[Vanne]

I acquired a new to me Indigo2 the other week, 

though without a video card or hard drive, the video card shouldn't be too much of a drama as i have a spare one in my crap pile back home in Sydney, but ill need to source a new hard drive. anyone point me in the right direction which one to buy. I do have a sled, so thats good. 

This one is a R10k195 with a bunch of mismatched ram sticks in it. and ill sure as heck hope it still boots after shipping drops it off at my front door. (my last purple o2 went missing in the mail for over 6 months) 

any idea if i need to do anything special before seeing if it'll boot, aside from reseating the ram and video card?

Cheers

The cover also has a few marks on it, hopefully i can clean that up.





outside of the box...



Inside... 



and this shows damage on the corner... 
:(






As i said, hopefully it will arrive in one piece. 

[nintendoeats]

I was admiring that baby in the ebay listing. Glad to know it's going to a good home.

[kaigan]

That's a very pretty machine! As far as hard drives go, if you can find a New Old Stock or otherwise lightly used SCSI-1 50-pin drive, you should be good to go. With the appropriate adapter, you could also use a later drive type, but you'll still be limited by the SCSI bus speeds.

For an Indigo2, you could also consider a SCSI2SD. While they're generally considered too slow for newer machines, on the Indigo2 and Indy they can work quite well. I use the v6 model in my Indy and teal Indigo2 with good results.

Callahan has a post with some performance testing that can give you a good idea on performance differences between a mechanical hard drive and the SCSI2SD. Hopefully that can help you to make the best choice for your needs: https://forums.irixnet.org/thread-2004.html

As far as firing it up, I'd just give a quick check to the CPU, RAM, video card, and power connectors. If everything looks to be seated correctly, I'd go for it. You might get some "fun" results from the PSU, as Indigo2 PSUs are known to be a bit unreliable. I'd be ready to pull the power from it in case a capacitor blows. I wouldn't be too worried about it, though.

Let us know how things go!

[Trippynet]

I would go with a later 80pin drive and adapter if you can. You'll need to get one that supports the necessary fallback to SCSI2, some drives support this - some don't. Main reason I'd do this is that you're far more likely to find a quiet drive if you go down this route, plus sizes are larger. I have 36GB and 300GB drives in my Indigo2, both of which are very quiet. A lot of older 50pin SCSI drives are quite noisy.

And it comes with a 100Mb NIC, which is always nice as well! Cracked drivers are available for this from Ian Mapleson's site. You'll need the cracked ones as it is a 3Com card, not the Phobos-rebranded one that was officially sold for the Indigo2.

[jan-jaap]

As far as hard drives go, if you can find a New Old Stock or otherwise lightly used SCSI-1 50-pin drive, you should be good to go. With the appropriate adapter, you could also use a later drive type, but you'll still be limited by the SCSI bus speeds.

SCA80 disks are much easier to find in reasonable condition. Just pay attention with these adapters, you need to put something between the disk and the adapter to avoid a short circuit, as can be seen in this photo of the disk of my R4400 Indigo2:



Oh, and since nobody seems to have noticed: this is an R10000 Indigo, but with the old, pre-IMPACT power supply. I had no idea that even worked, I know for sure that isn't a supported configuration. You will not be able to use IMPACT graphics.

[Vanne]

Thanks guys, ill do that, ill look for a 80 pin drive and an adaptor. 

This is actually the 3rd Indigo2 that ive bought, never saw the 2nd one, it got lost in the mail, and my first one R4K250 my brother ended up putting on the road for the city cleanup as it was stored at my mums place.. wasn't happy about that, ill tell ya. 

hopefully the skin isn't too badly damaged, I didn't actually see that in the pictures before I bought it. But alas, hopefully I can fix it. 

What version of Irix should I be looking at? 

Cheers again guys, its been a while. 

[Vanne]

Jan, holy crap.. just noticed that myself about the non impact PSU... :( Man that's gonna suck..

I see Ian still has a few available..


PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-0027-002): 275 UKP (supplies up to 48A at 3.5V)
PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-0027-001): 225 UKP (supplies up to 48A at 3.5V)
PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-0021-002): 195 UKP (supplies up to 48A at 3.5V)
PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-0021-001): 135 UKP (supplies up to 48A at 3.5V)
PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-8002-001): 95 UKP (supplies up to 36A at 3.5V; later design)
PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-8001-001): 75 UKP (supplies up to 36A at 3.5V)
PSU for R4K Indigo2: 25 UKP
Motherboard for R10K Indigo2: 95 UKP (SGI PN 060-8001-001): 75 Ukp

But how do I know which one I'll need?

Will any of them work? Why the difference from 48A to 36A? Was the later 36A the last of the indigo 2's?

I haven't got the box in hand yet, it's with FedEx as we speak, but yeah a little annoyed I didn't see/notice the blue cable missing...
Cheers....

[jpstewart]

While Ian's site lists them all as being for R4K/R10K, Doug Mashek's site says the 060-0021 and 060-8001 supplies are R4K only and the 060-0027 and 060-8002 are the R10K supplies (which should also work in the R4K models, IIRC). 

And sgistuff.net makes note that the 060-0021 (48A) supplies are needed for dual-head graphics, so presumably the 060-0027 (48A) supplies are the dual-head R10K ones. 

There used to be a handy cross-reference out there with all that info in one place, but I can't find it at the moment. 

Also note that in this context "dual head" means Max+Solid, High+Solid, or High+High Impact.  (There isn't physical space for two Max Impact cards.)  Two Solid Impact cards are apparently fine with the lower-spec power supply.  And any single card is fine.

Finally, the last three digits of the part number (-001 and -002 in Ian's list) are just the revision numbers.  It shouldn't make any difference to function or performance.

[Vanne]

Thanks JP, and thanks Jan,

Ill give Ian a shoutout for this one

PSU for R4K/R10K Indigo2 (IMPACT-type, SGI PN 060-8002-001): 95 UKP (supplies up to 36A at 3.5V; later design)

that should work with my Max Impact boards set right?

also another quick question... the badges on the front of the box???

this one has the "10000-Impact" badge, but most other Indigo2's ive seen have it the other way around? "Impact-10000"???? whats going on with that? or is my mind playing tricks on me?

[Trippynet]

Mine also says "10000 IMPACT". The two badges can be detached and swapped around if it bothers you however.