Fixing up a Sun Fire v240 from 2003

Minor repairs and booting up a Sun Fire v240 from 2003. This was Sun's improvement to the v100 and v120 and the first 2U server in the v series Sun Fire line. We'll 3D print some Sun hard drive sleds and have a quick look at a SunPCI III - a PC on a board for the Sun Fires.
Sun drive tray 3D print: www.thingivers...
Rack stuff
StarTech 25U Rack: amzn.to/3mEB7hS
Tripp Lite SMART1500LCD UPS: amzn.to/3KZW3Jw
1U 24 Port Patch Panel: amzn.to/3Nm0bFa
1U Brush Panel: amzn.to/3mExAA3
1U Rack Shelf: amzn.to/3oaDclT
Note: The above are Amazon affiliate links. It doesn't cost you extra, but I'll receive a commission which will help keep the content coming. I only link to things I've personally ordered.
Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

[@bdhaliwal24]

Sun made such beautifully designed hardware both in terms of functionality and aesthetic=.

[@clabretro]

Couldn't agree more!

[@chrisis429]

Awesome video, thank you! My grandfather worked on Sun equipment his entire professional career at the local ISP, and he had an entire Sun rack that we recycled when he passed. Now that I'm in networking, I really wish I would have kept onto that old hunk of metal.

[@jessestrobel2]

Maybe one day you can reconstruct what he may have had in there - little bucket list goal for sure

[@andrewnoonan5786]

Some things to know about the V240... 1. The motherboard is identical to the V210. So much so you can stick a V240 motherboard in a V210. 2. The Netra V240 heatsinks are also identical but have chassis fans instead of fans on the heatsink. 3. V240 will do 16gb ram max. 4. Cpu's do NOT need to match for a dual config. It will just throttle the faster cpu to the slower speed.

[@clabretro]

Didn't know that about the dual config throttling... as you'll see in an upcoming video that might be very relevant 😄

[@lpseem3770]

Your channel is pure gold. My own servers are about 10 years younger and both are working fine. A line between old crap and production in server world is very blurry.

[@clabretro]

Thanks! oh yeah my main servers are a Dell PowerEdge 510 and a 720. They're getting up there.

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Yes! Another Sun video. This is awesome.

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Quite interesting how the Sun Servers use a SCC to store info, just like the Nvram in sun workstations. Good that you don't have to boot to the ok prompt and set the MAC address in bootup 😂. How about nvram variables such as like initial boot device? Is it on the SCC?

[@clabretro]

I've never actually tried it, but I do believe the SCC holds all the OpenBoot nvram variables!

[@asaone11]

Glad to see ya, makes me want to get my sun ultra sparc box’s out

[@clabretro]

do it!

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

Other than the small CPU fans going bust, these are rock solid servers, so much so that I still use one in my datacenter at home as the primary DNS (running PowerDNS which I ported to Solaris 10 and packaged it), and NTP V4... It used to also be the central backup server, until the tape library died... awesome workhorses, these servers.

[@clabretro]

Definitely, I'm a big fan of these v240s

[@atomikrobot300099]

Great videos! Looking forward to watching the SunPCI + software + Windows install!

[@clabretro]

thanks!

[@user-sn5ts4en8c]

Watched your video from beginning to end and now I remember why I don’t miss working there anymore.

[@clabretro]

any good stories?

[@br3nd4n]

Yes another video!!!! I just bought and started using a quantum LTO5 drive for archiving. But now, I also want a Sun machine. They're very cool looking machines.

[@onGlobalproductions]

There are actually connectors on the board for a SAS module, really rare. PN: 370-7592 So you can boot from an modern SSD

[@clabretro]

Oh interesting... didn't know about that!

[@ezramiller8296]

Holy smokes! What about a V125?

[@nathan9510]

I should've shipped a disk that had solaris 10 pre installed! If you get stuck and need a solaris install, I could install sol10 on a 9gb disk in my v240 and take a dd image. Then you could transfer that image to one of your disks. I have a SunPCi 1 in an Ultra 10. Its pretty neat seeing Windows 98 running in a Window on Solaris 8.

[@clabretro]

Haha all good. I think I'll be able to trick this thing into hitting an ok> prompt, but if not I'll take you up on the dd image offer. That's awesome about the SunPCi 1... I'm excited to see if I can get this III working!

[@onGlobalproductions]

Remove disk bootup, it will go to ok prompt, then, setenv auto-boot? false Plug disk back in and reboot. It will go to the OK prompt and you can just type boot net or boot cdrom to install solaris

[@SB-qm5wg]

I've been enjoying your Sun series. Thank you.

[@herdware]

One thing I made sure when I bought my gigabit switch was that it supported 10mbit half-duplex, but then again I have a lot of old machines that use 10mbit.

[@BAgodmode]

Sun was such a cool company.

[@user-sn5ts4en8c]

I worked for Sun tech support for 15 years. Worked on the Enterprise line and SunFire line.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

this was a good watch !! Thanks for this !

[@clabretro]

thanks!

[@evan141]

Great video thanks!!

[@mediis]

Oh man, this is hard core work pr0n from the middle of my career. We (superpages ) used to have about a 100 of these.

[@FransvandenBergeMuziekschuur]

There are scsi to sata converters. Meaning you can use sata ssd's inside the scsi brackets. That would mean the network can be sped up at least 4 times.

