How many days will it take EyeMWing to tear down a single IBM AS400 server? - Update with answer!

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: spidey07
Are you selling it? Its worth a pretty penny.

Plenty of enterprises still run on AS/400.

Well, it WAS worth a pretty penny. Not sure about the new ones, but is supposed to be bullet-proof and able to withstand like a 20 foot drop.

I think, unless we find someone who wants to BUY the other one, it may get that bullet test

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: spidey07
alright.

But depending on the model it could be worth between 10 and 150K.

Iiiiiiinteresting. We still have that second one left (though it's decidedly smaller)

It's nonworking (can't tell WTF is wrong, since we can't actively work on it due to the fact that it isn't 120v and maintainence won't let us have any REAL electricity in our end of the building) and has the exterior trim pieces knocked off.

Well call around and see what they've give you for it. I can't recall the name of the big company that buys used midrange stuff.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: spidey07
alright.

But depending on the model it could be worth between 10 and 150K.

Iiiiiiinteresting. We still have that second one left (though it's decidedly smaller)

It's nonworking (can't tell WTF is wrong, since we can't actively work on it due to the fact that it isn't 120v and maintainence won't let us have any REAL electricity in our end of the building) and has the exterior trim pieces knocked off.

Well call around and see what they've give you for it. I can't recall the name of the big company that buys used midrange stuff.

I certainly will. Every damned company in the Baltimore, York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Newark (DE), Wilmington, Washington DC, New York (and surrounding area) phone books will be getting a phone call from me if that's what it takes. And I'll sell it at half market value and personally drive it there.

 

[spidey07]

Well it doesn't hurt to call. Especially if its their bigger line.

See if you can get the model number and tell it to them. I find it hard to believe "it just doesn't work" - more than likely some part is bad or missing...unless they just gave you an empty shell with no proc/disk/mem

-edit- if your in the NE, most of the refurb/buyback companies I've worked with are there.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Well it doesn't hurt to call. Especially if its their bigger line.

See if you can get the model number and tell it to them. I find it hard to believe "it just doesn't work" - more than likely some part is bad or missing...unless they just gave you an empty shell with no proc/disk/mem

Well, there was definitely at least one PPC processor module in this one - I don't recall seeing any RAM in the modules (though I don't really know what an AS400 memory module looks like. I suspect it doesn't involve SIMMs/DIMMs). It's also not likely that someone stole the RAM module, since there were no empty spaces (well, that weren't filled with the "blanks") - and who puts a blank in to replace something they just take?

And there were *PLENTY* of drives. Dear god were there plenty of drives. We salvaged the drives from the carriers and maxxed out our SAN appliance (another fine IBM product. It was "dead" as well - apparently it had simply had a massive drive failure. Pulled out several drives that had head crashed and it was all kinds of happy until today's upgrade) and still had a dozen carriers that we hadn't even opened.

A model number may be hard to come by - the face from both ends of the machine was torn off at some point and I can't get anything out of the rest of them except individual part serials and model numbers.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

You need to learn how to tear something down.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
You need to learn how to tear something down.

Hah, that's what happens to most of the scrap pile. However, the AS400 is... A little better built. It dents the hammer as opposed to the hammer denting it

 

[EyeMWing]

Update:
It took exactly 1 week and 1 day - which I compute to be more than 15 man-hours of work.

Funny story, just as I finished, I gave a victory grunt and heaved the gutted chassis over my head, brass screws and dust raining down upon me. At that very moment, a rare HotChick(TM) appeared from the elevator behind me and witnessed my manliness tossing it into the scrap pile. Apparently, this impressed her, because she didn't leave my side until the end of the day.

 

[ruffilb]

It looks like a gigantic steel cabinet, like the kind you use to keep power tools in.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: ruffilb
It looks like a gigantic steel cabinet, like the kind you use to keep power tools in.

That's exactly what it is. I can list all the components right here:

Drive cages (many)
3 piece PSU (removable modules - if you try hard enough)
Sealed Lead Acid battery (removable)
Logic modules (removable - these are your mobos, RAM, etc.)
Communications modules (more logic, smaller cartridges)
Drive cage plug-in card (built into the chassis in a very tank-like way)
Logic + comm module plug-in card (built into the very core of the chassis and requires stripping the entire thing down to nothing to get at it)

That's it. That's all. Period. A fscking dual Pentium PowerEdge has more parts - the AS/400 is 99.999999% steel.