The Ware for August 2014 is below.
Sorry this month’s ware is a little bit late, I’ve been offline for the past couple of weeks. Thanks to Oren Hazi for contributing this ware!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014 at 1:12 am and is filed under Hacking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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This looks like a storage controller daughterboard.
It probably adds a few levels of RAID and a battery backed cache to a storage controller, which is probably SCSI given the 2001-2002 date on the board.
Looks like a Dell PowerEdge PERC3
Has a (c) Dell on one of the chips. Will is right a Dell PowerEdge PERC3 for a 1650 server.
Adding on to what zdw said (everything I agree with) it’s definitely a Dell controller. Specifically, a Dell PE 1650 RAID controller (http://www.amazon.com/DELL-PowerEdge-Controller-7F134-07F134/dp/B0045ZRPQ8)
You can just make out the edting in the SHARP memory (right of the heatsink) that says “1N662 DELL” And then eBay turned up a similar image… And with the name in tow, I found it on Amazon et al too.
zdw is correct, it is the DELL MX-07F134 PE1650 RAID CONTROLLER. Prize should go to him though, since I didn’t use any electical knowledge for this one. I just recreated the barcode from the bottom left of the first photo (it is partially obscured by a cable, but enough is visible on the top and bottom to recreate the entire thing), which an online barcode scanner tells me is MX07F1341241738S011E.
An internet search for that whole number returns a blank, but MX07F134 returned a page selling old equipment, and offering the MX-07F134. searching with the dash included returns many pictures of this board.
I dunno, Cody – that’s pretty clever, too! Don’t sell yourself short…
Me, I found the part number ‘PWB 5F996 REVA01’ etched into the back side, and googled it.
But I was too late to win.
the barcode reads MX07F1341241738S011E, if that helps anyone… and yes, it definitely is this device http://tinyurl.com/Dell-PowerEdge-1650-PERC3
Definitely seems to be the DELL POWEREDGE 1650 PERC3/DI RAID CARD
I went down the same route as Cody with the barcode, but then ended up looking up some of the other components once I didn’t get a match on the MX07F.
What got me close was the battery: DPN 1K178.
Got an amazon buy page: http://www.amazon.com/1K178-FDL00-150137-0-LI103450E-1800mAh-Battery/dp/B00593F6Y8
Which led me to investigate what that battery “fit” and ultimately landed on this ebay page: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-POWEREDGE-1650-PERC3-DI-ROMB-RAID-OEM-CARD-MX-07F134-07F134-7F134-1K178-USA-/390606029982 with a photo of the same board.
http://www.amazon.com/1K178-FDL00-150137-0-LI103450E-1800mAh-Battery/dp/B00593F6Y8
Even easier than reconstructing a partially obscured bar code!
One question after staring for a while:
What’s the unpopulated connector at J8? It looks really weird because a quick glance suggested the Xilinx CPLD (U16) and the Cypress 256k SRAM chip at U2 were for talking with it. And presumably the 8-pin ST devices next to it are some sort of line drivers? (I couldn’t read the part numbers)
Anyway, if that’s correct, surely these chips are reasonably expensive, so why on Earth would they be populated when J8 isn’t?
It’s probably a JTAG or equivalent port and is probably connected to using pogo-pins in some sort of “bed of nails” tester / programmer when they’re manufacturing it.
My guess would be that the ST chips are EEPROMs. They appear to be labelled, from top to bottom, as “PRU” (or “FRU”?), “RAID_KEY”, and “DIMM_SPI”.
Ah, that makes sense. And presumably the CPLD etc. just happen to be in that area of the board, rather than having anything to do with that connector.
While I’m asking questions: Can anyone explain the wiggly trace just to the left of the ZIF connectors? I would guess it’s some sort of patch antenna, but I see that both ends of the trace are connected to something, which maybe makes that less likely. So, matched impedance with another trace? But surely it wouldn’t be *that* wiggly?
It almost looks like some sort of inductor. There is another one below the DRAMs.
No guessing. It’s definitely a Dell PowerEdge 1650 RAID Controller Card PWB-5F996
The part number is part of the solder mask on the back just below “Made in Taiwan”. Googling for that part number leads here: http://www.dougdeals.com/p-2646-dell-poweredge-1650-raid-controller-card-pwb-5f996.aspx
Dang. In the effort of not making this challenge seem so quick and efficient, I’m going to claim its a printer motherboard with an oversized RTC battery.
HUEHUEHUE BR
gps tracker?
I was at Halted in Sunnyvale CA Sept 20 and I found the exact same card:
http://www.retrosynth.com/slideshow/20140920_dell/20140920_dell_001.jpg
-Cary