Subject: Re: [rescue] SGI rackmount computer case.... what SGI ?

[Earl D. Baugh Jr.]

Actually, I the fact that they've described it as an ACER board isn't a 
negative,
it's actually a positive towards supporting that this is the SGI 
board.  Because
I have an SGI board that is VERY close to this. (I've got a 320).

And when I got it, I went Googling for doc's on the jumpers, etc on 
it.  From the tags and id's on
the board, I found out that the SGI board for the 320's is at least a 
derivative  of one that ACER built.
Dunno if  ACER built it for SGI (or remanufactured it for them..or 
what)  But the doc's are like 98% identical.
There does seem to be some small differences, which from what I recall 
described more capabilities in the SGI board than
the standard ACER one.    But I know for a fact that the graphics card 
there is the stock version that SGI shipped.

I'll have to post a picture of my board so you can see the similarities 
......I'd love to get one of those cards
and a case like that.....I love the motherboard...wish I had bought the 
other one the guy had at the computer
show....he had two, I bought one.    I just put dual PIII 866's in it, and 
it cranks.  BTW, there is one weirdness that I
discovered.  If you use a standard PCI video card, or even a "basic" AGP 
card, you can't get into the BIOS screens.
It needs at least 32MB....the first two AGP cards I had in it wouldn't let 
me in.   I actually only just got into the BIOS this
past week when I put in the new processors and decided to put in a video 
card I had when I had the case open (on a lark).

Wasn't sure exactly what version of SCSI it supported, none of the SCSI 
drives I had in the pile seemed to work it was as if the
SCSI wasn't initializing....but I couldn't get into the BIOS to see what it 
was set up as....and I wasn't sure what "flavor" of SCSI
the bus was...now that I know it can support LVD drives,I'll have to 
re-check the pile.   It should work better, since now that I actually
turned ON the SCSI bus....another reason I'm glad I can get into the BIOS 
now....

Would love to get more/better storage on it. I wish I had the 
case...Curtis, let me know if you decide to part with
it...I've got the board for it...now that I know what the case probably was 
like.

I see one with dual 1Ghz processors, I may go get a pair of them.....it 
only said in the doc's that it "supported up to 850's"
and that it should support "future" CPU's...Anybody tried something faster 
than 866's in a 320?

Earl


Thomas Gallaway wrote:
 >
 >> A while back, Curtis Wilbar picked up a rackmount SGI case. Some
 >> argued that it might have been a fake. One of the argument was that
 >> the chassis was not stainless.
 >>
 >>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2794521222&category=51119
 >>
 >> Shows that casing again, but populated with an ACER motherboard. It
 >> does have a serial card with SGI silkscreened on it. So I dont know.
 >> Was this a fake or not? We'll never know for sure, but it looks like
 >> it's something that never made it into production.
 >>
 >> Francois
 >>
 >
 >Those are actually not fake. These are real SGI machines. I've seen one
 >of those in a warehouse once where it came from SGI (in a SGI box).
 >Guess one of the reasons they did this cause they wanted to do the same
 >like companys rebadging SGI gear. SGI builds big powerfull machines,
 >then their PC's must be good too.
 >
 >-- Thomas