Initial state. I bought the sucker new off eBay from the UK for $2500 when it was brand new (pre-"M"). It was a grey market unit (of course), so
Juniper effectively wanted me to buy it again to get support. I managed to wrangle a couple years' worth out of SBCIS's Juniper rep.
Sitting on top is a J2300. I abandoned this at SBC's Lakeside building when we vacated (in 2015), as the CF interface had died.
You can see a couple more Netscreens on the right...
...Specifically a 5XT (also with a fan and heat sink mod, as it was a burning weenie roaster) on top of a 5GT.
Interior views, as I disassembled the unit...
Yep, just a PC with a custom motherboard.
A close-up of the Mini-PCI Nitrox card, which gave the thing its 1Gb/s performance over encrypted tunnels.
This is what I removed from the unit: three agressive 80mm Delta fans and companion shroud.
Reinforcement plate for the fan and filter, with the crossbar for the filter lid stud.
Layout... sort of. Hard to tell what all is upside-down. But it does illustrate position and fit.
The reason for the corner divot.
Power harness for the fan...
...And a view complete with fan and speed control.
Detail of the speed control. I adjusted it so that the fan topped out at less than full speed.
Layout for cable position and fit.
Factory heat sink on the right with Swiftech replacement on the left...
...And another view. The factory heat sink was not bad, but not suitable for use with the down-firing main fan.
ScreenOS ran the poor P4 551 at full power (~75W) at all times - no idle reduction. It was a cooker.
As installed. I don't recall why I didn't wire up the tach output - perhaps it wasn't used with the Deltas. That would tend to explain how I got away
with eliminating two fans completely without complaints from the system. (A locked rotor signal would have required spoofing. Ask me how I know.)
The Rotron Major DC, assembled and ready for installation.
Power source for the Major. The SSG550 had SATA power but no SATA devices. I don't even see any SATA headers offhand.
Normally I'd just use an appropriate mating connector, but SATA mates to a PCB edge. There might be some solution out there, but it's never come up again.
Everything worked OK.
Interior views of the assembled lid.
Assembled less filter lid. Looks like I'd run out of USA-made AC A697Cs. I'd snagged the last ones a few years earlier for Ares4.
This shows the position of the big fan. Not much clearance.
Complete. As with all of these projects, it was louder than I'd hoped (but still not as loud as stock). A major culprit was the 40mm fans in the
power supply (I ran it with one installed, as the mounting hardware for the reinforcement plate interfered with the upper supply). I replaced them
with quieter ones that had similar performance but (in particular) much better balance. I had to spoof the locked rotor signal, as I'd gotten tach
fans.
Now that I'm thinking about it, fan balance was a major motivation for this project. Up on its shelf, this thing shook the entire wall. Very annoying.
The Major eventually pretty much wore out - after a few years it didn't want to start from power-on. I don't know what became of the unit after I decommissioned Ares4 in 2015. I assume it went to the great scrap heap in the ground.