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SGI Onyx 3000

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SGI Onyx 3000
SGI Onyx 3000 rack with G-brick (Owner's Guide Figure 1-1)
Onyx 3000 rack with a G-brick at the top, an I-brick and C-bricks below and the power bay at the bottom (SGI Owner's Guide drawing)
Specifications
ManufacturerSilicon Graphics
TypeRackmount visualisation system
ReleasedJuly 2000[1][2]
Discontinued25 March 2005 (last model)[1]
CPUTwo or four MIPS processors per C-brick: R12000 at 400 MHz, R14000 at 500 MHz, R14000A at 600 MHz, later 800 MHz parts[3][2]
Memory512 MB to 8 GB per C-brick; up to 256 GB in 32 C-bricks[4]
StorageFibre Channel system disk and CD-ROM in the I-brick; D-brick Fibre Channel enclosures[3]
Display—
Sound—
GraphicsInfiniteReality3, later InfiniteReality4, in G-bricks; or InfinitePerformance (VPro V12) in V-bricks[3][5][1]
PowerPower bay: up to six 950 W supplies giving 48 V DC, fed at 200–240 V; G-brick 180–254 V AC, 2000 W, on its own cord[4]
DimensionsTall rack 188.5 cm high, 76.1 cm wide, 130.7 cm deep; short rack 91.5 × 64.4 × 103.1 cm[4]
WeightGraphics rack with two G-bricks up to 386 kg; compute rack up to 489 kg[4]
OS / FirmwareIRIX 6.5[1][2]
PredecessorSGI Onyx2
SuccessorSGI Onyx 4
Model no.Onyx 3200, Onyx 3400, Onyx 3800; later Onyx 3900[3][2]

The SGI Onyx 3000 is the rackmount visualisation system Silicon Graphics introduced in July 2000 alongside the SGI Origin 3000 server. It replaced the SGI Onyx2 and ran IRIX 6.5.[1][2] Instead of boards in a card cage, the system is built from rackmounted units SGI calls bricks, joined by NUMAlink cables, and the graphics come in their own brick: the G-brick for InfiniteReality pipes, or the V-brick for InfinitePerformance.[3] SGI sold three models, the Onyx 3200, 3400 and 3800; a denser Onyx 3900 followed in November 2002.[3][2] The compute and I/O bricks are those of the Origin 3000, and SGI's Onyx 3000 owner's guide refers to the SGI Origin 3000 Series Owner's Guide for them.[3] The smaller SGI Onyx 300 and SGI Onyx 350 use the same NUMA3 architecture in different hardware, and their modules do not interchange with Onyx 3000 bricks.[6]

SGI announced the end of production of the Onyx 3200 and 3800 for 31 March 2004.[2] Wikipedia gives 25 March 2005 as the date the last Onyx 3000 model was discontinued, after the SGI Onyx 4 and the Itanium-based Prism had replaced it.[1]

Bricks

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Every brick except the D-brick has its own L1 controller with a small display on the front.[3]

Onyx 3000 bricks (SGI Owner's Guide, Tables 1-1, A-4 and A-5)
Brick Function Height Maximum power and input
C-brick Two or four processors, 4 or 8 MB secondary cache each, and up to 8 GB of memory 3U 250 W (2 CPUs) or 308 W (4 CPUs), 48 V DC
I-brick Boot I/O: Fibre Channel system disk, CD-ROM, five PCI slots, USB keyboard and mouse, Ethernet, audio and serial 4U 190 W, 48 V DC
P-brick Twelve PCI slots on six buses 4U 225 W, 48 V DC
X-brick Four XIO slots 4U 225 W, 48 V DC
N-brick Links up to four C-bricks to up to four InfiniteReality pipes, in place of an I- or X-brick 2U 115 W, 48 V DC
R-brick Router for the Onyx 3400 and 3800 2U 60 W, 48 V DC
D-brick 3.5-inch Fibre Channel disk enclosure 4U Two 550 W supplies, 180–254 V AC
G-brick One or two InfiniteReality pipes 18U 2000 W, 180–254 V AC
V-brick One or two InfinitePerformance pipes (VPro V12 boards) 4U 225 W, 48 V DC

[3][4]

The C-brick's Bedrock ASIC connects its processors, memory and I/O. NUMAlink links run at up to 1600 MB/s in each direction, and the fabric gives at least two paths between any two bricks.[3] SGI quotes 4 to 128 processors and up to 256 GB of memory for the range.[4]

