Thank you. I'll order that book by second day air from Amazon.com.
Robert L. Cochran wrote:
In fact why don't you buy Mueller's book -- get the latest edition --
and follow the troubleshooting tree that is in one of the appendices.
That will zero in on the exact problem for you.
Bob Cochran
----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert L. Cochran"
<cochranb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gannr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "For users of Fedora Core releases"
<fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: FC5 INstallation Killing Computers
You need to do a bit more work -- number 1 is testing the power
supplies in each and every dead computer. As Scott Mueller says in
the 17th Edition of "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" -- many times the
problem is a bad power supply. That keys with my experience too. When
people call me to report a dead machine, about 80% of the time it is
a bad power supply. Most of the remaining cases are dead hard drives.
I do have one customer now with a lightning struck computer. Dead
power supply and dead motherboard -- at least the power regulators on
the motherboard are shot, I don't know if the memory and cpu are
gone. The cure is simple, replace the bad hardware.
Bob Cochran
----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Gann" <gannr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: Re: FC5 INstallation Killing Computers
The strange thing is that all of these computers were working
properly. Three were running Windows XP Pro or Windows Server 2003.
One was running FC4. They all died during the FC5 installation. My
thoughts, in rough order are (1) some problem with the electrical
poser in the room (although three on Windows installations on 32 bit
machines done at about the same time have caused no problems), some
kind of issue involving overheating, if somehow, FC5 is not
correctly controlling the fans, or (3) FC5 has trouble with dual AMD
computers, at least with the motherboards we are using.
The behavior of the computers is really odd. The one that went
“poof” near the start of the installation is totally dead (this one
had running FC4 and I was doing a fresh installation). After trying
to do the installation a couple times with the other computers, I
cannot even turn them on. Letting them sit for a while (a period
like overnight) which would allow the computer to completely cool
and discharge its capacitors, I can get it started. However, it only
runs for a little bit. For example, with Knoppix, I cannot get past
the “Hit Any Key to Boot into Knoppix” screen. I checked one that I
did get into the BIOS, and the BIOS indicated that the power supply
voltages were correct.
Most of these computers were plugged into UPS units, although these
are a bit old.. I’ve requested Maintenance to check the power in our
lab. The 32 bit computers have 400 watt power supplies and the 64
bit computers have 450 watt power supplies. They have lots of
cooling fans, and the cooling units on the CPUs are very robust.
These computers have all worked fine in the past running FC4, Win XP
Pro, and Win 2003 Server for 2 – 3 years.
If I had to guess it is going to turn out that the power in our lab
has problems and that Linux is less tolerant of that than Windows.
Being an old timer I remember something called the “Hacker’s Test”.
It had a number of things you had to do to qualify as a true hacker.
One was to break hardware with software. I never thought it was
possible, except by mis-configuring video cards pr or over-clocking
a CPU.
I’m going to try to test the lab current and the power supply
current this weekend if I can get in to campus. (I live about 20
miles from campus.)
Thank you very much for your thoughtful replies. They are greatly
appreciated.
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