SGI: Discussion

So, we have an Octane on ebay and I've spoken with the seller.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161554623492? ... EBIDX%3AIT

At the moment it's 1Pence (UK - Possibly 1.19 Cents?)

It starts, the disks start and the fans fire up, but it doesn't boot (so we think) and the light board at the front stays red.

He can only start this keyboard-less/mouse-less/head-less - I can't recall but if display isn't set to g (in the prom) does this bring red light on and fail to boot?

Anyway, he's willing to let it go for anything BUT it must be collect and it's a 260 round trip taking probably 5 hours for myself.

I may put a very small bid, but the journey is not something I'd like.

So if anyone is up north of England, looks like a good one, failing that, can someone pick it up for me


BTW no affiliation with seller.

Don't think of it as a 5 hour trip to collect an Octane, but as a spur to visit the new(ish) Hepworth gallery, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and/or National Coal Mining Museum, with a small detour to pick up an Octane

Tempting, as Wakefield is only about 15 miles from home, but I wouldn't be able to decide which machine should be the "one out" (luckily it's not a weight-for-weight policy!). Perhaps I could get away with putting the Octane in the cellar as a server but it probably wouldn't like the damp. Did you get any idea of specs when speaking with the seller? (the model number is for a 175MHz R10K, but perhaps upgraded?)

We used to pass near Stourbridge en route to Evesham, but my parents have moved to Bakewell. And with 2 dogs and 1 child finding car-space has become harder than it used to be, but meeting halfway when we come to Lichfield (wife's parents) could be an option, if you've no chance of getting to Yorkshire in the foreseeable future (and assuming I cannot negotiate to keep it .

its only about a 2 hr round trip for me , thing is id only get it for spares/ parts, probably steal the ram out of it and shove it in my own and maybe the graphics cards

Reckon I'll bid and (if I win) collect for myself/uunix.

Look out for "how do I get this Octane running?" posts in due course (which would be better than not winning, but not as good as "resetenv" over serial and a clean boot)

A world domination plan has been born!

Stupid question but what is it that's missing in the shot of the rear, above the power supply?

chicaneuk wrote: Stupid question but what is it that's missing in the shot of the rear, above the power supply?

That's where the optional PCI cage slides in. Normally it's covered.

jan-jaap wrote:

chicaneuk wrote: Stupid question but what is it that's missing in the shot of the rear, above the power supply?

That's where the optional PCI cage slides in. Normally it's covered.

I'd spotted that, and one SI/SE plus one SSI/SSE (or MXI/E?) - but any ideas on the other XIO card? Closest I've found, going by the single, long socket at slot B, is the Channel Option.

The one with the white serial?

Yes, it appears to be an MCO.

uunix wrote: The one with the white serial?

I think that's an SSI/E or MXI/E graphics card, the 9pin socket being for stereo. No idea if the white (as opposed to black on the SI/SE card bottom right) has any significance.

We won... 1 fscking PENCE!"!!!! lol...

Awesome result Hopefully it's a reasonably decent spec!

if you do part it out put me down for the drive sled

i got a few 18.6gb drives that came out of an old sun 12 bay nas that i want to put to use

chicaneuk wrote: Awesome result Hopefully it's a reasonably decent spec!

Not expecting much - the model number indicates 175MHz R10K i.e. lowest processor in an Octane.

Speaking from experience of looking at a university purchase of an Indy or Indigo2 circa 1995 ... of course it depends what the budget was and what the key performance factors were - if the task for which this machine was used was not CPU-bound then the low CPU spec may be misleading; perhaps there was money to spend on (more useful) RAM instead. But if you have to spend £££ on a second graphics card, you imght have to put up with 64MB and lots of swapping! (I have in mind 64MB was the minimum Octane spec but could well be wrong - 128MB perhaps?)

So unless there was some reason to have lots of RAM I'd be pleasantly surprised if there were more than 256MB. That said, it is a better (SI plus SSI/MXI) dual head than minimum (SI/SI) and the OCO card suggests it might have been boosted beyond low spec. We shall soon see.

Dans34 wrote: if you do part it out put me down for the drive sled

Bad news - when I went to collect it, the seller attempted to pull one drive out to show me the capacity and the sled-handle came off in his hand. So that drive is now mounted just using the rails - with a bust handle (and such a tight fit), not much else to grip onto, the metal strip (EMR suppression?) was slicing my thumbs so I took it and the front plastic off.

Not sure what will happen to the machine as a whole, but will keep you in mind in case the other sled becomes surplus. In the meantime, have you tried resting drives on CD cases?

ajw99uk wrote:

chicaneuk wrote: Awesome result Hopefully it's a reasonably decent spec!

Not expecting much - the model number indicates 175MHz R10K i.e. lowest processor in an Octane.

But that was without knowing this Octane had come from the SGI office at Reading and had some upgrades. Fuller info in the hinv section in due course, but headlines are:

dual R10K at 250MHz though one of them is dead or dying
1152MB RAM
EMXI and SI graphics, though I've not yet had dual-screen output
OCO card in 4th XIO slot
2x 9GB drives, 7200rpm IBM models
IRIX 6.5.30

with a full XIO bay, the fans run fast and it gets very loud a few seconds into booting up (except last night, when the failing/failed CPU held up diagnostics for a while) - but it seems a waste to relegate it somewhere out of the way

Ian's got an Octane dual R10K 250 for sale for 125UKP, about halfway down the page: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/partsspares.html#OCTANE

vishnu wrote: Ian's got an Octane dual R10K 250 for sale for 125UKP, about halfway down the page: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/partsspares.html#OCTANE

Thanks for the reference. Without a specific application needing dual-CPU in mind I might be more tempted to spend less on a faster single CPU - but not spending anything for the time being: last might both CPUs came up first time and I got a picture from the SI card by tweaking /var/X11/xdm/Xservers (not dual-head yet, but a step in the right direction). I then pulled out the main module to see how the RAM is made up - all slots used so I guess 2x256, 4x128 and 2x64 (seems more likely that 4x256 and 4x32) - and hope re-seating the compression connectors will help.

Also noticed that the upper fan is loose, which probably does not help the noise level. Was gearing up to take the frontplane off to get at it when noticed how late it was ...

Nothing like a little delicate Octane surgery to stretch your day into the wee hours. How dusty was it inside the poor thing? Octanes are notorious dust collectors...