SGI: Discussion

Encanto Supercomputer May Be ‘Sold in Pieces’

jan-jaap avatar
jan-jaap
Who joined June 17, 2004, 10:35 a.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 4, 2013, 1:10 a.m...
Looks like Encanto has been repo-ed by the state of New Mexico and may be dismantled and sold in pieces .

I guess we'll be seeing Altix ICE 8200 bits on eBay soon ...

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bluecode avatar
bluecode
Who joined Dec. 13, 2011, 7:56 a.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 4, 2013, 3:44 a.m...
Does this mean you didn't floor-plan this in your new computer room!?

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GL1zdA avatar
GL1zdA
Who joined Dec. 31, 2009, 3:18 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 4, 2013, 7:37 a.m...
The ICE is not the most exciting piece of SGI hardware, unless someone is interested in how to design and cool a dense system.

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hamei
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 4, 2013, 6:16 p.m...
This remark was kind of funny, considering all the history :

some slashdottir wrote:
It was a non-profit organization that was running this and they owed money to sgi for maintenance.
pentium avatar
pentium
Who joined Aug. 28, 2006, 5:29 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 5, 2013, 11:42 a.m...
Scrappers will be crawling over eachother to tank whatever they can pull off that system.

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hamei
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 5, 2013, 6:22 p.m...
pentium wrote:
Scrappers will be crawling over eachother to tank whatever they can pull off that system.

Why ? What can they sell ? Numalink cables and power supplies ? Racks ? bfd ....
smj avatar
smj
Who joined Nov. 12, 2007, 7:54 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 6, 2013, 2:51 p.m...
hamei wrote:
Why ? What can they sell ? Numalink cables and power supplies ? Racks ? bfd ....

Possibly because they see the word "supercomputer." Possibly because they see all the listings on ePay asking for $3k to $30k for a single rack of an Altix system, and don't check the completed auctions... And just maybe because there's a lot of metal and commodity RAM in there. :(

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hamei
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.
and authored 8705 notes
Wrote the following at Jan. 6, 2013, 6:40 p.m...
smj wrote:
Possibly because they see the word "supercomputer." Possibly because they see all the listings on ePay asking for $3k to $30k for a single rack of an Altix system, and don't check the completed auctions... And just maybe because there's a lot of metal and commodity RAM in there. :(

Scrappers aren't stupid like technology writers for computer-enthusiast webzines ... they have to feed themselves selling what they buy. And I don't think they make their decisions based on phony eBay auctions, either :)

What's there to get ? Racks, numalink cables, maybe Itanic chips (are those soldered to the modules ?), and yup, you hit it -- commodity memory.

The thing is probably worth $1500 to a scrapper. It would be a stoopid waste of resources to dump it like that.

But then, that's what we can expect from our anti-intellectual elected officials these days, yes ? A supercomputer ? Symbol of extravagance. We could use the money to build some more prisons.
GL1zdA avatar
GL1zdA
Who joined Dec. 31, 2009, 3:18 p.m.
and authored 205 notes
Wrote the following at Jan. 6, 2013, 11:53 p.m...
It's not an Altix. It's an Altix ICE , a dull x86 cluster.

hamei wrote:
What's there to get ? Racks, numalink cables

There are no NUMAlink cables on the ICE. It's IB based.

hamei wrote:
maybe Itanic chips (are those soldered to the modules ?)

No Itanics either. There are only obsolete Xeon 5300s (Core2 generation) inside.

hamei wrote:
and yup, you hit it -- commodity memory.

DDR2 FB-DIMMs...

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pentium avatar
pentium
Who joined Aug. 28, 2006, 5:29 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 8, 2013, 1:40 p.m...
Or they hire low-wage workers, strip and separate the systems and make their money back in the going price for bare steel, wire and PCB.
I speak this from experience, unfortunately. :?

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hamei
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 8, 2013, 6:27 p.m...
pentium wrote:
Or they hire low-wage workers, strip and separate the systems and make their money back in the going price for bare steel, wire and PCB.

Sorry. We're not buying steel or pcb's these days. Your finance sector has decimated the people who bought stuff and along with it, the entire middle-class economy. All those racks aren't worth $500 for scrap today.

When Brazil and China are outperforming the US, then someone, somewhere should wake up. Your model isn't "flawed", it's crap (except for the 1%.)
pentium avatar
pentium
Who joined Aug. 28, 2006, 5:29 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 9, 2013, 12:06 a.m...
Quote:
Sorry. We're not buying steel or pcb's these days. Your finance sector has decimated the people who bought stuff and along with it, the entire middle-class economy. All those racks aren't worth $500 for scrap today.

Company policy didn't have us shipping overseas. PCB's and precious metals all went to a smelter in Kjaer's neck of the woods and bulk steel and copper went to a yard five blocks away.

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hamei
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.
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Wrote the following at Jan. 9, 2013, 5:07 a.m...
pentium wrote:
Company policy didn't have us shipping overseas. PCB's and precious metals all went to a smelter in Kjaer's neck of the woods and bulk steel and copper went to a yard five blocks away.

Whooooooooosh :P