What should I look out for when buying an Octane?

If you are planning on upgrading your Octane in the future, there are certain things you need to be sure of when buying it, these are:

The IP30 board version (The CPU/IO tray)
The xbow ASIC version
Power Supply Version
Whether the PCI cardcage is installed
Whether the lamps on the Lightbar are working
Whether the IRIX media is included

Why are they important?

The IP30 board version, this is important for two reasons, the first is that the earlier versions appear to have stability problems, the second reason is, the version you have determines the maximum CPU / memory configuration you can use.

IP30 Versions:

030-0887-003 May have stability problems (something about having to reseat heart ASICS)
030-0887-004 Unsure - may be as above
030-0887-005 Should be okay (I've got one of these - by luck)
030-1467-xxx Required for R12000/270MHz and >400MHz dual and also for 1Gb DIMMS (Max 8Gb)

How do you find out?

If the machine is running with a recent version of IRIX 6.5.x, use
hinv -m
and look for the IP30 line, if the machine is not running or the installed version of IRIX does not give the information, then use the PROM command
system
and look out for the Part: 030-xxx-xxx Name: IP30 Serial: xxxnnn line

The xbow ASIC version, this will determine whether or not the quad ethernet/six serial ports card is supported and whether or not the V10/V12 VPro graphics cards can be used.

Version 1.2: Will not support the quad ethernet/six serial card or VPro (XXX-TODO)
Version 1.3: Supports the quad ethernet/six serial card and VPro V6/V8 but NOT V10/V12
Version 1.4: Supports V6/V8/V10/V12 and the quad ethernet/six serial card.

Version 1.3 is the most likely to be found in the older Octanes (according to the quad ethernet/six serial card manual the 1.2 > 1.3 upgrade should have been free - but that was a while ago)
Version 1.4 is the version in the last Octanes and the Octane2 machines

How do you find out?
If the machine is running a recent version of IRIX 6.5.x) use
hinv
and look out for the XBow ASIC Revision 1.x line, if the machine is not running or the installed version of IRIX does not give the information, then use the PROM command
system
and look out for the xbow(rev 1.x): line


The Power Supply version, this will determine whether or not VPro graphics can be used

060-0028-xxx Original Octane PSU
060-0038-xxx Enhanced original - required for dual-head IMPACT graphics
060-0035-xxx Current PSU - required for VPro graphics


How do you find out?
If the machine is running a recent version of IRIX 6.5.x, use
hinv -m
and look for the PWR.SPPLY.xx line, if the machine is not running or the installed version of IRIX does not give the information, then use the PROM command
system
and look out for the Part: 060-xxx-xxx NAME: PWR.SPPLY.xxx line.

The PCI Cardcage, this is required to install supported PCI cards, if its there it will stick out the back, if it is not installed then a blanking plate MUST be installed.

The Lightbar - does it work? Unfortunately sgi decided to use a technology guaranteed to fail before the end of life of the machine (i.e. the incandescent light bulb) to indicate both normal operation and to indicate hardware failure.

Whether the IRIX media is included, this is important - without the full set of media it will make it very difficult if you upgrade the system at a future date and also if you try to install additional software that requires parts of IRIX that you don't have installed. NOTE: If installing an IRIX 6.5.x overlay and it causes problems, you need the full media kit to go back to previous versions.