[kaigan]

Hey, folks,

It looks like I finally have my Onyx2 in (mostly) working order. The internal SCSI controller is faulty, sadly. I was able to get IRIX 6.5.22 installed on a SCSI2SD in an external enclosure. While it isn't the fastest thing in the world, it should suffice until I can get a good hard drive in there.

As an element of shuffling parts around, I moved a pair of 400 MHz PIMM modules onto node boards that had contained 300 MHz modules. However, the system is only registering them as 300 MHz. hinv shows the correct SGI part number for 400 MHz modules and they did function on their original node boards. I just swapped the PIMMs because I was too lazy to move all the RAM. (Well, and I did want to try it out!) I ran update in the PROM but they're still reporting in both the PROM and IRIX as 300 MHz. I also flashed everything from IRIX. Is there a step I'm missing in getting these working, or could this be a limitation of the specific node board revision?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[jan-jaap]

Hey, folks,

It looks like I finally have my Onyx2 in (mostly) working order. The internal SCSI controller is faulty, sadly. I was able to get IRIX 6.5.22 installed on a SCSI2SD in an external enclosure. While it isn't the fastest thing in the world, it should suffice until I can get a good hard drive in there.

As an element of shuffling parts around, I moved a pair of 400 MHz PIMM modules onto node boards that had contained 300 MHz modules. However, the system is only registering them as 300 MHz. hinv shows the correct SGI part number for 400 MHz modules and they did function on their original node boards. I just swapped the PIMMs because I was too lazy to move all the RAM. (Well, and I did want to try it out!) I ran update in the PROM but they're still reporting in both the PROM and IRIX as 300 MHz. I also flashed everything from IRIX. Is there a step I'm missing in getting these working, or could this be a limitation of the specific node board revision?

Thanks in advance for the help!

I think what you're looking for is "flash -f", but:

1. The 400MHz nodeboards normally have a newer rev HUB chip which is required for some HD media options I believe.
2. Flashing the wrong parameters will disable the CPUs and render the board useless. You may be able to recover a board with disabled CPUs but this requires a 2nd node which does still work.

I have done this procedure in the past when a 500MHz node failed but the CPUs were still good, using a 250MHz donor node. It is not for the faint of heart. You certainly don't want to do this with two nodes at once because you risk bricking all nodes at once.

In short: I would move the RAM over. Clean the contacts of each stick of RAM with some alcohol while you're at it. If you think this takes long: booting a node with disabled CPUs takes longer. No kidding, it takes *forever*.

Don't say I didn't warn you. I will not be responsible for bricked hardware.

[kaigan]

Don't say I didn't warn you. I will not be responsible for bricked hardware.

As always, thank you very much for the information! Knowing the risk, I definitely don't want to risk bricking a pair of working node boards! I'll just move the RAM instead.

[kaigan]

After messing around with this thing on and off for months... it's alive! It's a shame about the SCSI controller, but at least the system is fully working otherwise.

Code:

IRIS 5# hinv
4 400 MHZ IP27 Processors
CPU: MIPS R12000 Processor Chip Revision: 3.5
FPU: MIPS R12010 Floating Point Chip Revision: 3.5
Main memory size: 6144 Mbytes
Instruction cache size: 32 Kbytes
Data cache size: 32 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 8 Mbytes
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version QL1040B (rev. 2), single ended
Integral SCSI controller 1: Version QL1040B (rev. 2), single ended
  Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty2
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty3
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty4
IOC3 parallel port: plp1
Graphics board: InfiniteReality3
Integral Fast Ethernet: ef0, version 1, module 1, slot io1, pci 2
Iris Audio Processor: version RAD revision 7.0, number 1
Origin BASEIO board, module 1 slot 1: Revision 3
IOC3/IOC4 external interrupts: 1