13 Feb
2002
13 Feb
'02
2:34 a.m.
Tim said:
Christopher Smith wrote:
[re. broken SGI Indy]
No shit. I recently did a system board swap on an O200, and there were just
too many weak and uncooperative bits for a machine that cost so much...not to
mention that SGI didn't want to tell me how to do it without paying someone to
come out and do it for me. Oh yeah, and out of 4 available module system
controllers (MSC's, it's like a hardware monitor and contains the PROM), only
2 worked. That's not counting the 2 that have failed on this system in the
past few years. however, everything did go OK in the end and it's now running
4x360Mhz R12000's :) (needless to say, this is NOT a machine I have at home.)
He was able to find the faulty part. Honestly, I
wish I'd been
able to do that, myself, but I don't have the stack of SGI pieces
to do it :)
On an only slightly related note, IMHO the build quality and general
longevity of Silicon Graphics hardware really isn't what you'd hope
of kit that cost so much new... Personal (limited, I grant you ;-) experience of Indys
on the other
hand suggest you need at least 3 candidates handy if you want to put
together a working combination of power supply, processor and mobo/PROM.
And the chassis is horribly weak - the way the power supply clips into
place is very neat, but also makes it structurally very poor at the
join (L-shaped computer, anyone?)
Yes, the indy's are awful...O2's are also awful... I think the only sturdy
workstations they've ever made are the Indigo2s and Octanes. The octanes are
a giant 50lb metal casting, they have no choice but to be sturdy ;)
Which isn't to say I don't love 'em, an
Indy is my main workstation at
home & the sight of SGI rapidly going down the tubes is deeply sad...
it is really too bad...especially since it's mostly because of shit-poor
management, not bad engineering -- the machines really do work well for what
people buy them for. they've been coming back a little in recent months,
though...I just hope the trend continues. Although, I think it would be
ultimately hilarious if, in the end, Cray Research decided to buy them in
order to take over the Origin line of supercomputers ;-)
Cheers,
Tim.
--
Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk
- Dan
Wright
(dtwright(a)uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
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