Are fileservers a waste of money

[Brian Reitz]

In SunSpots v7 n280, sacto!mmsac!cygnus!david at sun.com (David L. Kensiski 929-8844) writes:
>>   I recently read that Helios offers a RAM upgrade that does not
>>   require soldering to the CPU, hence it does not invalidate the Sun
>>   warranty or service contract.
>
>It's the other way around: Helios is the only memory upgrade that I know
>of that requires soldered modifications to the 3/50 board, rendering Sun
>unwilling to service it if it breaks.

Well yes and no.  The early Helios boards were of the soldered type but
their new design is of the NO Soldering type.  All you do is pull four
PAL's (U800 - U803) and pull the two PLCC's (SUN PCHK (U1020) and SUN MMU
(U3201)).  Plug their board into the sockets that the PLCC's came from,
and insert the PLCC's back into the sockets on the Helios board.  Toss the
PAL's (well you best save them for a rainy day) change the EEPROM and your
back in business!! The Helios board will fit with either the old dimple
tops or the new style 3/50's.

Brian Reitz
Cray Research Inc.
bdr at cray.com