[thechat] hardware issue - motherboard dies on power down after lengthy on period

Bob Davis bobd at members.evolt.org
Sun Feb 10 19:55:01 CST 2002


At 11:15 AM +1030 2/11/02, Isaac Forman wrote:
>Anyone seen this before?
>
>PC on for a long time - 30-120 days straight. Powered down for a few hours
>(moving house). Then doesn't start up after that. Motherboard seems to be
>dead (power supply fan runs, SCSI burner powers, but no other action).

Yeah. Sometimes when disks have been active for a long time, they
don't respond to being shut down very well - especially when they
have time to cool down. The bearings freeze up.

Could you hear the disks turning?

>Has happened to me before (different motherboard I think).
>
>My machines are custom-built, so no cheap, shitty brand components.
>
>
>Anyway, is this scenario common? Is it avoidable?

More importantly, is it fixable?  The answer is maybe.

Try hitting your hard drives with a hair dryer for a bit to get them
warm, and then boot.

I'm assuming  you've checked the ram to make sure it's in ok, but it
wouldn't hurt to see if re-seating them helps.



>I assume that most development/gaming boxes don't run that long without
>powering down, so I'm hoping for some insight from people who may have
>experienced this with servers.

This is what I've heard. It seems to happen more with Western Digital
drives than Seagates though according to (somewhat) reliable sources.

Try the disk warming trick, and see if that helps.

bob


--
bob davis
bobd at members.evolt.org
http://www.bobdavis.org/



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