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compactPCI? Anyone familiar?

B

Batti

Golden Member
I have discovered potential today for acquiring 20+ single board computers with PII-233's on them intended for plugging into a compactPCI chassis. I know nothing about compactPCI... anyone know something about these?
 
Compact PCI is used many notebook computers. My thinkpad has a CPCI card that has a 3Com NIC and modem on it. A lot of "server appliances" that I work with also have them like self contained webservers and firewall boxes.
I'm not sure what a compact PCI chassis would be like, though. Are you sure it isn't something like a 1U rackmount chassis? Those usually have a special adapter that lets you add a PCI card horizontally rather than vertially to keep the case profile low.
 

CompactPCI is the format used in Rack mounted systems. I am not really up on Rackmount tech but I've administered a few of them so I 'll try and explain.

The single board computer usually integrates serial, USB, LAN, PS2, video ports all in one. Often there is a Disk-On-Chip as well. These are older so they might not have the all-in-one setup I've seen before.

The chassis typically mounts an 8 slot PCI backplane. CompactPCI bus board has 8 PCI slots that can be bridged
with addition 8 slot CompactPCI boards. Not sure of the limit on number of bridges.

The ones I've used have all been single CPU setups, I do not know if it is possible to put
say 7 CPU cards and 1 LAN card on one CompactPCI bus. I've seen single CompactPCI boards with 2 processors.

Some quick research appears to reveal that you need a system slot for the CPU board and peripheral slots for other cards.
CPU boards come in system slot or peripheral slot config. So you'll need to know which these are.
In the event some are system some are peripheral you should be able to put up some serious cracking racks.

I'll look some more...trying to find a source of surplus chassis/backplane in order to make this work.
 
Based on that info, can I have many CPU cards in one chassis, or does a system look more like one CPU and many peripheral cards? Sinner, I believe these are all CPU, no peripheral but don't know yet for sure.

I may just try to hack together a connector that gives the card the voltages it needs. I'll have a sample tomorrow to look at.
 
I have used Motorola and Force cPCI boards...
Both of these have on board disks/ethernet/video.
They sit in a 19" rack (8 slots I think).
The boards usually need an RTU (separate card) which goes into the back of the chassis and has an ethernet port, although the cards may have a port on the front..

We have run Linux and Lynx on them but in effect they are a PC so I guess you can run anything.

The perect crack rack..

cheers,

Col
 
you put a bunch of processor modules in a chassis and they are all connected through the cPCI backplane (which is actually in the front... go figure...).
 
I've looked at solutions similar to this and passive backplanes with SBC solutions; the biggest problem is the PRICE! Typically, you'll pay a large premium to get that special space-saving solution; the more traditional TA "crack rack" solution of putting together conventional PC components will save you a great deal of money.

Still, if anyone would like more info, I can provide you with a number of sites that I've got bookmarked at home.
 
Understood, Networkman, but I believe I'll have 20+ of these for free! I found out today they have RAM and video on them, so the real challenge is getting power and ethernet to work.
 
General Technics sells these boards and cases for them. Check out the link for some pictures, for those who aren't familiar with cPCI. Should be a sweet crack rack when you get it up and running! 😀
 

I am still unclear on using multiple CPU boards in a single case.
Single board Computers for CPCI come in 2 flavors:
System SLot
Peripheral Slot

I would imagine that all 20 we are talking about are system slot style. I've seen a few cases which mention the ability to use 2 singble board computers.

Anyway, if you can't afford to bring them all online I'd be interested in buying a few I think.
 
Hey, send one to ME. 🙂

I would think that you can buy the parts on E-Bay. That's where most server items that need to be sold end up being sold. :|

LD
 
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