[Tephran]

I received a second Octane a while ago, due to moving I haven't had a chance to work with it much. When I received the unit, I had to reseat the mother board which took about 10 times before the Octane would boot.

The good idea fairy hit me last week, and I decided to install additional ram from 512 to 2G. Currently the unit will not post, I get the fans on no lights on the light bar.

Could this be an issue with the XBOW?

To date the following has been done in an attempt to isolate the issue:

- Pulled the mother board put into working Octane, boots first try no issues with the additional ram installed fully functional
     - Installed motherboard back into non functioning Octane, same issue no light bar, fans on

- Put a console cable on the broken octane,and receive nothing on the console
     - Tested known good cable and output from known working octane on which I can see console out put, broken Octane receive nothing

- Pulled the front panel off of the broken Octane once powered up
     - All green lights, no red lights present

- This is the same Octane that a Digital video board will not show attached to the EXMI
     - EXMI / Digital video have been reseated
     - No change, still no post or video output

- The other odd issue is, the light bar only shows red once it goes through post like normal and then it's completely dead. When the unit would boot, the lights were dead on the light bar on a known good working light bar pulled from the other Octane.
     - Tested this against a known working light bar from the other Octane, and bought a replacement thinking the light bar itself was the problem.

[weblacky]

Yeah, I don’t hear power supply? Did you try taking the good Octane power supply and try it in the suspect one?

My brain says power supply because of the many reattempts required and the final additional attempts don’t work anymore. But PCB parts proven good.

Let us know, if it’s not the power supply then you’re correct in that there sure aren’t many parts left to check that you’ve not checked, so the XBOW could be an issue.


Also, just to plug myself, if you’d like to return your original lightbars to OEM-style incandescent bulbs and have them light up like they used to. Please go to the marketplace - repair service section. I run a repair service for the lightbar bulbs (not LEDs). It’s the only place you’ll find this opportunity to restore original functionality to the lightbar with limited supply bulbs that aren’t produced any longer.

Good luck!

[Tephran]

Yeah, I don’t hear power supply?  Did you try taking the good Octane power supply and try it in the suspect one?

My brain says power supply because of the many reattempts required and the final additional attempts don’t work anymore. But PCB parts proven good.

Let us know, if it’s not the power supply then you’re correct in that there sure aren’t many parts left to check that you’ve not checked, so the XBOW could be an issue. 


Also, just to plug myself, if you’d like to return your original lightbars to OEM-style incandescent bulbs and have them light up like they used to. Please go to the marketplace - repair service section.  I run a repair service for the lightbar bulbs (not LEDs).  It’s the only place you’ll find this opportunity to restore original functionality to the lightbar with limited supply bulbs that aren’t produced any longer. 

Good luck!

Power supply pulled from the unit with the possible XBOW issue
     - Powered up the working Octane right away no issues.
     - Put the original power supply back into the working Octane
          - Now it appears that the 'working' power supply completely dead.
          - I hear the unit switch; however, no power is coming from the unit or fans being heard and no LCD lights.

Octane that is not working
     - Appears that the XBOW might be an issue
     - Now requires a new power supply as one failed during the swap and has been installed into 'working' Octane

[weblacky]

If you hear a soft “click” but nothing happens...we call that the click of death. It’s either the over current protection or the over voltage protection circuitry in the power supply itself. It’s a reaction to a perceived failure on the output side of the power supply so it suspends operations but disconnecting itself using a relay. Likely when you shutdown last time you lost an output diode in the PSU or similar output rail failure.

It’s the standard failure due to age. I’ve not yet gotten to my click of death PSUs. I have two Octane PSUs that do that. The Octanes themselves boot fine with working PSUs.

Unfortunately, this test didn’t confirm anything in the suspected Octane.

I can only guess that the “working unit” has a lower power draw requirement.

Are both the power supply wattage ratings the same on the label? Octane has two different power supplies made, one higher rated than the other.

Can you confirm rated wattage? Yes, some people ran the beefier stations on the lower wattage supply. But as they age the lower on goes first as it’s running seriously close to its max compared with the higher wattage version at startup.

I’ve only seen one bad xbow here on the forums and it had a short that actually blew a PSU and charred its connector (pop & smell). I’ve never heard of it again (one instance). I don’t think that’s what this is.

I’m still leaning that you have very weak power supplies that are too old to reliably work.

But more data would nice to confirm.

[Tephran]

If you hear a soft “click” but nothing happens...we call that the click of death.  It’s either the over current protection or the over voltage protection circuitry in the power supply itself.  It’s a reaction to a perceived failure on the output side of the power supply so it suspends operations but disconnecting itself using a relay.  Likely when you shutdown last time you lost an output diode in the PSU or similar output rail failure. 

It’s the standard failure due to age. I’ve not yet gotten to my click of death PSUs. I have two Octane PSUs that do that.  The Octanes themselves boot fine with working PSUs. 

Unfortunately, this test didn’t confirm anything in the suspected Octane. 

I can only guess that the “working unit” has a lower power draw requirement. 

Are both the power supply wattage ratings the same on the label?  Octane has two different power supplies made, one higher rated than the other. 

Can you confirm rated wattage?  Yes, some people ran the beefier stations on the lower wattage supply.  But as they age the lower on goes first as it’s running seriously close to its max compared with the higher wattage version at startup.

I’ve only seen one bad xbow here on the forums and it had a short that actually blew a PSU and charred its connector (pop & smell). I’ve never heard of it again (one instance).  I don’t think that’s what this is. 

I’m still leaning that you have very weak power supplies that are too old to reliably work. 

But more data would nice to confirm.

Working PSU:

PWR.SPPLY.ER Board: barcode AAE9490025 part 060-0035-002 rev  A

Currently powering a PCI shoe box with 3 cards, V12 DCD , 2x400 and 2 300G 15k drives

I think to start of the effort in diagnosing the other chassis nothing can be done until I source another power supply. I'm hoping you are correct and the power reuirement is more than the power supply can put out.

Does a EXMI wtih all of the TRAMS and a Digital video board pull more than the other Octane? I had the working Octane powered all up all afternoon with no issues, if this power supply was dying I would think that it wouldn't power up everything that I currently have configured. Both power supplies are the Cherokee, not the old black handled ones.

And yes it's a soft click and then absolutely nothing, I dont think anyone is able to rebuild them yet. I'll hang onto it for a possible rebuild in the future.

[weblacky]

Later graphics + extras = more power. Also if you have a dual CPU = more power. However it also has to do with disks drive surge, and connector resistance and all that as well (there should be a variance).

If your working unit is more loaded and has dual CPU’s and such while the bad one doesn’t. Yeah, that’s strange. If they are both 737w Cherokees then they should be equal (outside of age).

Perhaps remove drives and option boards and place in simple graphics to check if that allows booting? Heck maybe use serial and remove the entire option carrier and see if it starts and complains it can’t find graphics?

My money is still on power supply.


I am slowly working towards SGI PSU rebuild services. Though I plan to start with SGI Indy due to the fact that it’s a vastly more simple in design, and I have like 8 of them that need work :-).

After Indy I’m unsure if you’ll go Octane or Indigo2. My Gut says Octane as I have to finish fixing my own Octanes I recently got. Indigo2 PSUs are the worst design I’ve seen (to field repair, I mean). So I may save those for my third round (also there are a very large number of variants so you have to manually check any materials order against them before ordering because each version could have different parts, which means more research and special lists for revisions and manufacturers).

Yeah hold onto the PSUs, they aren’t making any more.

Octane PSUs are actually very accessible inside so rebuilding is more an issue of removing lots of small (obstructing) heatsinks to get to the caps and diodes and such.