Sun overclock?

Anyone here have any experience or tips on overclocking Sun Microsystems
SPARC hardware?

I collected a ton (literally!) of older Sun systems during a
dumpster-diving expedition today - SparcStation 20s, Ultra-2s, Ultra-5s
etc. - and would like to tweak them :-)

TIA

Triffid

I always thought Solaris was enough of an adventure in itself :-)

Shoeboxes are quite popular & valuable on Ebay incidentally,
they are a nice enclosure design, quite well made, ok PSU/cooling.
They don't particularly like being stuffed with super-hot SCSI tho.

Overclocking on Suns is probably limited to swapping processors.
--
Dorothy Bradbury

Dorothy Bradbury wrote:

> I always thought Solaris was enough of an adventure in itself :-)

Can be ;-)

> Shoeboxes are quite popular & valuable on Ebay incidentally,
> they are a nice enclosure design, quite well made, ok PSU/cooling.
> They don't particularly like being stuffed with super-hot SCSI tho.

Somewhat surprising given they tend to be rather heavy, therefore costly
to ship. There seems to be healthy demand locally - if I can avoid
packing them, I will ;-)

> Overclocking on Suns is probably limited to swapping processors.

Actually, it turns out there are hidden boot PROM commands which allow
changes to the processor speed. The machine I experimented with briefly
had no problem running 10% faster than standard.

Let the tweakfest begin :-)

> Actually, it turns out there are hidden boot PROM commands which allow changes to the
> processor speed. The machine I experimented with briefly had no problem running 10%
> faster than standard.
> Let the tweakfest begin :-)

Ironic that SUN are now the overclocking toy :-)
Nice machines.

Yes the shoeboxes are heavy, not a bad industrial design either.
--
Dorothy Bradbury

Dorothy Bradbury wrote:
>>Actually, it turns out there are hidden boot PROM commands which allow changes to the
>>processor speed. The machine I experimented with briefly had no problem running 10%
>>faster than standard.
>>Let the tweakfest begin :-)
>
>
> Ironic that SUN are now the overclocking toy :-)
> Nice machines.

Indeed - but why ironic?

Quality design and manufacturing always leaves adequate headroom to
ensure individual component variations do not compromise the ability of
completed units to meet specifications under worst-case conditions. IMHO
there's no reason end users should not determine and utilise the maximum
performance capabilities of individual units under local conditions -
especially when any warranties have long expired.

> Yes the shoeboxes are heavy, not a bad industrial design either.

After spending the day swapping parts between various models in order to
match the systems to my requirements, I have a renewed appreciation for
the cleverness of Sun's industrial designs :-)