Dear Sun hardware designers,

[reddragdiva]

What in Von Neumann's name were you smoking when you designed the memory modules for the Ultra Enterprise 250 such that they have a keyslot, but you placed it precisely half way down the DIMM, such that the DIMM can in fact be almost fully inserted the wrong way around?

I am also considerably impressed with the way the DIMM slots are considerably-greater-than-zero insertion force, so you can't tell if the DIMM is in far enough without looking at the board from the right angle. And it presumably kills enough motherboards from flexion to be considered a feature, not a bug. At least by Sales.

no love,
Diva.

Dear E250,

Drawing blood from my fingers for a non-SCSI matter is grievously foul play. You wait to see what I come up to do with you next.

Fuck you very much,
me.

Comments

[pir.livejournal.com]

The keying is on the end of the DIMM, so you can't slot them in the wrong way round.

[reddragdiva]

Ah — but you can almost get them in, such that it's not apparent until you look at it from the right angle. Because the DIMM slots are considerably-greater-than-zero insertion force. Which presumably kills enough motherboards from flexion to be considered a feature, not a bug. At least by Sales.

[redcountess]

/me kisses your fingers better.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Y'know, I've never had that problem, and I've inserted a lot of those DIMMs through the years.
The insertion force is quite high, I'll admit. The canny sysadmin has held on to the "DIMM insertion tool", a bar of plastic with a raised groove in one side, from the SPARCServer 20 days (when they were provided with the DIMM) to insert DIMMs in later systems. Filling an E450 up with RAM without one of those tends to reshape the ends of your fingers in a semi-permanent fashion.
Now, of course, we have wussy Opteron CPUs which can't drive more than four discrete DIMMs per CPU (memory controller). Youth of today, don't know how good they've got it.

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

Huh. Well, I guess I qualify as to young to have given a shit about the SS 20 except for historical purposes, but I was fond of rubber mallets with my 450s.

[reddragdiva]

My first time with an E250. Hopefully my last.

[shamus9999.livejournal.com]

Cue the All Foo Sucks mantra

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

Queue? I have it on constant replay.

DIMM insertion

[loopzilla.livejournal.com]

I don't do hardware. Period.

Re: DIMM insertion

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

Pussy.

Re: DIMM insertion

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

That's hardware too yanno.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Whatever they were smoking, they probably had more of it when they designed the 420R's "memory riser". Ultra-touchy tension for the tiny contacts, and requiring to match the riser RAM with the corresponding slots on the mobo. HATE.