3/50 memory expansion

[Ned Danieley]

Here is the info I received in response to my query about memory expansion
for the 3/50. The Solflower board looks especially nice because it uses
SIMMs, which should mean that if you ever get rid of your 50s, you could
move the memory to another machine that uses SIMMs, or save them for
backups. I don't have any info on the new Helios board; does anyone?

Solflower's board is $595; with 4M it is $1595. Clearpoint's 4M upgrade is
$1725. I don't have any prices on Helios; can anyone provide those?
__________

jt at earth.cray.com (Jack Thompson):

We have had great success with the new non-soldered upgrade available from
Helios.  We have 500+ Suns at our site, and all but a handful of the
workstations are 3/50s.  Accordingly all the 3/50 memory upgrade vendors
have been beating down the doors trying to give us a demo board.

We tried Clearpoint, too, but found it difficult to install.  They also
sent us three (yes, three) DOA demo boards.  Talk about making a good
impression!

Helios was easy to install and arrived alive the first time.  Their
implementation also allows easy expansion just by adding additional memory
chips (although I've heard you can run into power consumption problems if
you take the 3/50 beyond 8 MB total).

We're going with Helios for those users who just can't get the job done
anymore with a 4 MB 3/50.

Our local supplier is EEMC based in St. Paul, Minnesota.  I'm working at
home (Saturday), so I don't have the number handy.  Larry Hobbs is the one
to ask for.

Jack R. Thompson
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Johan Widen  <jw at sics.se>:

>I'm looking for information on people's experience with memory
>expansion kits for the 3/50, especially those that are easily

We have  successfully upgraded 5 3/50's with 4 MByte Clearpoint memory.

On the plus side:
  So far everything has worked OK. We have not noticed any software problems.

On the minus side:
  Although no soldering is involved, it is still fairly complicated to
do the installation. There is a (perhaps small) risk that you damage
something in the process of doing the upgrade. Also consider: what will
you do when the Sun breaks down?

Johan Widen
__________

STELLABO%CSHLAB.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU:

Ned:
I caught your request for 3/50 memory info in SunSpots and thought I could help.
We were a beta test site for CLEARPOINT for there 3/50 memory upgrade product.
We were using a 3/50 with 12mb of memory for about 6 weeks. We had NO problems
at all. Another nice point about the CLEARPOINT kit is that it is fully reverse-
   able, where as the HEILOS product is not... the difference is the HEILOS memo
   ry
must be sodered on to the mother board.

We finally gave back the memory for $$$ reasons not because of any
operation problem.  During the beta test memory sims were at their highest
price, therefore we made a decision to sell all of our 3/50's while they
were still worth something in favor of the Sun 3/60 and some of the newer
SPARC products.

If you have any furthur questions please give me a call at (516) 367-8420
or send mail to:  stellabo at cshlab.bitnet

Fred J. Stellabotte
__________

nguyen at key.key.com (Chien Nguyen):

I have looked at the memory expansion boards from three companies: Helios,
Solflower, and Clearpoint.  Helios came out first and was the worst one.
You have to solder on the back of the board with the flexi-cable.  There
are too many connections which have to be soldered.   Probably, you are
not interested.  Solflower has a small form factor board (it's 6.5" x 8")
using SIMMs (1Mx9) which can be used on the Sun3-60.  Installation is
simple; it took me about 15 minutes to install the whole baby board.  It
is early for me to draw any conclusion, but so far (about three months) I
have not had any problems, and I am satisfied with its performance.  I
also looked at the boards from Clearpoint.  It is a three-board set which
also requires no soldering.  The only problem is that the boards using DIP
chips which mean the memory chip cannot be reused on other systems unless
you are willing to desolder every single memory chip.  Another minor point
is that there are three boards versus one single board from Solflower;
reliability may be a concern. One good thing about Clearpoint's boards
versus Solflower's board is that Clearpoint offers a lifetime warranty
versus a 3-year warranty from Solflower.  I went with Solflower because I
don't think my Sun-3/50 will live that long and don't want to pay for the
"built-in" warranty cost.  If you think you need a lifetime warranty, you
probably want to go with Clearpoint; otherwise, I would recommend
Solflower.

Good luck,
C. Nguyen
__________

unido!isaak!zuse!woerz at uunet.UU.NET (Dieter Woerz):

We have installed such memories here in all our 3/50 and they're running
like charm again. The installation is very easy, you simply remove two
chips (I think the processor and the one adjacent to it) with the utils to
remove such chips, put the removed chips onto the new memory board and
press in the board and reinstall the sun-board and it's working.

We had no problems encountered, since we installed the memories, so no big
deal.

Hope this helps.

Dieter Woerz