[rescue] Old sparcstations & overheating

[Sandwich Maker]

this is all very apropos for me, since i've just scored a sparcengine
ultra 20.

for those of you who don't know, it was made by sun microelectronics
for the industrial mkt, to replace the sparcengine 5 and 20  cpu
boards in embedded apps.  it appears to be essentially a u1e chipset
on an aurora-size board - but with a u2-style socketed cpu; mine's 300
MHz.  otoh uname -i says it's an ultra-2, but iirc a couple of years
ago someone [on this list?] tried to flash his seu20 obp with a u2
update and turned it into a doorstop...

fas scsi, hme ethernet...  no upa slot though, but i have a tx4.

i put mine into a ss4 case [yes with the 'server', aka ss5/20, ps],
with 8 32M sticks and two 39103 drives.  these spec ~7.6w idle, less
than the ~8.8w of the 34371s below.  took s8 2/02 off the cd just
fine.

" From: "Janet L. Campbell" <janet at foonly.com>
" 
" On Thu, 17 Feb 2005, John Redmond wrote:
" 
" > I am (still) planning to put a couple of old sparcs in a
" > co-lo. One would be ss10 with dual sm81s the other ss20 with dual HS
" > 133s. Both would have 2 smallish seagate 4.2 gig drives ST34371W in the
" > SS20, not sure yet about the SS10. Is it just the bigger, newer drives
" > that pose the overheating problems?
" 
" Since the drives and the mainboard are located in different air paths in
" the SS20, hot drives are unlikely to kill the processors.  However, with
" hot drives, the failure rate of the upper drive seems to be noticably
" higher.  Make sure you have the hard drive fan FCO installed (looks like a
" mini fan between the CDROM/floppy and hard drive bays).

i recall that fco...  where would one find one these days?

another weakness with the upper drive is that the sca paddleboard
doesn't have a slot in the middle so that air can flow between the
drives and out the side.

" Removing the side panels is easy and gives you a little extra airflow, 
" late-model SS20s (and SS4/SS5s) had side panels with a more open flow 
" design.  I seem to remember them being mandated with certain high-heat 
" cards, like the TZX.

was this the chassis that took a normal-size cdrom?
--
i'd like to get one of those hd fans, late-model chassis [i have a 12x
cdrom to put in it], and a type-4 kbd.  i used a very wonky type-4 to
do the install, but the shift keys don't work...  what was the
resolution of the recent cleaning thread?  not dishwasher safe,
but...?

i'm also looking for a sparc-5 cdda cd-motherboard digital audio cable.
this thing has the header for it just like a ss5, same place even,
though the docs say -unsupported-...

for the future, i want a faster cpu.  400 was never offered but is
known to work; my question is whether it can handle the heat of a
400/4M [~70w] or should i stick to a 400/2M [~59w, same as the 300]?
--
anyone know a place that'll do -really-small- pcb runs?  i might have
a go at that sca paddleboard, and give it wide scsi into the bargain.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought