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Computer Collection: Sun Fire V100

The Sun Fire V100, stacked on top of a DL360e Gen8 & underneath a Catalyst 3750G-24TS-S switch (circa June 2020)

About

This was another I bought on a whim, and was my only SPARC machine.

It was very weak and I had a lot of trouble trying to install Solaris, to no avail. Its internal CD-ROM made installation of Solaris 9 impossible because I was missing one CD from the kit, and I couldn't get a DVD-ROM drive to work when plugged into the IDE connector on the motherboard.

I ended up installing OpenBSD - I'd show a neofetch screenshot, but I can't. It doesn't appear to have survived whatsoever, and I know I ran it.

Specs

CPU: Sun UltraSPARC-IIe 500MHz

RAM: 256MB PC133 registered ECC (shipped with 512, one DIMM failed tests)

GPU: None! No video hardware.

IDE Primary Master: TEAC CD-ROM

IDE Secondary Master: IBM DeskStar 120GB (fromm a PowerMac G4, installed by me)

OS: OpenBSD sun4u (SPARC)

PSU: Delta 80W

Trivia

The V100 was available with the 500MHz UltraSPARC-IIe, like mine had, or a 550MHz or a 650MHz UltraSPARC-IIi.
It had a 2GB maximum RAM limit. It does not accept 1GB sticks. I know - I tried, and it spat garbage onto the screen when attempting to run memory tests.
It has no video hardware. To install OpenBSD and attempt to install Solaris, I had to work over the serial console with my Mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro.
It had lights-out management (LOM), and it was the first thing you interfaced with over the serial console once you plugged the V100 in.
It was quite small for a server, it being 1 rack unit high and 19 inches (48.26cm) deep. It also weighed 6kg. Very light for a rackmount server.

Gallery

The UltraSPARC-IIe CPU inside the V100

Last updated: 7th Nov 2023 12:29pm GMT