Death of a Friend
I want to love sgi stuff. I really do.
I've had barney my Indigo2 for a long time. Heck, I've even replaced the entire box with a newer, updated one and kept the name but recently I've wondered at what cost.
You see, my original Indigo2 was an R4400/250MHz box off of eBay and it cost $1495.00 at the time. I thought it was a bargain. And it was. Then that box went through 3 power supplies - at $300 a piece, and it wasn't so much of a great deal. I had fans blowing on it, I tried another $175 High Impact video card set - no luck, the original wasn't bad, and in the end realized that this just wasn't the best box to use.
So I got an R10000/195MHz for another $800 and thought my problems would be over.
They weren't.
The power supply started to go and I talked to the used SGI reseller that I had used for two of the power supplies and the new R10k box, and he said he didn't have any more power supplies around. I'm not the least bit surprised.
For all the wonderful technology that the Indigo2 is, I'm now convinced that they just can't run in normal conditions. What I mean is that in the standard, American home, with air conditioning, these boxes just get too hot and they take themselves out.
So I have two perfectly functioning boxes with great capabilities but no power to them. This is very frustrating to say the least.
I've taken out the drives to lower the power consumption, and I've removed 2/3rds of the RAM to again, lower power consumption, but in the end, once the power supply starts to go it's a gonner and it's only a matter of time before it goes again.
In the end I have to conclude that while it's been a blast, it's over.