[rescue] Blade 100

[Lionel Peterson]

I'll help as I can, below...

>From: Arthur Wouk <awouk at nilenet.com>
>Date: Sat Jun 10 19:08:47 CDT 2006
>To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>Subject: Re: [rescue] Blade 100

>FYI, these take standard PC100 (or is it PC133?) ECC Registered DIMMs.
>i have gotten my ducks more in a row on this subject, and on the subject of
>my ultra-2.
>
>1) i learned how to get the motherboard info  and found that my ultra-2 has
>the 501-3237 motherboard, so 400mhz cpus will work.  however, i find very few
>400mhz cpus for an ultra-2 (X1193A) at ebay. near as i can tell, they are not
>interchangeable with any other sun 400mhz cpus for other workstations.
>is that true? if so, anyone have any spares lying around?

The best/cheapest way to get 2x 400 MHz CPUs maybe to find a system with them stuck inside... I recently picked up 4x 360 MHz CPUs for an AXmp system, and they were just under $100 for the set of four.  You need to be patient, and not just look for the x1193A code in your ebay searches (400 ultra sparc might be good) - remember not everyone knows about the "X-codes" to list that info.

>2) sun says that the blade 100 requires 168pin PC133 compliant SDRAM DIMMS.
>how does 'compliant' compare to
>
>> From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org>
>> Subject: Re: [rescue] need blade 100 memory, hard drive
>> ...
>> FYI, these take standard PC100 (or is it PC133?) ECC Registered DIMMs.


Registered == Buffered, IIRC. Compliant means the RAM matches the requirements for PC133 speed ratings.

>i have no experience of pc memory (as yet - i am about to learn).
>there are cheap non-ECC dimms, but so far, the ones which meet the sun
>description are not cheap.

Yep, 256 Meg pieces seem to be a practical size (cost vs. usefuleness) - 512 Meg pieces are cost-prohibitive in most cases. Again, keep an eye out for a slower system with lot's of RAM on eBay and see if you can get it cheap - you will find in many older Sun systems the "Sum is worth less than the parts" - many times complete system selll for less that the value of the RAM, CPU, or HD alone...

>3) i am puzzled by the following:
>
>>Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 14:05:02 -0400
>>From: velociraptor <velociraptor at gmail.com>
>>Subject: Re: [rescue] need blade 100 memory, hard drive
>>
>>....
>>
>>I'd also advise getting away from the on-board IDE if you can.  1) it
>>can't handle bigger than 120GB (addressing issue), and 2) it's slower
>>than frozen molasses.  Anything less than 256MB and you'll be swearing
>>at it...
>>
>>At the very least, a second faster IDE and pointing swap to the
>>original is a must in my mind.
>
>is there any reason to keep the stock 15gig drive, and not to replace it with
>something substantially larger and faster?  or move it to the slave position
>after installing a better master drive?

The controller chip is slow, no software can really make it better than it is in Solaris 10 (I think there was a patch early on because the software was broken too). Adding a faster drive will simply allow you to "max out" theslow performance of the bad controller implementation. Cheap SCSI cards are available, and with a reasonable SCSI HD, your performance will improve vastly. (I recently bought an Ultra 30 on eBay for $30 simply because it had a 300 MHz CPU, 2x UPA framebuffers, and a Sun SCSI card installed. I am going to strip it down for the parts and put to gether a minimal system from my left overs.) 120 Gig HDs are easily found for $30-60 after rebate on almost any weekend - they are fine, but don't rely on them for a "massive" speed increase - it will be a nice little "bump" up in performance...

>4) what drive speeds won't be too hot for a blade 100?

7200 RPM seems like a good, safe choice. 10,000 RPM may be a bit fast, based on the comments of others.

>5) lastly, there is a reference to the 'silkscreening'. does this refer to
>the labels  silkscreened onto the boards inside the computers?

Exactly.

>lastly, thanks for all the very useful guidance.

That's why we're here...

Lionel