Indigo2. Should I just buy it?
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RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it?
(10-16-2023, 10:17 PM)weblacky Wrote:  To be perfectly frank nearly all SGI's today will be so old that if somebody doesn't show them in fully booting condition you will have to put in work to fix it. That being said on what cards may be in the back of it, the stated price seems very fair. I think the seller is aware that is not in working condition and is priced at accordingly. But it depends on what you want to get into. Unless there is physical damage to it you don't necessarily need a working hard drive to at least get into the firmware and see that it posts and all that. You will, at the very minimum, need a compatible monitor and a 13w3 to VGA adapter cable. And due to the system's age you'll have to really watch that power supply. Anything that old is going to have a suspect power supply. And to be honest since you're not in the UK or the USA you may have to tackle that power supply yourself. Are you up for something like that? These old systems were made with quality components on the motherboard but the power supply is just someone's power supply. It's not to some form of military spec or so high-grade components. SGI didn't make their own power supplies.

No, you can't adapt an ATX PC power supply to it you must use its power supply. Indigo2s are now over 25 years old so that is the reality of the situation.  If you want an SGI you're going to have to pay up in some respect. You're either going to need to repair what you get or pay a lot of money to get one that is already repaired. That is the current nature of the vast majority of units at the moment the most people haven't booted them for at least 5 to 10 years and that says it all.

My personal opinion would be that I would buy it if I were you if you understand that you may be putting $600 USD more into it just to investigate.  Most 4:3 aspect cheap LCDs made between 2004 and 2007 will likely work with the system with the proper 13W3 adapter cable which isn't normally that expensive. After that you're probably going to be needing to repair the power supply or you need to buy a repaired power supply from someone. No one I know is currently working on the indigo2 power supplies just because the current attention is on higher end machines because that's where the money is at the moment.

You could also just get it, admire it, and not attempt to boot it until you have the resources to further investigate and or pay for replacement parts. So like anything owning SGI is usually a journey and not just something that happens. A lot of us have had SGI's from back when the company still existed and so we have memories of them working but buying most of the SGI models today is risky because of the power supply age and that's primarily what's going to be your hurdle.

Think about it and see whether you want to continue the journey or you want to get a lot of funds together and ask a dealer to sell you one at retail pricing that should work now. Most of us have been through the scavenge and repair phase and that's if you have a lot of time but not much money. So decide how you'd like to proceed because those are likely you're two choices.

I know it NEEDS a lot of care and attention. Getting it to the firmware boot screen should be the top priority for me, anything else can be solved. As far as the power supply, I'll be more than delighted to work on it (Ex electronical engineering here and working in a hardware developement enviroment, so it should be cake for me) and in the software side, I can manage myself to so some network booting for the installer. Getting something else like Flame or Softimage 3d to work on it would be a plus.
What attracts me the most is the price, and the overall sound condition of the case, as robespierre mentioned. I think that after Sunday, and with it our country's presidential elections pass, I would make a decision to just credit card it, or to pass it for the time being.

Currently owning: Macintosh Quadra 900, PowerBook G4 15' 1.5Ghz, Sun Blade 100, IBM R51, Sony VAIO PCG-R505TSK, HP Z420, HP ProLiant DL120 G7, Want: SGI Octane2, Sun Ultra 30 Creator, HP 9000 C360 RIP: IBM T22, Compaq CQ40, HP DV7 4000 series.
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10-19-2023, 01:50 PM


Messages In This Thread
Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by valejacobo - 10-16-2023, 03:52 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by vishnu - 10-16-2023, 05:22 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by chulofiasco - 10-16-2023, 05:42 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by robespierre - 10-16-2023, 06:20 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by weblacky - 10-16-2023, 10:17 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by valejacobo - 10-19-2023, 01:50 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by weblacky - 10-19-2023, 06:36 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by sunray - 11-09-2023, 04:35 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by soviet - 10-17-2023, 06:15 PM
RE: Indigo2. Should I just buy it? - by Shiunbird - 10-18-2023, 07:55 AM

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