SGI
CD05 at DKAUNI46.BITNET
CD05 at DKAUNI46.BITNET
Fri Mar 18 15:17:04 AEST 1988
Reliability of SGI and MIPS hardware and software:
We have purchased an IRIS-4D/60 (the one with the single-board) in
November, 1987. In fact there were some hardware-problems:
- one (of three) 4-Mbyte memory-bank on the main-board,
- one (of two) 380-Mbyte disk-drive and
- the buttons-and-dials-box
did not work properly in the beginning.
The memory problem was fixed by the tech in the second attempt one
week after the first installation. With the disk and the buttons we had
to wait until replacement arrived from USA, and the machine was working
with it's desired hardware configuration in January, 1988. I know that
similar problems occured in other IRIS-4D-installations in Germany.
However, I cannot complain about local service here. There were no
problems to get reactions from SGI. They always invested much personal
power to solve our problems, e.g. they came along with a spare machine
and tried to replace parts of the hardware-equipment to locate our bugs.
Concerning the software there are some (minor?) problems too:
- MIPS-FORTRAN does not work properly with the optimization features.
- AT&T UNIX (V.3) seems to have some problems on the IRIS-4D (cron
crashes sometimes).
- the UNIX-kernel (probably by SGI?) locks on interactive requests some-
times, while background-processes continue operating. The system has
to be rebooted, to wake up the machine.
- SGI-graphics sometimes dies and the graphics-console cannot be used,
while interactive usage on the attached ascci-terminals (three) is
still possible. The system has to be rebooted, to allow usage of
graphics again.
- in the documentation there are references to tools which are not
available.
We were told from our local-dealer, that most of these bugs are fixed
in the next software update (announced for March or April).
None the less the IRIS is an excellent and powerful machine and we like
to work with it.
Stefan (from Theoretical Chemistry, University of Karlsruhe, Germany)
More information about the Comp.sys.sgi
mailing list