[SunRescue] (stupid) question...

[James Lockwood]

On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Lamb, Mark wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> A rather stupid question - which of the following would be
> faster?
> 
> . SPARCstation 4 / 110mhz
> . SPARCstation 5 / 70mhz?
> 
> (with identical amount of memory)

The Sparc 4.  The 4 and 5 have the same architecture and should perform
identically for CPU-bound tasks at the same clock rate.

I'd be strongly tempted to get the 5, though.  The 4 only has one sbus
slot instead of three, has no builtin audio (though it can be added), can
only mount one internal hard disk, and in a base configuration has a poor
powersupply.

> - that answer would lead me to my next question - can I
> swap out the chips? A quick check on the sun hardware
> FAQ - didn't seem to get me a easy answer.

Sure you can swap them, but it won't help you much.  The oscillators are
soldered.  Actually, the SS4/110 probably has a soldered CPU, I think
nearly all 110's did.

> I am having some difficulties bringing the ss4 up 'headless'
> (actually I do have a dumb terminal plugged into it) - I see
> boot output on the dummy up until Solaris starts init'ing.

Are you set to 9600 8N1?  A mismatched parity setting can cause this.

-James