ballen@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Bruce Allen) (03/24/91)
I am upgrading my SS1 to an SS2. The upgrade just arrived yesterday. I have a bunch of questions. In decreasing order of importance, they are: 1. Can I take the Mostek NVRAM/Time-of-day-clock/Lithium battery chip from my old system (SS1) and put it into the new (SS2) system, in place of the analagous module? This way I would keep the old hostid, and wouldn't have to hassle with changing to a new one. Has anyone tried this? 2. My SS2 will not have any internal hard disks (mine is external). As delivered, the SS2 has a 4 Ohm load resistor (no kidding!) which has been attached to a plastic hard disk mounting bracket, and draws current from one of the internal hard disk power connectors. I am opposed to having another 6.25 watts (V^2/R) of uneccesary heat production inside the system. However this must have been put there for a reason: could some one enlighten me? Is it safe to remove this load resistor, or will the PS/pc-board traces only work correctly with it? 3. Another small fan has been added, in the front of the system. Hence there are now two fans: one in the power supply and one in between the floppy disk mounting location and the hard disks. It looks like this is to cool the internal disks (which I don't have). Can I safely disconnect this fan, and reduce the hideous whining noise? Note that my system has 16 4Meg simms, and thus 64 Mbytes of memory, so there is some extra heat generation (and current draw, re question 2 above). My system also has a floppy disk drive. 4. I have a Fujitsu 2263S which I have jumpered internally to do Synch SCSI. My other disk is a CDC Wren V model 94181. Can this disk do Sync SCSI? If so, are there jumpers to set, or is it automatic? The OEM manual (page 2, line 5) under the list of standard features, says "Synchronous SCSI bus data transfer protocol" but there are no details about how to get it. Are there any jumpers to be set, or does the drive negotiate this automatically with the SCSI host? 5. The upgrade does not seem to require returning the old keyboard/mouse/pad. Is this correct? Should I hang onto the old ones as spares; ie will they work correctly on the SS2? Will Sun send me a bill for these after 30 days? I would be quite grateful for answers to any or all of these questions. Please post on the net, and also send me a copy directly to ballen@csd4.csd.uwm.edu since I don't read news on a regular basis. Thanks for any advice. Bruce Allen University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Physics Department voice phone: 414-229-6439