Resolving Mismatched Serial Numbers on Origin 3400

[jdhadwin]

Hi everyone

I recently acquired an SGI Origin 3400 and am trying to get it up and running. However, I have a problem with serial number mismatching on some of my bricks (a C brick and an R brick). Does anyone know how I might be able to resolve this serial number mismatch? I read the manual and it said something about needing a legit SGI tech, lol. I probably will need to do some next level hacking if I had to guess. @Elf mentioned that you might have some ideas @Unxmaal

 

[Unxmaal]

See https://gainos.org/~elf/sgi/nekonomicon/forum/3/16726363/1.html :

"Stepped through the firmware image in a hex editor and found some undocumented commands, one of which is "let the carnage begin"... executing this command on l1 turned the "security" feature off and reset the system serial to match the other bricks."

Just don't be dumb like me. Run this on the bricks that you need changed, not willy-nilly all over your cluster.

 

[jdhadwin]

Lol, epic! Thanks a million man.... will report back soon.

 

[andrej]

I have some info about this on my Origin 3400 page here: https://bukosek.si/hardware/collection/sgi-origin3400.html#rbrick-serial-mismatch

Basically, it's enough to replace the DS1742W in the brick with one that has a dead battery, or with a new one, but then it will be locked to the serial it gets from the L2 controller or other bricks on first power-up.
If you have multiple bricks in the same system that have serial mismatches, it makes sense to deal with them one-by-one (connect just the brick and the L2 controller, set the desired serial on the L2 controller beforehand).

The "let the carnage begin" thing works great, but you also need to do a "serial clear" and "reboot_l1" afterwards for it to have an effect (at least on the bricks I tried, YMMV).