[geeks] IBM pseries 690 RAM Question

[Aaron Finley]

Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, Sandwich Maker wrote:
> 
>> " Does anyone know if the 690 memory boards contain DIMMs which are
>> " removable or chips that are directly soldered to the card?
>>
> My recollection of the p690 is fuzzy, since my only experience with one
> was talking with a CE at length about them and seeing them on a tour of
> another state agency's datacenter.  But, from what I remember, they do,
> indeed, have DIMMs (same spec as the p630, I think), if you open the
> memory "book", however, I'm reasonably certain that the book is the
> smallest degree of FRU in a Regatta.
> 

 From what I've found in the docs, the DIMMs are soldered onto the 
circuit board in order to increase reliability.

The reason I asked was because a 64GB book showed up on eBay with a $99 
starting price. The seller seemed to not know what he had and stated it 
had "2GB chips." This was the right era for PC2100 ECC Chipkill, so if 
the DIMMs were removable I could have made a killing selling them off 
after taking 32GB for my own server. I was prepared to bid up to $400 on 
the piece to take a shot at it, even considered desoldering if the DIMMs 
were intact, but alas, the board went for over $1300, and it wasn't 
worth the considerable risk of it being a brick.

-- Aaron