I'm pretty sure that two of these computers were running Windows XP Pro,
one was running Windows 2003 Server, and one had been running FC4. I
started with the FC4 computer and tried to install FC5. I then went to
the other computers. Two years ago, I had these same computers running
FC. I presume that the version was FC4.
With the first two, I thought that I had had incredibly bad luck. Then
I sat and thought for a while. I realized that a common factor was that
I had used the same UPS for each installation (not at the same time). I
decided that we probably had bad UPS. In fact, I remember (I've been in
this field for a while.) a VIC 20 (a predecessor the the Commodore Pet)
power supply that was blowing computers. So I plugged another computer
into a totally different outlet using just a surge protector. This
computer died during the installation, also.
At this point, I got very suspicious of the lab's power. I took the
last computer down to my office ( four offices away from the lab) and,
with my heart in my throat, started the installation. Again, it failed
several minutes into the installation.
I should mention that I swapped a big IDE hard drive into these
computers. On the first three computers, I used a 300 GB hard drive we
had. For the fourth computer, I purchased a brand new 350 GB hard drive
and UPS. I was also moving DVD-R and DVD-RW drives around. These
operations were trivial; the DVD drives were on rails and the hard
drives were in a cage. I've built computers from scratch and changed a
lot of hard drives and drives around. I don't think I did anything dumb
like plug all of the drives into the same power line, because I remember
telling myself to be careful not to do that, but I'll certainly check
this on Monday.
Before I started, I looked around the BIOS to see if I could find a
setting to set fans to "always on". I'm really big on cooling. (The
college gives me a new notebook every three years. As a computer
science professor, they try to get one relatively high powered. Three
years ago the notebook had a P4 processor and the cooling system was
inadequate. I had occasional motherboard and hard disk failures until I
bought a an Antec cooling plate for home and for my office.. The person
who supervised students in building these computers had one of these
computer, also. Consequently, these have very robust CPU cooling units
and lots of fans in the case.
At this point I'm wondering if I had a bad DVD-R or bad DVD-RW that
caused the problem. I had two of each, and I'm not sure if one of them
could have been in all four computers. Perhaps we had a bad UPS they
burned out two computers, including a DVD drive, and I then used the DVD
in the next two computers.
I'm really a software person, so I don't have an answer to your last
question. That is why I managed to burn out four computers. At first I
thought bad UPS, then I thought bad power and went down the hall. Now
I'm wondering about a DVD drive. Fortunately, we have a bunch of DVD-R
and DVD-RW drives coming in on Monday to upgrade the lab, so I think
we'll be tossing the 4 DVD drives.
Thanks to everyone!
John Miller wrote:
Robert Gann wrote:
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),
So that we can better help, please define "at the same time" for both
the Windows and FC5 installations. Simultaneous, consecutive, same day, ???
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.
What would be the technical mechanism by which an operating system could
make a computer less tolerant of power?