Graphics

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G-brick

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The G-brick is 18U high and holds one or two InfiniteReality pipes in eleven rear slots, plugged into a midplane. The six right-hand slots (seen from the rear) are pipe 0, with a Geometry Engine (GE) board, one, two or four Raster Manager (RM) boards and a DG5 display generator; the four left-hand slots are pipe 1, with a GE, one or two RMs and a DG5. A Ktown2 board between the pipes carries two cables, one per pipe, to an I-, X- or N-brick on the C-brick side.[7] Each pipe needs its own C-brick.[8] SGI quotes 1 to 16 pipes and up to eight monitors per pipe.[3] The 68-pin connectors on the RM boards are for calligraphic lights, not SCSI.[7]

The G-brick shipped with InfiniteReality3; the InfiniteReality4 pipe (GE16-4, RM11 and DG5) followed, with texture memory raised from 256 MB to 1 GB per pipe. An upgrade to InfiniteReality4 needs IRIX 6.5.17 or later.[1][5]

DG5 display generator options (SGI Owner's Guide, Table 2-1)
Board Daughterboard Outputs
DG5-2 None Two high-resolution video outputs
DG5-8 VIO5H Eight high-resolution video outputs
DG5-2 GVO Two high-resolution outputs and two serial digital (CCIR601) outputs
DG5-2 TVO (HD-GVO) Two high-resolution outputs and two high-definition TMDS outputs
DG5-2 DPLEX Combines the output of two or more pipes into one display

[7]

The DG5 also has S-Video, composite, StereoView, genlock and swap-ready connectors, and its monitor outputs are 13W3. SGI gives 1920 × 1200 at 66 Hz as the default for its 24-inch SuperWide monitor and about 300 Mpixel/s as the total output of a pipe.[7][9]

V-brick

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The V-brick is 4U high and holds one or two VPro V12 boards, each a complete InfinitePerformance pipe taking two slots. Each V12 has two DVI-I outputs, a blocked 13W3 connector, and genlock, swap-ready and stereo connectors. The brick connects straight to a C-brick through its XIO 10 and XIO 11 ports and takes 48 V from the power bay.[7] A system uses either G-bricks or V-bricks, never both, and SGI quotes up to four InfinitePerformance pipes.[3] SGI introduced the InfinitePerformance option in January 2002.[2]

N-brick

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The N-brick, added after the first edition of the owner's guide, connects up to four C-bricks to up to four InfiniteReality pipes without the extra I/O of an I- or X-brick. Systems upgraded with it need IRIX 6.5.13 or later and L1 firmware 1.6.0 or later on every brick.[8]

System controllers

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Each brick except the D-brick has an L1 controller. It sequences the brick's power, monitors its voltages, fans and temperatures, and shows status and faults on a two-line, twelve-character display; the D-brick has its own ESI/Ops panel instead.[10]

Each rack with C-bricks has an L2 controller at the top, with a 320 × 240 touch display on the front door. From it you power bricks on and off, reset the system, send an NMI, read voltage margins and view the logs. The L2 takes about 30 W at 48 V DC from the power bay and has console, modem, Ethernet and four USB ports for the L1 controllers.[10] The L2 is optional on the short-rack Onyx 3200; on a system without the L2 touch display, bricks are powered from a terminal on the C-brick console port.[9]

The command sets for both controllers are in the SGI L1 and L2 Controller Software User's Guide.[11]

Power and cooling

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The power bay holds up to six hot-swappable supplies of 950 W each, 4.4 kW in all, and distributes 48 V DC to the L2 controller and to every brick except the G-brick and D-brick. Each supply has its own 200–240 V, 20 A input cord from a power distribution unit (PDU); a single-phase PDU serves one power bay and a three-phase PDU two. The D-brick plugs into a power distribution strip, and each G-brick has its own cord to a wall outlet.[3][4] SGI asks for the G-brick and PDU outlets to be fed and earthed from the same breaker box, and warns that a ground potential difference of more than 0.5 V between chassis joined by NUMAlink or Xtown2 cables can cause severe damage.[9]

jan-jaap, a long-time collector on the IRIX Network forum, describes the Origin and Onyx 3000 power system as a return to the original SGI Onyx design of an offline supply feeding DC-DC converters on each brick, except that here the converters are replaceable modules and not soldered to the boards.[12]

Every brick draws air in at the front and exhausts it at the rear; the rack itself has no fans.[2] If a fan cannot reach its minimum speed in a cool room, the L1 controller speeds up the other fans and posts a warning; if the intake air is above 30 °C, or another fan is already at minimum speed, it starts a 30-second shutdown instead.[10]

