Many thanks to all for opinions and experiences!
In no particular order:
Alan _at_ dec
Lyndon Handy
T Brown
Daniel Willis
Selden Ball Jr
Serguei Patchkovskii
The original posting is at the bottom.
Cheers
Paul
[p.s. This time I confirmed that "Summary" was correctly spelt!!!]
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> We are about to upgrade our 8200's CPU's from ev 5 - 440 MHz to ev 6.7 -
700
> MHz. This should change the machine name/type from an 8200 to GS60.
> As far as I can determine the steps are
> 1. Convert from NT to Unix 5.0
If at all possible, you should install Tru64 Unix V5.1 plus
its most recent aggregate patch kit, *not* 5.0.
You should only use 5.0 (even 5.0A would be better)
if your 3rd party software requires it: 5.1 includes many bug
fixes and enhancements.
> 2. Swap CPU's
> 3. Rebuild kernel
> Has anyone performed this conversion, and run into any issues/gotchas?
We haven't done that particular upgrade ourselves,
but you should make sure the existing backplane, memory and
power supplies can actually handle the higher clock frequencies.
Often there are ECOs needed to increase noise margins and other
mods to improve the hardware reliability.
Also, check to make sure you have appropriate license PAKs.
Often upgrading CPUs requires more "units" in some of them.
(but you will have gotten all new Unix PAKs anyhow, so this
point is probably irrelevant.)
I assume you've been running software regression tests on
some other Tru64 system before committing to such a major upheaval.
I hope this helps a little.
==========================================================================
I personally took care of this with my team at Mapinfo Compusearch.
We had an 8200, and upgraded from EV5.6/625 -> EV67/667MHz.
Your biggest challenge is not swapping the cpu's, but migrating from NT to
Unix 5.0.
- Firstly we went to 4.0F patch 4 for stability, not 5.0. Why 5.0A ? and
not 5.1?
- Ensure SRM (console is at the latest). This is different console than you
are running now with NT (AlphaBios/ARC).
- The Compaq field service engineers had to change the 8200 backplane/main
board bios to overcome a problem with booting. The system would freeze
during power-up unless you hit the reset switch manually (a timing issue).
All fine now.
- When we swapped cpu's, no kernel rebuild was necessary, but 8200 cpu's
have firmward ON THE CPU BOARDS. You much check the firmware again after
the upgrade and re-upgrade SRM as necessary after the swap!
==========================================================================
Don't forget to update the firmware...
==========================================================================
On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Roetman, Paul wrote:
> We are about to upgrade our 8200's CPU's from ev 5 - 440 MHz to ev 6.7 -
700
> MHz. This should change the machine name/type from an 8200 to GS60.
>
> As far as I can determine the steps are
> 1. Convert from NT to Unix 5.0
> 2. Swap CPU's
> 3. Rebuild kernel
I suspect that the upgrade looks more like this:
1. Pull your hard drives, tapes, and other salvageable peripherals
from the old 8200 chassis
2. Use forklift to move the 8200 chassis to the garbage dump
3. Install the old hard drives in the new GS60 cabinet
4. Overwrite the system disk with a new Tru64 install
5. Try to salvage what you can of the user data (which, hopefully,
wasn't on the same disk as your NT)
It should be possible to do the NT->Tru64 conversion on the old
8200. An even better idea would be to keep both systems running
side-by-side for a while - so that you'll have a chance to get
at your data in it's native environment ...
==========================================================================
You may want to check with Compaq about CPU licenses. The number of unit
required for the new CPU's is likely higher.
==========================================================================
You could also try:
1. Swap CPUs
2. Convert from NT to Unix 5.0 (generalized as "install new
operating system).
This saves a step of having to rebuild the kernel for the
new CPU type.
==========================================================================
> We are about to upgrade our 8200's CPU's from ev 5 - 440 MHz to ev 6.7 -
700
> MHz. This should change the machine name/type from an 8200 to GS60.
>
> As far as I can determine the steps are
> 1. Convert from NT to Unix 5.0
> 2. Swap CPU's
> 3. Rebuild kernel
>
> Has anyone performed this conversion, and run into any issues/gotchas?
>
==========================================================================
Received on Fri Jan 12 2001 - 21:16:08 NZDT