[digitalIRIX]

Hi guys, as part of a larger acquisition of SGI hardware I have have an Altix rack consisting of a mixed bunch of hardware including a Altix 450 system, an Altix 350 and a Prism system.
I have no prior experience with any of these system, but would like to try and reinstate at least one of them.
Altix 450 has two IRU with multiple blades containing two 'Compute Blades', two blades containing fibre channel cards and one blade with infiniband cards.
Altix 350 is of unknown configuration at this time. Will post updates in the future!
Altix Prism system consisting of six Prism nodes and two router bricks.

Will post updates on each system as I investigate them further.


Regards
John

[lunatic]

you can numalink the Altix 350 to the Prism machines if you have enough numalink cables. You may just have to reset the serial number of the Altix and change the rack slot configuration.

[digitalIRIX]

Hi lunatic, thank's for replying. I have more stuff coming including cables (hopefully NumaLink) and install cd's. I must admit that I don't know anything about these systems as yet and would appreciate any assistance in getting them 'up and running', even though after reading what people have to say about these systems being it would be a shame to see them 'end up on the dump' so to speak.
Regards
John

[lunatic]

Hi John,

It is possible to link different Altix 350 system together when you clear the serial number of one. Check out this old threat:

https://gainos.org/~elf/sgi/nekonomicon/...363/1.html

The magic phrase to unlock the adult mode on the Altix is "let the carnage begin" :-). A Prism is basically an Altix 350 with a graphics card. Since you have a bunch of Prism bricks, you probably don't have graphics in all of them. To get startet, I would recommend reading the Altix 350 manual from SGI. It explains how to connect the bricks, how to set the rack slot identification and most of what you need to know.
There is one thing that you should remember: If you want graphics - and what else would you want a Prism for, even if the graphics are just ATI Fire GL - you have to stick to SuSE Linux enterprise server 9 SP3. Drivers for graphics came in the Propack 4 software. You need to match the exact service pack version of SLES with the exact PP version.
I have only seen an Altix 4 class machine once and it will run SLES 11 I think. All the Altix 4 machines are built from those blade boxes apparently. The 450 just seems to be the smallest config. I saw a 4700 and it locked impressive.

I have an Altix 350/Prism with 8 nodes, but no router. Let me know if you have questions.

Dennis

[digitalIRIX]

Okay, current status is:

1. I now have all the NumaLink cables and some DB-9 serial cables for the Prism system. One of the two routers seems faulty I.E. 'won't power up', probably power supply but appears to be required for the system to be functional. Will need to investigate it further!

2. The first time I applied power to the Altix 350 it shows 'L1 running' on the LCD panel and after pressing the power button at front it doesn't appear to boot, although it has a HDD. (the two CPU's led's on the rear blink red!). It has a base IO card and a SCSI card installed in the two lower PCI slots. The other two PCI slots are missing their 'blanking plates' so I assume cards have been removed from them!
The second time I applied power it up it shows 'L1 running' on the LCD panel at front but after powering up, the LCD panel shows 'VRM not ok, 12v number 2' and I get nothing via the console port.

So initial health check on these systems isn't good!
John

[Raion]

Hi John,

Glad to see that you're still working on these machines. Someone needs to love the otherwise unloved itaniums

[lunatic]

1. I now have all the NumaLink cables and some DB-9 serial cables for the Prism system. One of the two routers seems faulty I.E. 'won't power up', probably power supply but appears to be required for the system to be functional. Will need to investigate it further!

You can connect up to 8 units to the one working router. That will be fine.
So you would have 7 bricks connected to one router.
You need to set the correct rack slot ids as described in the Altix owners manual.
The one with the lowest rack id will be the one that gets the overall console.
You can technically connect a serial console to all the individual units to
resets things, but once they are interconnected, they function as a whole.

2. The first time I applied power to the Altix 350 it shows 'L1 running' on the LCD panel and after pressing the power button at front it doesn't appear to boot, although it has a HDD. (the two CPU's led's on the rear blink red!). It has a base IO card and a SCSI card installed in the two lower PCI slots. The other two PCI slots are missing their 'blanking plates' so I assume cards have been removed from them!
The second time I applied power it up it shows 'L1 running' on the LCD panel at front but after powering up, the LCD panel shows 'VRM not ok, 12v number 2' and I get nothing via the console port.

That might indicate a broken CPU VRM module. Each Itanium needs a VRM module.
It's not like this has to be fatal. My own Altix has a brick that also produces this error,
but still works fine. If it's really broken, you can easily get this replaced, because it's
a generic Intel Itanium part, not an SGI part.

Have you read this:
http://www.hpca.uji.es/ficheros/SGIAltix350.pdf

You need to set the brick slot und cable it correctly. Then power it up as a whole
and see what works and what doesn't. I also suggest making an inventory of
what you have. Open up every bricks and check what's there. Check for CPUs,
RAM, graphics, and the IO9 or IO10 base cards. These base cards hold the
ethernet and disk controllers. IO9 has SCSI, IO10 has SATA. Normally, your
base module should have an IO card.

Dennis

[digitalIRIX]

Hi guys, thanks for the advice and support. According to the "Silicon Graphics Visualisation System User's Guide" you require two routers, but even better if we can get it running with the working one.
I'll do a step by step itinerary of each module and powering them up should show its rack details on the L1 controller display.
Regards
John

[lunatic]

Hi guys, thanks for the advice and support. According to the "Silicon Graphics Visualisation System User's Guide" you require two routers, but even better if we can get it running with the working one.

you only need two routers if you want a 16 brick configuration. With an 8 brick configuration you could live without a router at all. You would just have to cable the nodes correctly and it would be slower of course. Having one router for your 7 bricks is fine and will get you maximum interconnect speed.

[digitalIRIX]

    Hi guys, as a quick update after some messing about I've managed to get a 'two brick' configuration running with the prism system.

At the EFI boot management screen (see attached photo) it offers the following:

debian 5.0

SUSE Enterprise linux 10 SP1

SUSE Enterprise Linux 11

So far I've tried the first two which come up to the 'login' screen on my monitor. Unfortunately I don't know the 'root' password for each, but have contacted the fellow I got them off who hopefully may know them.

As and interesting note, this system having two router modules begs the question at it may have been part of a larger system. I know from my fellow collector whom I got these system off mentioned that there were other ski systems still in use, namely Altix ICE I think and several Cray systems (love to get my hands on a Cray!)

Anyway, next step will be to work out how to incorporate the router module and additional graphics modules together.
Regards
John