Fuel ATX PSU Conversion

[massiverobot]

This documents my recent Fuel ATX power supply conversion. I had a chance to get a Fuel with a bad PSU, and so I needed to power up my new Fuel! These are the things I researched, parts that I got, and the procedure I took for a successful installation of a new ATX PSU for my Fuel. The swapping of the wires in the 24pin harness was the most difficult part, but over all it's much easier than having to try and fix one of the older and completely custom SGI power supplies.


Directions:

Fuel PSU repair

Buy one of these:

wiki.preterhuman.net

ATX Fuel Manual:

http://kubatyszko.com/filez/atxfuel_manual.pdf

ATX Pinout Image:

https://www.overclock.net/photopost/data/1514729/2/2b/2bf838c0_st45sf-g-modular-pinout.png

Purchased Equipment:

StarTech.com EPS 8 Pin Power Extension Cable

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000M802RG

StarTech.com 8in 24 Pin ATX 2.01 Power Extension Cable

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FL60AI

Rosewill Quark Series 1200 Watt

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VS8728G

Directions:

- remove bad PSU, set aside
- take 24 Pin ATX 2.01 Power Extension Cable and re-pin according to Wiki Page on PreterHuman (see images below on re-pinning)
- take 8 Pin Power Extension Cable and re-pin according to Wiki Page on PreterHuman
- read the wonderful Manual from Kuba Tyszko to get a feel of how you will test in stages
- connect a 9pin serial to L1 port on MB and attach to terminal
- connect 24 pin and new PSU, enable power and check L1
- connect 8 pin and enable power and check L1 voltages
- disable env monitoring
-- env off
- power on fuel
-- pwr u
- check L1 terminal for proper voltages and thermals
- power down system if there are issues
-- pwr d
-- If things are good, attach drives and power cables for drives and power up fuel.
- Having a terminal on Serial 01 port also helps to see long power-up sequence (flashing white light)
- When light goes solid Fuel should be booting
- Mount new PSU in Fuel with screws and do wire routing
- Close up case and enjoy your fuel
- Continue to monitor the thermals via L1 cable (recal env monitors are OFF)
-- System could overheat and not automatically shutdown


Photos:

Equipment from Amazon

Take 2 staples, straighten out. Insert on each side of the male pin. push down snuggly, pin should pull out easily.
If it does not pull out the staples are not aligned, pull them out and re-insert.
Trust me, you will do this so many times you become an expert at feeling when it's correct and they come out faster.
At first it's difficult to get it right. Keep trying.

Examine Voltages via L1 termainl using env command. Verify all 3/5/12 look good

Testing new PSU, these are the power extenders which are re-wired. The rest of the PSU is not changed.

Success! Fuel posted and went into Console so I could get a HINV.

New PSU mounted and screwd in

Cables guided in and ducting put back

Full boot into IRIX w/ new PSU

Always watch envs and monitor therms.

You can see there FAN 5 - the PSU fan - the Fuel knows nothing about this now and this is why we must disable env monitoring.

 

[Elf]

Edit: With apologies, I no longer wish to have involvement with SGUG or SGI communities in general,
and have also chosen to remove all of my content. Many things have changed since I co-founded, named, and ultimately
then left SGUG. There are many good people around, to whom I apologize for frustrating by removing these things, and
also many petty people that over the years whittled down both the enjoyment as well as sense of obligation I used to
feel to anyone else regarding what was ultimately just a hobby. Unfortunately one of the latter now writes the rules
and so it is time for me to take my things and go.

This message will replace all of my previous forum posts because deleting threads that I started would have removed
other peoples' posts.

 

[kubatyszko]

Oh nice. I see that on the first VT screenshot you caught it before the L1 got to shut the Fuel down due to monitoring enabled .
I like how your VT510 shows the text. My WYSE-160 really doesn't like L1 output and shows is very garbled.

That reminds me, my manual needs some updates, I'm going to show current generation of the adapter (red board) and probably remove those defunct nekochan links

Enjoy your Fuel and thanks for the acknowledgements.

 

[Laurent]

Thanks for concentrating a lot of useful info here @massiverobot. What did you do for pin 3 on the WTX side? Did you solder a bridge to another 3.3V cable?
I'd like to get the rest of the Fuel monitoring to work, so I'll eventually try to plug in something to simulate a fan output. I'm guessing that a square wave with the right frequency will do. I'm not sure what voltage to start at, so I'll start very low. I've ordered a square wave generator from aliexpress. I should have it in a couple months, I'll test it then and let everyone know how it went. Unless someone is going to try it before me!