SGI hardware Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is one of the Silicon Graphics FAQ series, which consists of:

    SGI admin FAQ - IRIX system administration
    SGI apps FAQ - Applications and miscellaneous programming
    SGI audio FAQ - Audio applications and programming
    SGI diffs FAQ - Changes to the other FAQs since the last posting
    SGI graphics FAQ - Graphics and user environment customization
    SGI hardware FAQ - Hardware
    SGI impressario FAQ - IRIS Impressario
    SGI inventor FAQ - IRIS Inventor
    SGI misc FAQ - Introduction & miscellaneous information
    SGI movie FAQ - Movies
    SGI performer FAQ - IRIS Performer
    SGI pointer FAQ - Pointer to the other FAQs
    SGI security FAQ - IRIX security

Read the misc FAQ for information about the FAQs themselves. Each FAQ is
posted to comp.sys.sgi.misc and to the  and 
newsgroups (whose purpose is to store FAQs) twice per month. If you
can't find one of the FAQs with your news program, you can get it from

    ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/
    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/sgi/faq/

(rtfm.mit.edu is home to many other FAQs and informational documents,
and is a good place to look if you can't find an answer here.) The FAQs
are on the World Wide Web at

    http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/

If you can't use FTP or WWW, send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
the word 'help' on a line by itself in the text, and it will send you a
document describing how to get files from rtfm.mit.edu by mail. Send the
command 'send usenet/news.answers/sgi/faq/misc' to get the SGI misc FAQ,
and similarly for the other FAQs. Send the command 'send
usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email' to get the
"Accessing the Internet by E-Mail FAQ".

You may distribute the SGI FAQs freely and we encourage you to do so.
However, you must keep them intact, including headers and this notice,
and you must not charge for or profit from them. Contact us for other
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are certain to be out of date. The contents are accurate as far as we
know, but the usual disclaimers apply. Send additions and changes to
sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu.

Topics covered in this FAQ:
---------------------------
   -1- GENERAL INFORMATION
   -2- Where can I get a copy of SGI's Periodic Table of the Irises?
   -3- What third-party vendors sell thus-and-such for SGIs?
   -4- Where can I get used SGI machines?
   -5- What is my old SGI machine worth?
   -6- What about my IRIS 2000 or 3000?
   -7- Should I shut off my Iris at night?
   -8- How fast is my R4000 or R4400 machine?
   -9- What is the IP number of each SGI model?
  -10- What graphics and audio options were/are available for each
       model?
  -11- What OS versions are supported on which platforms?
  -12- MEMORY
  -13- What type of memory does each SGI model use?
  -14- Can I mix 1MB and 2MB SIMMS in my 4D/20 & 4D/25 Personal IRISes?
  -15- Can I add 4MB SIMMS to my 4D/20 or 4D/25 PI?
  -16- How many 4MB SIMMS can be put into an Indigo?
  -17- How can I find a bad SIMM?
  -18- Why does my system tell me I need a revision C Memory Controller
       (MC) chip?
  -19- Should I worry about a "recoverable memory parity error"?
  -20- MONITORS AND VIDEO HARDWARE
  -21- My monitor is maladjusted in some way. How to fix it?
  -22- Can I have 2 graphics displays on my Indigo?
  -23- What do I need to do stereo on an Onyx/RE2?
  -24- Can I use my SGI monitor on my PC?
  -25- Can I use my PC monitor on my SGI?
  -26- What video formats, scan rate, etc. do SGI monitors support?
  -27- How can I set my Indy to use 1280x1024 pixels on a third-party
       monitor?
  -28- What is the pinout for the Indy's 13W3 video connector?
  -29- STORAGE DEVICES
  -30- What do all these SCSI technical terms mean?
  -31- How many SCSI devices can I have on an Indigo?
  -32- How do I install external SCSI disks on my SGI?
  -33- Can I use a non-SGI hard drive in my SGI workstation?
  -34- What kind of DAT drive does SGI sell for the Indigo?
  -35- Can I use a 3rd-party cartridge tape drive on my Indigo?
  -36- Which Exabyte drives work with SGI systems?
  -37- How to connect my 3rd-party tape drive to my SGI?
  -38- How should I set up my tape drive so tar's 'r' and 'u' options
       work?
  -39- What do I do when I can't read a tar tape made on another system?
  -40- Why can't I write a tape on my DEC DAT drive and read it on my
       SGI?
  -41- Why does my SGI think my DAT has audio on it when it actually has
       data?
  -42- How can I recover a partially overwritten tar tape?
  -43- When and how should I clean my tape drive?
  -44- Why don't no-rewind tape devices always work in IRIX 5.3/6.0.1?
  -45- What dump parameters should I use?
  -46- How can I eject a jammed tape or CD?
  -47- Can I use a non-SGI CD-ROM on my SGI?
  -48- Can I use an SGI CD-ROM on a non-SGI?
  -49- How can I write CD-ROMs on an SGI?
  -50- Why can't Joe User eject his CD-ROM?
  -51- How can Joe User mount and unmount his magneto-optical disk?
  -52- Why do SGI SCSI controllers have host ID 0 instead of the usual
       7?
  -53- What about Syquest and Iomega (Zip, Jaz) removable media drives?
  -54- EVERYTHING ELSE
  -55- How long can my monitor/keyboard/mouse/Indycam cables be?
  -56- How fast is the Indigo parallel port?
  -57- What are the differences between the Indigo R4000 and Indigo2?
  -58- What high speed interfaces are available for Onyx?
  -59- Why doesn't my modem work?
  -60- What about ISDN?
  -61- What mice (or other pointing devices) can I use with my SGI?
  -62- What about joysticks?
  -63- What about uninterruptable power supplies?
  -64- How can ordinary users control the multi-channel option (MCO)?
  -65- What laptop or notebook SGIs are available?