[rescue] Repairing Sun Exx00 Node Boards

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

I've developed the habit of hanging dead computer boards on the walls,
partially because some of them are attractive and partially because I
might be able to reuse components from some of them later.  Almost every
room[0] in the house has a NuBus card, an mbus module, a Unibus card, or
some other device hanging on one or more walls.

In the dining room were three Exx00 node boards whose heatsinks had
parted ways with the boards in the usual fashion.  Earlier this week, I
came across a pile of memory I wanted to toss in my E3000, so I decided
to try reattaching those heat sinks.

Using this stuff:

   http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm

to prep the surfaces of the heatsinks and gigaplane ASICs, and this
stuff:

   http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_alumina_thermal_adhesive.htm

to reattach the sinks (along with a block of wood to provide even
pressure across the sinks during the setting process), I have one more
happy node board:

   System Temperatures (Celsius):
   ------------------------------
   Brd   State   Current  Min  Max  Trend
   ---  -------  -------  ---  ---  -----
    1      OK       42     39   42  stable
    3      OK       39     37   42  stable
    5      OK       38     34   39  stable
   CLK     OK       40     38   40  stable

Board 5 is the repaired board, with its 2 additional processors and 2
additional GB of memory.  It's run all day without a problem so far.

Best $30 I ever spent at Fry's. :)


[0] Can you tell I don't share the house with an SO? :)
-- 
Jonathan Patschke    )   "A man who never dreams goes slowly mad."
Elgin, TX           (      --Thomas Dolby, "Valley of the Mind's Eye"