OT: server maintenance

[Bill Vermillion]

I know you'll find it hard to believe, but on Fri, Nov 05 18:58 , Fairlight
actually admitted to saying:" 

> Confusious (Bill Campbell) say:

> > 1999, and I doubt it's been opened since then. Uptime was
> > limited to long power outages before I finally got around to
> > buying a 3kw generator.

> Speaking of power...anyone figure an APC 650 will run a 450watt
> max CPU and a 17" flat-screen LCD okay, or will I need to
> update the UPS as well?

> > CPU and power supply Fans are probably the most critical
> > items on machines today. A couple of years ago AMD processors
> > would leave smoking craters on the main board if the fan
> > failed. I think this isn't nearly as critical today as it was
> > then. We keep a couple of PC Power and Cooling power supplies
> > around in case of power supply failures.

> Problem is, AMD's don't have step-down.  If they overheat, they keep
> running at the same rate.

That was only on the Athlon - not all AMDs.

> Your real iNTEL's will scale back, so that P4-3.8GHz might
> actually be running at 700MHz after a while--but it hasn't
> fried.

That's only on the P4s.

> The AMD has, as you said, basically melted. Apparently it's not
> as bad as it used to be--the original Athlons and Durons that
> came out that had the huge heat issues (1000 and 1800 Athlons,
> I remember) were problem children--but then they came out with
> mainboards with BIOSes that would monitor the chip and shut the
> system down (or sound an alarm or something) if it overheated.

They did NOT sound an alarm.  I believe Tom's Hardware tested
on and the time frame was less than 2 seconds from fan failure
until the chip melted and charred the motherboard.

> (Just what you want--a system shutting down arbitrarily.)

Better than setting the house on fire.

> At least it won't melt down though.  And I believe I heard someone say
> theirs had programmable threshholds.

> This first and only AMD I owned was a 486/120, and I apparently
> got lucky because I never had problems with mine, but most
> of that line were supposed to be fickle as you'd ever think
> something could get. That hasn't been powered up in six years
> or so though.

I had no problems with the K3s.  I only undid the system in the end
as it appears that some regulaors on the motheboard didn't take to
kindly to a series of power failures, surges, close lighting
strikes, and things such as CD-ROMS started running very hot.
That'w why I surmise it was a bad/weakend VR.

They were the best of the Intel work-alikes.  The Cyrix and Blue ??
from IBM - just weren't as compatible as they should be once you
got outside of the pure MS world from my observations.

> Had one of the longest lived HD's I've had in it though...an
> IDE Maxtor that ran from 1992 through 1999 and was still
> showing no signs of failure whatsoever. My Seagate 'cudda's are
> starting to die...at least one of them...a very slow death.

Which 'cuda.  SCSI or EIDE.  I've had early 9GB 'cuddas that got a
bad rep for dying prematurely run for in excess of 6 years in
24x7 in a mail server.  The trick to keeping them alive was
cooling.

The EIDE 'cuda - 7200 RPM - ran for almost 6 months before it died.
I just picked up a pair of serious HD heat sinks that clamp down on
the drive - and the recommend the typical heat grease for contact.

> I've lost a few sectors on win95's C drive. :( But I'm not
> horribly worried yet. I watched someone remap 50% of an old
> drive in a Fortune system before finally having to give up on
> it. They haven't started the grinding wheel bearing noise in
> earnest yet, so I imagine they've got some life left in them.
> :)

You probably won't hear that in modern drives as they have been
been improved so much mechanically.

> That's what usually goes on me is the drive motor bearings.
> And that can take up to 18+ months once it starts doing it
> seriously.

I haven't heard that on any drive since the old 1/2 height [not the
1" height] cuddas.

Bill


-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com