Randy, I agree with the lore supplied by others that start-up stress is worse than running stress and that your PS reached its lifetime limit. As an old hardware guy its kinda tough to hear how we just accept this today, especially since I think most on the LUG list are run company servers. A well-designed supply would not fail over the life of a computer--it would be designed with parts rated at twice the voltage stress seen in worst-case operation. Unfortunately, supplies are sold dirt cheap and as such made with the cheapest parts--with ratings just good enough to operate when assembled--not over the life of the equipment. Parts like capacitors undergo quite a bit of stress on start up (in-rush current) and switcher supplies (they are all switchers) have quite a bit of stress on the diodes (particularly inverse voltage) and power transistors. These parts are bound to fail if they are chosen too close to the limits of operation based on cost. While cheap parts are probably the main issue in computer supply failures, poor assembly practices, like wave soldering ferroelectric chip capacitors such that they form microfractures, can also be blamed (entry of water vapor = plating of shorts on power-down in humid atmosphere = shorts fail to clear on power-up under low voltage=dead output). Just wondering at this point...is there are market in the server area for a more robust supply? If so how large might this be? I might want a grub stake after I finish my PhD this summer, if I decide to try my hand at small business again. The power supply market is so huge that there must already be suppliers out there with the right stuff though. Jack Surek ----- Original Message ----- From: "Randy Clarksean" <rclark at lakesplus.com> To: "tclug" <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 3:02 PM Subject: [tclug-list] OT: Uptime and power supply > > I had to physically move my office on Saturday ... then on Sunday I moved my > server as well ... having to shut it down after 275 days of uptime *sniff* > *sniff* > > Odd issue though ... I opened the system and blew it out with a compressed > cleaner ... then ... when I went to reboot ... the system would not start > back up ... pressing the power button on occasion resulted in CPU fan > spinning a time or two ... but then nothing ... no startup. > > I found it rather odd that it ran for 275 days ... then would not restart. > I did check all the power connectors, etc. - none of that made a difference. > I then just replaced the power supply and it fired up right away. > > Thoughts ... comments on what might have caused it to die/not restart? > > System: PII 450 MHz, basic cheap case, etc. Had a Deere power supply > (nothing fancy I know) > > Randy > > > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list