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Hardware Hacking Sun Microsystems Hardware

Getting Replacement Parts For Sun Clones? 47

Posted by timothy from the for-want-of-a-nail dept.
Autoversicherung writes "Two of our production servers started to act up last week and after a few hours of testing and swapping in and out hardware we nailed it down to the power supply. Great, we thought -- probably the easiest part to get a replacement for. Was I wrong. The power supply was specifically made for Sun clones, and contains one standard ATX 20-pin and one EPS 24-pin connector to the motherboard. The original power supply is no longer in production, so far I haven't been able to dig up any suitable replacement for it. Am I able to modify a new PSU? I know how to use the tools required, I'm not sure what the implication are for things like 'separate voltage lines for each CPU complex' etc. The servers in question are EVU450 from Tritec, AFAIK clones of the E420R Sun server. The original Sun parts don't fit, though. Am I out of luck?"
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Getting Replacement Parts For Sun Clones? More

Getting Replacement Parts For Sun Clones?

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  • Real Stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by droyad ( 412569 ) * on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @07:57AM (#10828853)
    This is one of the downsides of skimping on cheap hardware. The parts and support are just not there 3-4 years down the track. Thus us the advantage of the expensive Intel/Sun/IBM.

    I'm sure you can still get parts for IBM machines 10-20 years old.

    • Re:Real Stuff (Score:4, Funny)

      by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @09:01AM (#10829354)
      Yup - in '92 or '93 I called IBM to find out about RAM for my original PS/2 286 system - they were happy to accomodate, at nearly $2000 per meg.

      • Re:Real Stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DZign ( 200479 )
        Usually prices for old replacement parts go up a lot once the inventory the company has themselves becomes too small and they still need the part for their own support.

        So if you had a maintenance contract, you probably could've bought that part for much less.. or they'd given it to you if it was in warranty.

        If you don't have a maintenance contract, well, then the server probably isn't worth that much to you.. and if it is you'll pay their price.

      • Re:Real Stuff (Score:4, Insightful)

        by stanmann ( 602645 ) on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @11:57AM (#10831534) Journal
        But they had it RIGHT? In fact, if you called them today, they would still be happy to accomodate. Just because it was more than you were prepared to pay, is more or less a non-issue. IBM provides enterprise components at an enterprise price with enterprise quality support.
      • I imagine that's not much more than the original price tho, and end of lifed products will only be manufactured in small quantities for enterprise customers who absoloutely NEED such components, mostly mainframe components and the like... You could quite easily replace your ps/2 286 with a more modern system for $2k, but if your among the 0.001% of people who has an essential business requirement for that specific hardware you would quite happily pay $2k for 1mb of ram.
  • You already have one that fits, why not just fix it? The chokes and transformer are unlikely to have gone bad. That leaves a few switching transistors, resistors, and caps. My bet would be on some of the caps going bad, there was a scandal a while back [slashdot.org] about them.

    • Re:Fix the old one (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cmdr TECO ( 579177 )
      Switching power supplies are dangerous to work on. Enough voltage to break your skin and enough current to kill. Someone who is unsure about just refitting an old connector on a new PSU should definitely not try.
      • A PS that isn't plugged in is no danger! Sure, there are big capacitors in there, but after a couple of days, even these have trickled to a full discharge.

        • Re:Scaredy Cat! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by harrkev ( 623093 ) <kevin.harrelson@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @11:03AM (#10830810) Homepage
          Yes, you are probably right, but are you willing to bet your LIFE on it?

          [Eastwood voice] Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya? [/Eastwood voice]

          This also assumes that the person:

          1) Has some good analog knowledge. How do you know which part to replace? Testing pars while they are still on the board is even more difficult.

          2) Can look up replacement parts for any blown semis. Some transistors are marked with "house numbers," which makes replacing them very difficult, since you cannot even tell if they are NPN, PNP, N-channel, P-Channel, etc.

          In short, a person with some experience can fix a PSU, and it is definately not rocket science. But if you have never cracked open a PSU, it can be imtimidating.

        • A PS that isn't plugged in is no danger!

          Wrong! Dangerously wrong! Do you want someone to be killed by blindly believing this statement?

