SGI Indigo, WTB Power supply? Burning smell?

ethan at 757.org ethan at 757.org
Fri Dec 9 21:48:54 CST 2016


Okay, after a ton of rounding up the parts I finally have the keyboard, 
keyboard cable, mouse, Indigo and 13W3 to VGA cable to try to bring my 
Indigo back up.

I put my baby on the desk, cable it all up... and burning smell when I 
start it up.

So far I can't find anything on the PCBs that looks burned. Everything 
smells somewhere between old and burned, so that isn't much help.

But here is where it gets crazier.

I originally had a R3000 Indigo, with Entry graphics as I recall. Or maybe 
it had some 3d ass, but it was still 8bit color depth. At some point in 
the NASA Auctions I had come across another Indigo that worked, and it had 
a R4K cpu board. And then I had a card that went into one of the desksides 
that had a Elan set that got you Elan on a deskside (I think.)

I left one of the Indigos outside with a bunch of computers for 
craigslisters to come curbcycle, but a homeless guy stole it all took all 
the metal and left behind all the smashed up plastic parts (yay.) I 
couldn't remember what was in the Indigo I left outside.

After sniffing the PCBs for a minute or so like bomb dog looking for a 
burned resistor or cap.... I got to thinking that the PCBs are bigger than 
I remembered. Better than I remembered.

I google the part numbers, and low and behold it's a R4K CPU card and a 
Elan graphics set. Good for performance, but it's not 100% my first SGI. 
But still.

BUTTTTTTTT.... there is a different power supply for R4K machines, that is 
different from R3K machines. I'm pretty sure the machine I have is my old 
trusty Eggbert, and it has a R3K PSU.

So now I need to find (this should be easy?) a R4K power supply for an 
Indigo. I don't even know if the boards will work, green LED came on for a 
bit then went orange. There was frame buffer output. There was no startup 
sound that I knew and loved.

The 9430810 is the R3000 power supply, the 9430812 is the R4000/R4400 PSU.

Any leads?

--
Ethan O'Toole



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