Need contact info for Origin 200

Need contact info for Origin 200

[Marco C. Mason]

Hello, OSS @ SGI gang--

I need a little help, please!  As a result of a company closing, I've
received a pair of SGI Origin 200 servers.  Unfortunately, since the
support contract on them has expired, I can't seem to use any of the
support services at www.sgi.com.

I'm just a home experimenter who wants to run the things 'til they die.
I'm very pleased with the performance, software, etc., and I'm very
familiar with them (as I worked on them 8 hrs / day for a year and a
half until the office closed).

The only difficulty is that these things are LOUD!  I'd like to find out
if there are any temperature monitors inside the thing, and if I can run
the fans at a reduced speed, or remove some of the fans to make them
reasonable in a home environment.  They don't do a lot (as I just do
some CPU-intensive stuff on them every once in a while, and very little
disk-I/O).

Thus, I'd like to find a contact for simple (but technical) hardware
questions like these on the Origin 200.  If you guys could send me a
friendly contact or two, I'd be very grateful.

(I'm also interested in making the thing dual-boot Irix & Linux, if the
Linux port is close to operating...  I've also got a pair of Indys that
I'm planning on sacrificing to the Linux gods...)

Thanks in advance--

--marco

Re: Need contact info for Origin 200

[Ralf Baechle]

On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 12:52:52PM -0400, Marco C. Mason wrote:

> The only difficulty is that these things are LOUD!  I'd like to find out
> if there are any temperature monitors inside the thing, and if I can run
> the fans at a reduced speed, or remove some of the fans to make them
> reasonable in a home environment.  They don't do a lot (as I just do
> some CPU-intensive stuff on them every once in a while, and very little
> disk-I/O).

Via the system controller you can set the fan speed.  Only the fan speeds
n like normal and h like high are supported.  If the machine feels like
it is hot or one of the fans has failed it'll automatically switch the
fan speed to h.  If more than one fan fails it'll power off ...

> Thus, I'd like to find a contact for simple (but technical) hardware
> questions like these on the Origin 200.  If you guys could send me a
> friendly contact or two, I'd be very grateful.

Well, try this list.

> (I'm also interested in making the thing dual-boot Irix & Linux, if the
> Linux port is close to operating...  I've also got a pair of Indys that
> I'm planning on sacrificing to the Linux gods...)

The Indy port is in reasonable shape; the O200 port has decayed a bit
over the past months but as far as time permits I'm working on getting
it to run again.

  Ralf

Re: Need contact info for Origin 200

[Marco C. Mason]

Ralf--

Thanks for your reply!

--marco

Ralf Baechle wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 12:52:52PM -0400, Marco C. Mason wrote:
>
> > The only difficulty is that these things are LOUD!  I'd like to find out
> > if there are any temperature monitors inside the thing, and if I can run
> > the fans at a reduced speed, or remove some of the fans to make them
> > reasonable in a home environment.  They don't do a lot (as I just do
> > some CPU-intensive stuff on them every once in a while, and very little
> > disk-I/O).
>
> Via the system controller you can set the fan speed.  Only the fan speeds
> n like normal and h like high are supported.  If the machine feels like
> it is hot or one of the fans has failed it'll automatically switch the
> fan speed to h.  If more than one fan fails it'll power off ...
>
> > Thus, I'd like to find a contact for simple (but technical) hardware
> > questions like these on the Origin 200.  If you guys could send me a
> > friendly contact or two, I'd be very grateful.
>
> Well, try this list.
>
> > (I'm also interested in making the thing dual-boot Irix & Linux, if the
> > Linux port is close to operating...  I've also got a pair of Indys that
> > I'm planning on sacrificing to the Linux gods...)
>
> The Indy port is in reasonable shape; the O200 port has decayed a bit
> over the past months but as far as time permits I'm working on getting
> it to run again.
>
>   Ralf

Re: Need contact info for Origin 200

[nick]

They are running at reduced speed unless the temp is over ~90.  I can
answer most common questions about them.
	Nick

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, Marco C. Mason wrote:

