My fucked up SGI O2... the adventure so far

Kiwa

As an old computer nerd, i really like my weirdish computers, specially unixy bulshit 90s computers, so when i saw this fucked up SGI O2 on marketplace for like 40 bucks i was like sure, why not, seller said "it does nothing when plugged in" so i guess sure i'll bite.

and it arrived, it's a metal cage with the main parts, cdrom drive was damaged and fucked up, expected tbh, i applied power and boom, it did actually power up

Actually seeing this hunk of junk doing something was great, like at least it's good enough to power up, it did hang up though, i was like yeah sure something must be bad.

so i did some investigation online, of couse some furry nerd had a post on a website that was about how to run diagnostics and other stuff.

so i did, and it fails on a very specific step related to CPU cache.

so i made an account on a forum and posted this:

 

Hi! good to find a forum about these devices

So i recently got a really beat up o2, it's kinda rusty and it's completely missing the plastic shell but it was very very cheap and i think it has potential, i cleaned it and checked everything visually and looks fine.

 
SGI Version 6.5 IP32 IDE field  Apr 19, 2000

                   System: IP32
                Processor: 200 Mhz R5000, with FPU
     Primary I-cache size: 32 Kbytes
     Primary D-cache size: 32 Kbytes
     Secondary cache size: 1024 Kbytes
              Memory size: 64 Mbytes
                 Graphics: CRM, Rev C
                  Network: DP83840-1
                  PCI Bus: MACE-PCI (0)
               SCSI CDROM: scsi(0)cdrom(3)

The computer powers on, outputs video and it also outputs stuff over serial. It came with an HDD that contains the OS, but when the computer tries to boot it hangs, same over serial, there is not output after it tries to boot, it hangs up completely.

Running the Hardware tests it fails on the "scache6 - Secondary cache addr test through 2MB addr range" with

 
ide>> scache6
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 81400000, w2 = 01500000
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 81400004, w2 = 01500004
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 81400008, w2 = 01500008
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 8140000c, w2 = 0150000c
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 81400010, w2 = 01500010
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 81400014, w2 = 01500014
Error code = IP32.08.03.06.01, w1 = 81400018, w2 = 01500018
...

every single other test runs fine, i tried swapping ram (came with 4 sticks of 32 megs, so i mixed around, can't really confirm it's actually good, but passes the ram checks) and it does the same so im assuming this is a cpu module issue? im willing to buy another module but im worried it's an actual motherboard issue and another module would be a waste of money.

Has anyone seen this before or have any pointers? i been looking around but most of the issues i find related to this computer are about not powering up at all.


Thanks!
 

Some people actually replied, that was awesome, good to see some forums actually active, the conclusion was that it's probably the cpu module that is failing because cache is there.

 

so this was back in late 2024, and i was actually planning on getting a cpu card, but 2025 happened lol.

 

so i'm still at this point... i guess, that computer has been in storage since then, so i hope it's still "good".

 

anyways... that's the state of this computer, probably 2026 will be the year i get a new but cheap cpu for it so i can finally get this thing to boot? hopefully, if that dosn't work, i will probably just list it as scrap on marketplace or something.

 

it's still pretty expensive for a chunk of vintage retro garbage though

 

 

So yeah, i can write about other stuff too see? lol

 

anyways, if there is any update in the future i will update.