRAM modules last year . They failed the IDE diagnostics. I put them under the microscope and reworked failed soldering joints until they passed the diagnostics. There were a lot of failed joints. Regardless, the demos worked just fine on these obviously broken TRAMs. Conversely, I've never seen a system pass the IDE but visually fail a demo. So: I'll trust the IDE, and not the demos.

How do you prove a "false positive" of the diagnostics anyway? Is it a sentiment of "I don't see anything wrong"? Because that logic is flawed unless you're 100% sure that you have exercised every functional unit of the hardware. Which is basically what the diagnostics are for in the first place. The texcube demo runs the same (on MaxImpact) with or without the TRAM option: it simply requires only a small amount of texture memory. So while artifacts on the screen are proof of failure, lack of artifacts doesn't prove anything about the functional state of the hardware.

<engineering hat off>

The biggest problem I have with the diagnostics is that they're strictly field diagnostics: the output is a boolean (pass/fail). I would have liked more verbose output along the lines of "TRAM chip at PCB location C2D4 failed test X at address Y". I can put an IMPACT TRAM under a microscope and inspect a failed board chip by chip, one pin at a time, but for something like an RM4 this is simply not feasible. Surely they had something like that in engineering but alas....

Who tests with just texcube? I use more than a dozen different tests, not just some of the demos.

Heh, you wanna job fixing TRAMs? I have about 20 that need repair.

Ian.

How do you prove a "false positive" of the diagnostics anyway? Is it a sentiment of "I don't see anything wrong"? Because that logic is flawed unless you're 100% sure that you have exercised every functional unit of the hardware

Seneca said - only the long time can reveal the Truth - so, to know if something is well done, applying the concept to something you want to repair, you can say a repaired machine is well done only after a long and exhaustive test bench , when all the hardware features get probed, and probed for a long time, this satisfies the big numbers theorem, almost the probabilities to discover main defects

oh well, the same happens to the paints, I have seen cars repainted, they look well done just out of the garage, but ... 4 months later the paints begin to detach

about second hand bargains in computer science, my conclusion is: if it's something really serious, then 90 days of warranty gets now a reasonable motivation

mapesdhs wrote: Who tests with just texcube? I use more than a dozen different tests, not just some of the demos.

Heh, you wanna job fixing TRAMs? I have about 20 that need repair.

Ian.

Is it actually possible to fix the things? You could make some good money if you did.