SGI Indigo 2

I recently acquired several SGI Indigo / Indigo 2's and I have no idea how to remove the processor from the card it is attached to. I found documentation that shows how to remove the actual module, but not how to separate the processor from the chipset module. It looks like the image below, only w/o the tiny heat sink on it. I removed the screws that hold the boards together, but I don't know where to go from there. Anyone have a clue?

I don't see any evidence of a socket, so it is probably soldered in. Is it a PGA or BGA package?

It is a PGA package

Looks like the Indigo2 socket is indeed ZIF (I was worried you'd need some kind of custom chip puller). Linked from that thread are instructions on the proper procedure, though the process looks a little scary and doesn't quite match your photos...

JigPu

Man that is old...what is that a 486DX? Early Pentium Pro?
Anyway, If you will notice, there are 4 rows of solder joints all lined up in a straight line?
underneath that is a socket....kinda like a scsi or ide connector and that is how the board is connected to the daughter card, so all you need to do is remove all six fasteners (screws) and carefully pull the boards apart at the connector.
Those type of connections were common in that era when space was a factor.
The unit in the Pic is from 1994...is that a graphics processor board, or central processor board for a backplane? Also in those days server boards had both changeable processor boards, and video boards as well.
Sounds cool, I dig old school devices

DocClock aka MadClocker said:

Man that is old...what is that a 486DX? Early Pentium Pro?
Anyway, If you will notice, there are 4 rows of solder joints all lined up in a straight line?
underneath that is a socket....kinda like a scsi or ide connector and that is how the board is connected to the daughter card, so all you need to do is remove all six fasteners (screws) and carefully pull the boards apart at the connector.
Those type of connections were common in that era when space was a factor.
The unit in the Pic is from 1994...is that a graphics processor board, or central processor board for a backplane? Also in those days server boards had both changeable processor boards, and video boards as well.
Sounds cool, I dig old school devices

Click to expand...

He is asking how to remove the CPU from the daughter card, not how to remove the daughter card.

There is definitely something under the CPU as you can see from the four metal tabs to the left and right of the CPU. However, without a side shot, all we can do is guess.

you may in fact need to remove the daughter board to remove the cpu. my question is why would you want to remove the cpu. there are still some people out there that would like to get these things. i do like the case designs to bad you cant just swap in some off the shelf pc parts into it.

docclock,
they are risc cpus, they still use them till recently if i recall right. with those i think the cpu speed was 200mhz-300mhz. the highest speed i saw listed was newer boxes with around a 1ghz clock speed. i am a fan of risc not sure how many others are, would be nice to see the HW used in smartphones in low power pc's. as windows 8 will be able to run on the risc architecture.

G33K454URU5 R3X said:

It is a PGA package

Click to expand...

Yup you are correct. Ceramic PGA. There is a socket under the chip. Gently pry it up with a screwdriver.

JigPu said:

Looks like the Indigo2 socket is indeed ZIF (I was worried you'd need some kind of custom chip puller). Linked from that thread are instructions on the proper procedure, though the process looks a little scary and doesn't quite match your photos...

JigPu

Click to expand...

I don't really care for this removal procedure. It kind of reminds me of using a hammer to install a push pin.

I agree with Evilsizer...why would you want to pull it apart? If it is just to "see what makes it tick". then you could go to wikipedia like I did right after my last post in this thread and found out what the indigo2 was all about. It is said that the IMPACT 10000 could run quakeII at decent framerates which is pretty good considering what those were designed for.
With the speeds of today's processors, RISC makes sense because the software translation lag is not that much a factor for RISC to CISC translations like it was when the worlds fastest RISC was the DEC ALPHA at 500? mhz, and the fastest available for anything close to mobile was around16-50 mhz...of course the 16-50mhz is a guestimate on my part, as I didn't even know about ARM and other RISC platforms at the time...Heck, I don't know that much about them now either, but I think their time has come to shine...like I said, they are speedy enough for x86 translation so they could use modern windows environments.
You say you have two of them eh? I would (if they still work) put them to use either crunching numbers folding, or maybe challenge someone to a 1v1 QuakeII deathmatch...If yours are the ones that have 200mhz+ to work with, then why not?

The x86 instruction set is far too complex and memory access oriented to be translated to any RISC architecture in realtime, without a huge performance penalty. It would require dedicated interpreter hardware to be viable, which would probably be more complex than a native x86 CPU. Windows 8 on ARM is coded as such and it will not be capable of executing x86 compiled code.

that is true viper, what MS has done agian though is put some weight behind the architecture. last MS os i recall supporting risc was early palm like devices, my dad had one with a 200mhz cpu. the point im wanting to make is that with more momentum of arm/risc cpus growing. we just dont where/when this will stop as far as usage in todays/tomorrows devices. i dont think people give enough credit to arm/risc cpus...

Windows NT and 2000 both had support for DEC Alpha, so RISC support has been there in the past.
MS isn't putting weight behind ARM so much as they are trying to stay relevant. The traditional PC is being pushed aside for ultra mobile computing, a market MS has not been able to break into yet.