Date: Tue, 20 Jul 99 18:48:54 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #19 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Tue, 20 Jul 99 Volume 12 : Issue 19 Today's Topics: Memory for IPX Solaris 2.6 Xserver fails with one 24-bit and one 8-bit head (2 msgs) Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #18 (2 msgs) Weitek POWER uP? +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home@net-kitchen.com | | Requests: suns-at-home-request@net-kitchen.com | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 11:26:15 -0400 From: "Sheldon T. Hall" <76701.103@compuserve.com> Subject: Memory for IPX To: Blind.Copy.Receiver@compuserve.com Memory for the IPX has to be .... 72 pin true parity (some PC "parity" memory fakes it) 33 or 36 bits wide (Sun mem is 33, PC is 36) Fast Page Mode (I don't think EDO will work) 80 ns or better (most PC memory is 70 or 60, which is fine) 4 megs or 16 megs per SIMM The IPX has only 4 SIMM slots, so, if you're buying, buy 16 meg SIMMs. Given the price of memory these days, I can't see any reason to have less than 64 megs in an IPX. -Shel - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 00:46:17 +1000 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: Solaris 2.6 Xserver fails with one 24-bit and one 8-bit head To: Rachel Polanskis [ Bcc:'d to Suns-at-Home ] Hello, While I wait to source some more 8 meg Sparc 20 VSIMM's (and aux. video boards to go with them), I have installed a TGX+ 8-bit framebuffer in my Sparc 20 to supplement the on-board SX framebuffer. I recently decided to try it out as a second head under OpenWindows using the following line in the Xservers file: :0 local /usr/openwin/bin/X -dev /dev/cgfourteen0 left -dev /dev/cgsix0 right This works fine when first set up, however the Xserver dies repeatedly after about 2 minutes from the time when I log in at the xdm login window. I did notice that this time period tended to shorten noticably if I slid the mouse pointer back and forth between the displays connected to the SX (24-bit) and the TGX+ (8-bit) framebuffers. Once I removed the TGX+ from the Xservers file and went back to a single 24-bit display the Xserver failures went away. I have been told by many people that dual-SX equipped Sparc 20's (with a second VSIMM and an aux. video board fitted) work faultlessly under OpenWindows in a dual-headed configuration, so the finger is squarely pointing at the Xserver and it's apparent inability to correctly handle the use of both a 24-bit and an 8-bit display together, controlled by the one Xserver process. Is this a known bug with the Xserver, and is anyone aware of any patches (which would presumably be non-public ones, in typical Sun fashion) to the Xserver and others parts of Sun's X11R6-based OpenWindows distribution for SunOS 5.6 (aka Solaris 2.6)? What other workarounds are there for this problem, if any? Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:07:58 +1000 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: Solaris 2.6 Xserver fails with one 24-bit and one 8-bit head To: Rachel Polanskis Hi everyone, > While I wait to source some more 8 meg Sparc 20 VSIMM's (and aux. video > boards to go with them), I have installed a TGX+ 8-bit framebuffer in my > Sparc 20 to supplement the on-board SX framebuffer. I recently decided to > try it out as a second head under OpenWindows using the following line in > the Xservers file: > > :0 local /usr/openwin/bin/X -dev /dev/cgfourteen0 left -dev /dev/cgsix0 right Today I tried swapping the order of the framebuffer devices so that the TGX+ (/dev/cgsix0) was used as the left display, and the SX (/dev/cgfourteen0) as the right display, but between the time I left for work at 4 pm and now the Xserver has crashed again. So the order of the framebuffer devices is making no difference at all. I found the core file for the crashed Xsun in /, and running adb on it reveals that it died with a segmentation fault. If there are any Sun software engineers out there who see this and want a copy of the corefile, let me know and I'll email it to you as an attachment. Regards, Craig. -- Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au" Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to access my archive of Sun information and links to other places. For info about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au" - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:56:36 +0100 (BST) From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #18 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > I' heard about the Weitek POWER uP chip for SparcStation2s. Good or bad > idea? I gathered it is supposed to boost performance of a ss2 to a ss10 or > so. I was thinking about getting one, but I wondered if any of you had > experience with this, or have atleast heard something about it. Their web > page is: > http://www.rave.net/hard-weitek.html > Comparing my un-Weitek-ed IPX with a PowerUp-ed one I'd say the performance inprovement is at least an *observable* 50% for most interactive operations (disc and memory bandwidth remains the same...). If I could get hold of a rechipped motherboard or a chip with insertion tool cheaply I would. No question. pete - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:17:26 -0400 From: John DiMarco Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V12 #18 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com In message <199907111432.JAA16839@tigger.net-kitchen.com> Matthew Plante writes: >I' heard about the Weitek POWER uP chip for SparcStation2s. Good or bad >idea? I gathered it is supposed to boost performance of a ss2 to a ss10 or >so. I was thinking about getting one, but I wondered if any of you had >experience with this, or have atleast heard something about it. Their web >page is: >http://www.rave.net/hard-weitek.html The Weitek PowerUP was a good product, but useable only on SS2s and IPX systems that have socketed CPUs. If you have an SS2, make sure it's socketed before considering getting it. NB: if you're buying it from Rave, you might consider getting the remanufacturered version for US$100 instead of the new one for US$195. As for speedup, it doubles the internal clock speed of the CPU, and replaces the 64k shared I/D cache with 16k of Icache and 8k of Dcache. It gives you about 50% more performance than an unmodified SS2, or maybe two-thirds of the performance of an SS10/30. Regards, John -- John DiMarco Office: SF2101 CSLab Systems Manager Phone: 416-978-5300 University of Toronto Fax: 416-978-1931 http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~jdd - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:06:49 +0100 From: Bob Hoekstra Subject: Weitek POWER uP? To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com, Matthew Plante Matthew Plante wrote: > > I' heard about the Weitek POWER uP chip for SparcStation2s. Good or bad > idea? I gathered it is supposed to boost performance of a ss2 to a ss10 or > so. I was thinking about getting one, but I wondered if any of you had > experience with this, or have atleast heard something about it... Generally a good idea. The Weitek is a clock-doubling SPARC chip that sits on a 40MHz bus but runs internally at 80MHz. However, this only doubles (at best) the throughput of the processor, not the machine as a whole. The SS10 is a faster design. I'm now writing on a Weitek'd SS2, and have been using it now for several years. I once did some rough performance comparisons against a SS10 Model 30 (the slowest of the SS10 range) and it turned in about 80% of the performance. However, this was on a process that was pretty processor bound - if you measure a process that is I/O bound you can expect less than 50% of the SS10 throughput. In short, I would recommend the upgrade, but don't think you are getting a SS10 on the cheap, just a generally faster SS2 :-) -- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GO/! d- s++:+ a+ C++(++++) US+++$ P+ L+ E--- W++ N++ w--- O- V- PS+ PE- Y+ PGP- t+ 5++ X+ R* tv+ b+ DI++ D G e(*) h++/-- r+++ y? ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ ----------------------------------------------------- Bob Hoekstra: APL & Unix Consultant Tele: +44 (0)1483 771028 (Home) +44 (0)410 562345 (Mobile) Web site: http://www.khamsin.demon.co.uk Home email: Bob.Hoekstra@khamsin.demon.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------- - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************