> Hello, OSS @ SGI gang--
> 
> I need a little help, please!  As a result of a company closing, I've
> received a pair of SGI Origin 200 servers.  Unfortunately, since the
> support contract on them has expired, I can't seem to use any of the
> support services at www.sgi.com.
> 
> I'm just a home experimenter who wants to run the things 'til they die.
> I'm very pleased with the performance, software, etc., and I'm very
> familiar with them (as I worked on them 8 hrs / day for a year and a
> half until the office closed).
> 
> The only difficulty is that these things are LOUD!  I'd like to find out
> if there are any temperature monitors inside the thing, and if I can run
> the fans at a reduced speed, or remove some of the fans to make them
> reasonable in a home environment.  They don't do a lot (as I just do
> some CPU-intensive stuff on them every once in a while, and very little
> disk-I/O).
> 
> Thus, I'd like to find a contact for simple (but technical) hardware
> questions like these on the Origin 200.  If you guys could send me a
> friendly contact or two, I'd be very grateful.
> 
> (I'm also interested in making the thing dual-boot Irix & Linux, if the
> Linux port is close to operating...  I've also got a pair of Indys that
> I'm planning on sacrificing to the Linux gods...)
> 
> Thanks in advance--
> 
> --marco
> 
> 

Re: Need contact info for Origin 200

[Marco C. Mason]

Nick--

First of all, thanks for responding!

Do you know any way to make the Origin 200 operate more quietly?  I'm a
hardware geek, so I know that there are cooling issues and air-flow issues,
but the darned thing is so loud that I can't just keep it running all the
time.  If I keep it on, it's distracting, even when I put it in another room
with the door closed.  (My hearing is pretty sensitive...)

It's in an air-conditioned house, and I don't mind putting in some
temperature sensors to shut it off when it gets too warm inside...  I'd hate
to go to the trouble of creating a noise-muffling cabinet if there's some
known way of making the beast a bit quieter.  (Since I don't beat the disk
drives up, they shouldn't generate much heat.  I wouldn't mind pulling out
all the drives but one, if that would help...)

Since I have a couple of 'em (as well as another couple of loud rack-mount
boxes), I've even considered building a custom cabinet with a single
large-capacity fan in it to draw air through all four boxes, and mount a
dozen LM34-based temperature sensors at strategic points in the boxes to shut
'em all down if it gets too warm in the cabinet...

--marco

nick@snowman.net wrote:

> They are running at reduced speed unless the temp is over ~90.  I can
> answer most common questions about them.
>         Nick
>
> On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, Marco C. Mason wrote:
>
> > Hello, OSS @ SGI gang--
> >
> > I need a little help, please!  As a result of a company closing, I've
> > received a pair of SGI Origin 200 servers.  Unfortunately, since the
> > support contract on them has expired, I can't seem to use any of the
> > support services at www.sgi.com.
> >
> > I'm just a home experimenter who wants to run the things 'til they die.
> > I'm very pleased with the performance, software, etc., and I'm very
> > familiar with them (as I worked on them 8 hrs / day for a year and a
> > half until the office closed).
> >
> > The only difficulty is that these things are LOUD!  I'd like to find out
> > if there are any temperature monitors inside the thing, and if I can run
> > the fans at a reduced speed, or remove some of the fans to make them
> > reasonable in a home environment.  They don't do a lot (as I just do
> > some CPU-intensive stuff on them every once in a while, and very little
> > disk-I/O).
> >
> > Thus, I'd like to find a contact for simple (but technical) hardware
> > questions like these on the Origin 200.  If you guys could send me a
> > friendly contact or two, I'd be very grateful.
> >
> > (I'm also interested in making the thing dual-boot Irix & Linux, if the
> > Linux port is close to operating...  I've also got a pair of Indys that
> > I'm planning on sacrificing to the Linux gods...)
> >
> > Thanks in advance--
> >
> > --marco
> >
> >

Re: Need contact info for Origin 200

[Richard Gooch]

Marco C. Mason writes:
> Nick--
> 
> First of all, thanks for responding!
> 
> Do you know any way to make the Origin 200 operate more quietly?
> I'm a hardware geek, so I know that there are cooling issues and
> air-flow issues, but the darned thing is so loud that I can't just
> keep it running all the time.  If I keep it on, it's distracting,
> even when I put it in another room with the door closed.  (My
> hearing is pretty sensitive...)

This thread is off-topic for the devfs list. Please keep this on the
linux-mips list.

				Regards,

					Richard....
Permanent: rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
Current:   rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca