[SunRescue] Re: SS2 memory

[Robert Novak]

I thought I heard a "David Cantrell" say:
> 
> My SS2 does an excellent job, but could do with more RAM.  It's already
> got 64Mb, but I see in the faq that it can take a 32Mb card and that
> can take another daughter card, for a total of 128Mb, which would be much
> more comfortable.

I have one of these... one trick which may be anecdotal but I found it the
hard way: It seems to require 16meg of 4meggers on board to work. I tried
using the "boris and natasha" (32mb sbus board and 32mb daughterboard for
it) kit with 16 1meggers a while back and I think it failed to work. 4
4meggers worked.

> The FAQ says that the "card blocks SBus slot" - does that mean that it
> blocks a single slot, or that it blocks all of them?  

As mentioned earlier, it is an sbus card, more or less (I'm told it uses
the sbus for power and the 6-pin header for memory interface, not sure),
and must go in the slot nearest the power supply.

/* WARNING: This next paragraph contains an idea that can physically ruin
your hardware if you apply it without appropriate cautions. Be warned. */

As another potentially useless fact, you *can* use this card in an IPX.
The board supports it physically. BUT (and it's a big but) the board
suffers from a matter interface conflict with the power supply. Read: If
you put it in, close the box, and open the box again, you'll probably
break the board. You can file down the power supply case a bit (anyone
done this and care to share details?) to avoid this, but take my word of
experience for it, you can ruin the card effortlessly if you don't file
this down.

> Another wrinkle is that I'm running Linux on this box, so need the
> expansion boards to be supported.  Anyone know whether they are?

I have used mine with Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4.1.4, and (currently) OpenBSD
2.5. It looks and acts no different from other memory, except of course
that it's more than you can get on the board. Wonder if anybody's tried
16meg simms in sun4c... I know the 600MP uses them but that's quite a
different beast.

OpenBSD 2.5 (GENERIC) #172: Fri Apr 16 10:18:24 MDT 1999
    deraadt at sun4m.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC
real mem = 83763200
avail mem = 75935744
using 200 buffers containing 4186112 bytes of memory
bootpath: /sbus at 1,f8000000/esp at 0,800000/sd at 3,0
mainbus0 (root): SUNW,Sun 4/75

> And, of course, anyone got any boards available?  Or know a part number?

I have one I may be parting with one of these days... the SS2 is just
running bind and I want to cut down my power usage. :) Also gonna have a
Tatung Compstation 5-110 (Sparcstation 5 clone in a Sparcstation 10-style
case, IDC50 narrow scsi and such) to part with at some point soon. It's
got 256mb of ram. Have a spare batch of 8x8MB SS5 memory sitting here next
to the monitor if anyone has an interest in those either.

--Rob

-- 
Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * rnovak at indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
        "And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
           Maybe this year will be better than the last...." -- counting crows