          A switching PSU is dangerous after unplugging the mains for quite a while. You know that:

          Sure, there are big capacitors in there, but after a couple of days, even these have trickled to a full discharge.

          The important statement is that it takes a lot of time for the capacitors do discharge. And you don't really want an amateur to fiddle with a switching PSU, without kno

          • I do know what I'm doing and I still get nervous when working with high voltage equipment, like monitors.

            A few years back I would take any broken 17" monitor I found and try to fix it. I had a few successes. I'm still using a Gateway CrystalScan 17 that I fixed 5 years ago. Point being that when you know how dangerous high voltage can be, you tend to be overly careful.

            I hated working on the CRT based iMacs because I was usually so busy with avoiding the capacitors that I'd forget a screw or two during rea

          • Re:Scaredy Cat! (Score:3, Interesting)

            by alienw ( 585907 )
            Do you want someone to be killed by blindly believing this statement?

            Even the biggest capacitor doesn't have enough energy stored in it to kill you. It could give you a nasty shock, but it's not particularly life-threatening (unless you have major health problems to begin with).

            The important statement is that it takes a lot of time for the capacitors do discharge.

            Unless the power supply was designed by monkeys with soldering irons, it should take no more than a minute for all the capacitors to fully
            • At a client of mine from my old freelance days, the old UPS for the server room had 2 Farad 1200V caps in it.

              About fifty of them wired in parallel to a bus bar.

              If you were to brush against the bus bar it would definitely kill you. They had to have a professional come out and discharge it because they needed to swap some of the caps into the new UPS (same model chosen for compatible caps). He said the bus was still reading 250V on it... this was five years after it ws retired.

              Is that comparable to a pow
              • Well, yes, 50 2 Farad 1200V caps WILL probably kill you. That's a lot of energy. However, computer-sized power supplies typically have about 5 capacitors, at roughly 500 microFarads/200V (DC). This is definitely enough to give you a nasty zap, but it's not particularly dangerous to a human without major heart problems.

                As far as capacitors holding their charge: they will hold it for a very long time without a load connected. However, any reasonably well-designed power supply will have "bleeder" resistor

            • Unless the power supply was designed by monkeys with soldering irons, it should take no more than a minute for all the capacitors to fully discharge.

              True, but I'd just as soon not have my epitaph read "killed by monkeys with soldering irons".

              That's why I make sure the caps are discharged first. Since I'm fairly sure they are, I just use the tip of a screwdriver. That's pretty cheap insurance.

              However, I'm accustomed toworking with potentially dangerous voltages. I don't think I'd advise someone to ig

        • Re:Scaredy Cat! (Score:3, Informative)

          by merlin_jim ( 302773 )
          Sure, there are big capacitors in there, but after a couple of days, even these have trickled to a full discharge.

          On some industrial designs the voltage regulator caps can hold quite a large charge with very little leakage current. I've seen people play around with 5 year old power supplies in our equipment graveyard and get shocked badly (when you can smell burnt hair, it's bad)

          Flip side, the discharge procedure is simple. Buy a rubber gripped insulated screwdriver (make SURE it says that on the packa
  • There are literally thousands of real E450's lying about for a song... here's a link to a base system for $450:

    http://www.eli.com/index.cfm?c=31&a=category

    • Re:Just buy some used Sun kit (Score:4, Informative)

      by menscher ( 597856 ) <`menscher+slashdot' `at' `uiuc.edu'> on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @10:36AM (#10830495) Homepage Journal
      Agreed. A few years back, we had a whole bunch of SGI Indy power supply failures. AFter we ran out of spares, I had to shop around for a replacement power supply. Turns out a power supply was $250. Or a computer for $300. We paid the $300, got some extra parts, and I think even had a slightly faster machine as a result. All that was from a company called XS Net [xsnet.com]. They do Sun stuff too.

      Oh, and if anyone is throwing away a working SGI Indy, pull the power supply and NVRAM. Those parts are probably still worth something on eBay, since 100% of the failures I've seen involve one of them.