Known faults

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  • Dallas DS1780 monitoring chips. jan-jaap says these were already causing trouble in Origin 3000 bricks when the systems were new. A failed chip can report impossible voltages and temperatures and shut a healthy brick down.[13][14] The same chips and fault are described in detail on SGI Origin 350 Troubleshooting Guide.
  • A brick showing No L1 comm. jpstewart has seen exactly this message on an Origin 300 with a dead Dallas battery; jan-jaap reads it as the brick's L1 failing to talk to the rest of the system, and suggests a dead NVRAM chip or battery as one cause.[15]
  • The G-brick front panels look fixed. recondas found that the upper and lower panels are held by one screw hidden behind the magnetic InfiniteReality badge.[16]

Documentation

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See SGI Onyx 3000 Documentation for contents and what each one covers.

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  • Onyx 3000 rack with G-brick, I-brick, C-bricks and power bay (SGI drawing)
    Onyx 3000 rack with G-brick, I-brick, C-bricks and power bay (SGI drawing)
  • G-brick rear: two InfiniteReality pipes either side of the Ktown2 board (SGI drawing)
    G-brick rear: two InfiniteReality pipes either side of the Ktown2 board (SGI drawing)
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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "SGI Origin 3000 and Onyx 3000", Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org (accessed 22 October 2026). Introduction in July 2000, IRIX 6.5, InfiniteReality3 and 4, succession and discontinuation.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Gerhard Lenerz, "Origin 3000 / Onyx 3000", sgistuff.net, sgistuff.net (accessed 22 October 2026). History, processor options, airflow, rack sizes, supported IRIX releases.
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 Silicon Graphics, SGI Onyx 3000 Series Graphics System Hardware Owner's Guide, 007-4264-002, November 2001, chapter 1, pp. 1–14 (File:SGI Onyx 3000 Series Graphics System Hardware Owner's Guide (007-4264-002).pdf). Bricks and rack components (Table 1-1), the three models, brick descriptions, NUMAlink, system features.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 SGI, 007-4264-002, appendix A, pp. 141–146, Tables A-1 to A-6. System ranges, rack and brick dimensions and weights, power consumption, power bay.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Silicon Graphics, InfiniteReality4 Addendum to Silicon Graphics Onyx2, SGI Onyx 3000 Series, and SGI Onyx 300 Guides, 007-4525-001, 2002, pp. 1–4 (File:SGI InfiniteReality4 Addendum to Onyx2, Onyx 3000 and Onyx 300 Guides (007-4525-001).pdf).
  6. ↑ Silicon Graphics, SGI Onyx 300 Graphics System User's Guide, 007-4509-002, May 2002, pp. 1 and 6 (File:SGI Onyx 300 Graphics System User's Guide (007-4509-002).pdf). Same NUMA3 architecture as the Onyx 3000; modules not interchangeable with Onyx 3000 bricks.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 SGI, 007-4264-002, chapter 2, pp. 35–60. G-brick, DG5 options (Table 2-1) and connectors, V-brick and V12 board, N-brick.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Silicon Graphics, SGI Onyx 3000 N-Brick Addendum, 007-4424-001, pp. 1–2 (File:SGI Onyx 3000 N-Brick Addendum (007-4424-001).pdf).
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 SGI, 007-4264-002, chapter 4, pp. 92–119. Maintenance and safety, monitor, powering on and off, ground potential caution, systems without an L2.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 SGI, 007-4264-002, chapter 6, pp. 127–139. L1 and L2 controller functions, L1 messages (Table 6-2), L2 ports and power.
  11. ↑ Silicon Graphics, SGI L1 and L2 Controller Software User's Guide, 007-3938-006 (File:SGI L1 and L2 Controller Software User's Guide (007-3938-006).pdf).
  12. ↑ jan-jaap, reply of 17 January 2019 in "Proactive maintainability of SGI Power Supplies, thoughts?", IRIX Network forum, forums.irixnet.org.
  13. ↑ jan-jaap, reply of 27 September 2023 in "Origin 350 - PCI 5V missing", IRIX Network forum, forums.irixnet.org.
  14. ↑ vvuk, jan-jaap, jwhat and fleedwood, "o350 env chip locations", IRIX Network forum, 28 February to 3 March 2022, forums.irixnet.org.
  15. ↑ jan-jaap and jpstewart, replies of 12–13 November 2020 in "CBRICK Error", IRIX Network forum, forums.irixnet.org.
  16. ↑ recondas and jwhat, replies of 30 October 2021 in "Unracking G-Brick", IRIX Network forum, forums.irixnet.org.


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