[rescue] slightly odd E4000 rescue

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

> 5x CPU boards, 2x336Mhz CPUS, 2GB RAM for total of 10 CPUs and 10GB RAM
> 501-4883 IO board
> 501-4266 IO board, almost all heat sinks are loose from the chips
> 1 blank filler panel

Score!

The heat sinks are easy to fix, if you feel like sparing the time.
Arctic Alumina thermal adhesive works wonders.  Use their cleaning
solution first, then affix the heatsinks.  The way I did mine was I
cleaned all the surfaces, applied the adhesive compound to one sink,
held it for the 5 minutes or so it takes to set up, moved onto the next,
and then put a block of wood across all of them (with a weight on top)
overnight.

   System Temperatures (Celsius):
   ------------------------------
   Brd   State   Current  Min  Max  Trend
   ---  -------  -------  ---  ---  -----
    1      OK       46     41   50  stable
    3      OK       45     37   50  stable
    5      OK       44     37   49  stable
    7      OK       43     35   49  stable
   CLK     OK       44     39   48  stable

The system has been rock-solid (aside from one flaky CPU that I haven't
had time to remove, so I just deactivate it in the init scripts), so I
suspect the job worked.

> I only need the one IO board, correct?  I have a bunch of SBus cards 
> somewhere, I think.

Yes, you only need one, but the slot matters.  You want the board in the
slot closest to the clock board.

> My plan is to use this box for email and web hosting - Apache
> processes will be spread evenly among all CPUs.

Be aware that system will pull a -massive- amount of power with more
than a few CPUs installed.  I had an 10-way box set up with two I/O
boards, and it pulled roughly 12A @ 115V.  'make -j20' on it was a
very-very impressive sight, though.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke | "There is no such thing as a short of reserves...
Elgin, TX         |  one bank can have a problem...the Fed can print
USA               |  money, there is no shortage."
.                 |     --Jim Glassman, US Economist, JPMorgan Chase