      • I have a broken indy, the psu works perfectly and the nvram seems to, but the machine crashes whenever you try to boot an os (the prom works perfectly and the ram works perfectly having been moved to an indigo2). I think the scsi controller is fried (90% of the time it wont detect a disk) and judging from the crash messages from netbsd, it seems the cpu is fried... So if anyone is interested in the psu and nvram (and whatever else still works) feel free to drop me a line
  • Go back to who you bought it from and ask them. When one of my sun clones died that's who I went to for service.
  • You'll have to shop a bit (go look weekly for about a month) clones do go through there and you can probably get a second system (parts computer?). No warrenty, but if you're handy you'll be fine. As an alternate you could just pick up the genuine SUN version system more quickly and probably cheaply.
  • SolarSystems.com [solarsystems.com] carries a pretty nice sized inventory of refurbished Sun gear. 24-hour stress testing, etc...

  • Your power supply (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sai Babu ( 827212 ) on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @02:03PM (#10833453) Homepage
    Nothing magic about the unit described at the link you included. How dead is it? It may be worth a peek inside to see if you've a simple problem. Fuses. Open or shorted rectifier. Cold solder joint on flyback, bad switching device(s). If you're lucky the controller chip(s) will be labeled and you can download some reference designs from that (or 2nd source) manufacturers web site. Otherwise, anything that provides the power you need and can be accomodated in whatever space you have (duct tape it to the outside of the case if you like) will work. You can probably dispense with the -12V if you don't use any RS232. The SB 850ma is for your onboard on-off switch and maybe for NVRAM. Easiest solution is to find an off the shelf meeeting specs, and if it doesn't fit inside, duct tape or poprivet it to the outside of the cabinet. If all your other parts are standard (CPU module, memory) t might be more cost effective to buy a stripped down Sun which will accomodate the parts. Plenty of used ones about. Solar Systems, Optimus Solutions (ex solar systems guys, talk to James, tell him Bob sent you), Data Instruments(probably your cheapest source for something with a guarantee, talk to Fred, tell him Bob sent you). A google search of used Sun vendors will get you a big list. Heck, you may get lucky and find one with your same machine in the warehouse. If so, the power supply should be CHEAP ($150-$300 plus ship) as these guys pay next to nothing for Sun Clones. I used to be in the business but margins went to hell. Once ebay was in the mix all I seemed to get was support calls for stuff folks had purchased on ebay. "Can you tell me how to hook this up, what do you mean Sun memory costs $X, I can buy PC memory for $Y" and so on.

    • Fancier switching supplies have a sense line. They monitor the voltage at the connector I don't recall seeing anything labeled 'sense' at the URL you referenced for your PS. The sense line looks at the voltage remote from the power supply and feeds back so that the correct voltage is delivered. You might have separate 3.3 and 5 Volt sections, each with it;'s own sense line. If it is there and at the connector, try cleaning the connector pins. If your machine is working with less memory but not with full com

  • The power supply was specifically made for Sun clones, and contains one standard ATX 20-pin and one EPS 24-pin connector to the motherboard. The original power supply is no longer in production, so far I haven't been able to dig up any suitable replacement for it. Am I able to modify a new PSU? I know how to use the tools required, I'm not sure what the implication are for things like 'separate voltage lines for each CPU complex' etc. The servers in question are EVU450 from Tritec, AFAIK clones of the E420

    • I'd need to replace the whole chassis and maybe even more as the original SUN power supply come with special connectors that connect to the original chassi which then has the 20 and 24 pin plugs.
      I'm miossing that too :(
  • I expect you're going to have a tough time finding a suitable supply to modify. Looking at the datasheet you posted, I see that your origional supply had a strange distrobution between 3.3V, 5V, and 12V. Nearly every off the shelf supply will have enough 12V but nowhere near enough 3.3V or 5V.

    My suggestion to you is to try to fit two 1U supplies in the chassis, one an ATX and the other an ESP12V. Look at supplies by Sparkle, they're fairly robust and relatively tiny. However, if you go the two suppl

  • Just a few thoughts from someone who has worked on a lot of this stuff.

    First off, I've worked on literally hundreds(thousands maybe) of power supplies for all kinds of electronics, the +-12 volts max in a computer system isn't going to harm you, aspecially if you work ONE handed so that you don't potentially get zapped across your chest, be especially cognizant that you don't want to get zapped with a path ACROSS your chest, and yes I have been popped more then a few times working on stuff live.

    Also, all

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