[rescue] U20 motherboard upgrade ?- WAS: Wanted: Old Sun Hardware

[Peter Corlett]

On 14 Oct 2009, at 20:04, Jerry K wrote:
[...]
> As these are x86 systems, I am curious if anyone has performed a  
> motherboard/CPU upgrade on an Ultra 20?  Are there any oddities or  
> particular strange parts in an Ultra 20, vs any other generic x86  
> based system that would preclude an upgrade?

I've not dismantled it fully, but it appears to be about as standard  
as any other x86 box in an ATX case.

Note that it's *Opteron* not Athlon, and you need PC3200 DDR ECC RAM  
to max out the memory. This is not economic if you were aiming for the  
full 8GB. So just treat the motherboard, CPU and RAM as a single  
assembly for the purpose of upgrading.

The system basically has no standard drive bays. You might want to  
transplant the guts into another case if you want more than two drives  
or haven't got any spare spud brackets.

The most obvious upgrade is to install a DVD-RW drive instead of the  
stock DVD-ROM drive.