[rescue] Onyx, sparcbook, and PPro machines

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 04:24:32PM -0500, Dan Sikorski wrote:

> 1. Onyx RE2.  This is a dual processor machine.  (i pulled the cpu board
> out, and it has two processors and the solder points for two more)  It
> had some sort of memory (cache i presume) right next to the processors,
> 4 modules per processor.  The memory board had 8 memory modules on it, 4
> of which i believe were 16meg modules.  Then there were several boards
> that i assume were the video boards.  There was also a cd-rom, and two
> hard drives in it, i assume that these are differential SCSI drives, one
> was marked 2.1GB.  Now for the questions:
> 
> 	can it be upgraded to more/faster processors? (quad r10k?)
> 	Is there anything to look for in particular on it?
> 	What should i be willing to pay for it?

The CPUs can be upgraded.  The upgrade could be as simple as swapping some 
boards, or as hard as replacing the backplane and power supply.  If it 
already has r10ks, then upgrading is definately easy.

Go to:
http://www.gisparks.tas.gov.au/sgi/OnyxRealityEngine2.html
and look at the pictures of the IP19 and the IP25 boards.  Which does 
the CPU board in your machine look more like?  Also check out the IP21 
picture, although those tend to be rare.

The machine probably has 128megs of ram.  This is low for Onyxs, but 
upgradable.

The big question is what backplane does it have.  The above web page has
pictures of both.  If you have the chance, check it out, because the backplane
will determine exactly how upgradable the machine is.  Ideally you want a
backplane that takes the 303 powerboards needed for IR graphics.

At a minimum, I'd guess the machine is worth $800.  I doubt that it would
really be worth more than $2000.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd