FC5 INstallation Killing Computers

[Robert L. Cochran]

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 at hartwick.edu>
To: <fedora-list at redhat.com>
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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