[@Ryet9]

eucalyptus oil is gr8 for removing stickers..and smells gr8

[@souplike.homogenate]

"From 2003" *_sweats at his workplace's still running legacy hardware_

[@clabretro]

haha seriously.

[@ezramiller8296]

So Gentoo and Debian still make an unofficial port for Sparc64. Also Bonslack has a Slackware 14.1 or 15.0 port for Sparc64. I haven’t tried the Bonslack, but I did almost get Gentoo installed. And Debian had a kernel panic at the time of install when running apt-get upgrade. I think they fixed it.

[@stonent]

Those sleds look a LOT like ones used in Dell Equalogic PS6500 SANs. Same eject mechanism.

[@nibrobb]

Hahah the option "d - play DOOM" at 26:10. A bit disappointed they didn't ship it with doom though

[@oldschooldude8370]

Slightly off topic but Sun created java which is literally everywhere today.

[@whuzup3]

Does anyone know if the cpu has to be inserted in any orientation? I can see the dot and the notched corner on the cpu but nothing on the board to show how it should be installed.

[@Gentlemanspot]

Yells 'PLAY DOOM" at screen!

[@user-wu4cw5ed5w]

I was wondering throughout watching an entire video, could those Sun Fires be used as routers?

[@clabretro]

oh yeah you could throw pfsense on there or something. it'd be an expensive router power bill though 😆

[@AureliusR]

Hmm, it's always been my experience that you should remove thermal pads if you're going to apply thermal compound. It's *probably* fine, but the thermal characteristics of the two materials are different, and it probably won't conduct heat as well. Down the road it might be worth pulling that heatsink, scraping off the old thermal pad, and either replacing it with a new thermal pad or good, high quality thermal compound,

[@clabretro]

Yeah I think you're probably right, I've been meaning to just do thermal compound as you say.

[@jonathankovacs1809]

If I may ask how does one reinstall Solaris 10? I have inherited a Sun Netra T2000 and of course I did not get the admin credentials the original owner/sys admin passed away 😞How can I reload the OS so that I can use this system? any help would be appreciated. I have looked all over the internet could not get a proper answer!

[@markpriceful]

With lack of ALOM login, don't you still have access to the system console (to get to ok prompt) on the system's DB9 serial port? Or is the serial console locked to only being accessed via ALOM?

[@clabretro]

That's what I had expected, but I don't get any output from the DB9 port. I also read you can wait 3-4 minutes after the ALOM login times out and it should drop you to the ok prompt, but no luck there either. I'm sure there's a way to do it, it'll just take some more experimenting and research.

[@worskaas]

Why not use a SCSI to SATA Bridge Adapter so that you can use a small SSD drive. I think that will save a lot of waiting time and save on power and noise. Or is there a SSD drive with a scsi interface that you can plug in?

[@clabretro]

I had trouble finding an adapter, any SCSI to SATA adapters you would recommend?

[@ezramiller8296]

@@clabretro I went down that rabbit hole as well😂. Unfortunately. I didn’t find any. Growing up, I don’t remember seeing SCSI drives, let alone ultra wide SCSI drives. But that was probably because scsi drives weren’t used in home systems.

[@shrikedecil]

The top of the CPU and the bottom of the heatsink are specifically machined flat enough for solid thermal contact ... such that the tiny dings from scraping with a screwdriver are something to consider.

[@clabretro]

Yeah, I figured the scrapes from the screwdriver were better than having build-up from the old thermal compound. It's definitely a risk but these machines won't ever be on for more than a few hours and I would keep an eye on temps if I had them on for long periods.

[@runninggames771]

Isnt that what thermal paste is for?

[@shrikedecil]

@@runninggames771 You want as much of the CPU and the heatsink as you can manage touching *directly*. Yes, thermal paste is precisely because there's always grooves and non-flatness, and CPU-paste-heatsink is a lot better than CPU-air-heatsink. But the *goal* is actually CPU-heatsink. "dings" can screw things up. Imagine a marble under a table plate. There's an area now with *thick* paste. That's no good.

[@DouglasWalrath]

would a scsi2sd work with these?

[@clabretro]

It might, I just picked up a BlueSCSI that I'm going to try eventually.

[@DouglasWalrath]

@@clabretro filling a server with BlueSCSIs would be nuts

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Also! I wonder. Since some of the Ultrasparc servers do have a pci/pci-x/pcie slot. Can we put a GPU in it, to see solaris booting from open firmware. And maybe usb keyboards and mouses?

[@clabretro]

Yeah! I believe it's possible. I'm not sure which GPUs are compatible, but it's on my list to hunt one down eventually and try that out.

[@onGlobalproductions]

Xrv100, Xvr600, xvr1200 are compatible, i know have them myself in similar system

[@andrewnoonan5786]

@@onGlobalproductions xvr-1200 is a nice card. Had one in my Blade 2000 for many years.

[@andrewnoonan5786]

Generic usb keyboards are an issue due to simulating the stop-a used to interrupt a sparc and drop back to the prom.

[@onGlobalproductions]

Hah Sunpci Nice!! Try upgrading win xp to win 7, failed for me, but thats a nice card to play many hours with it. And play Pinball on a solaris box 😊

[@clabretro]

Ha, nice! Probably gonna start with Windows XP first then see where I get.

[@andrewnoonan5786]

There was a native port of Doom for Solaris.

[@andrewnoonan5786]

@@clabretro xbill is always fun to play. ;)