easy in... easy out
Oct. 3rd, 2005 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perlmongerIt was going to be easy, wasn't it? New 2200VA UPS courtesy ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
agc, new batteries for our brace of old 420VA UPSen. Move the 420s to the study, one for each of ramtops' and my workstations, with the comms stack running off one too; run the W2KAS and Linux servers off the 2200.
It all started off well: batteries into the 2200, batteries swapped in the 420s. Put 2 newly arrived GB intoramtops' G5 on top of the supplied 512MB and plugged it into one 420 as a first step. Booted: fine, ran for 10-15 minutes: fine. Fired up VPC: UPS he screamen and blinken ze lights.
Should have thought of that: no way a 420VA box is going to cope with a twin 2.5GHz G5 at anything approaching full throttle. We rethought over lunch: 420s back on the servers 'cos we know that works; 2200 into the study with both our workstations off it. Bosh. OK: off to Maplin to get a couple of line kettleplugs to retrofit onto 10-way power towers (predictable collateral damage of a couple of CAT5 leads and a bluetooth skype headset).
Swap two 13A plugs for IEC320s? 10 minutes a shot max? Well, that's what I thought. The cable on those 10-ways is too thick: both overall to go into the plug sleeves and in core to easily wrap round the terminals. Much cursing and bruised and pricked fingers later I solved the first problem with some talc - which was Somewhere Safe, butramtops found it, a miracle in itself. The second was finally solved by dint of a Third Hand supplied (in lieu of my still missing prehensile tail) by ramtops. Of course, the easy solution would have been to swap cable as well as plug, but the 10-ways, admirable as they are in every other respect, can't be opened without breakage: for my safety FFS... What do they expect people are going to do with them? Swap earth and live on random sockets and play Russian fucking roulette with plugging metal appliances into the thing?
Anyhow. Time to start actually plugging things in and powering them up. We went mad and actually stuck labels onto each mains plug as we went. Havelock (W2KAS) plugged in and powered up; detritus (linux server)... went part way through his boot and stopped whilst making a vile and ever worsening noise of dying hardware. From feel, the problem lay with the primary backup drive (in a removable cradle). Pulled it, powered up again and, yes, detritus booted as he should but still making a vile noise - dying fan this time.
This is starting to feel personal.
Took detritus' side off and discovered the sick fan was in the PSU. Thankfully a spare was at hand, asramtops' old XP box, magrat, is newly retired - her newly G5ed VPC has taken on that rôle. At last, all seemed well: detritius up and running with no untoward noises, albeit with only the secondary backup drive (external firewire) online for now. I decide to just swap the plug on the other 10-way before dinner; having got the measure of the things, no problem this time.
Dinner was readymeal chez Jordans today - no way were we going to cook from scratch. So, tub of goulash out of the freezer with basmati consumed in the company of Tivo'd BBF and very good they were too. Finally, back upstairs to label and plug everything in in the study. Everything as it should be now - 2200VA UPS unstretched and humming quietly. Nothing to do now but source a new backup drive and tidy stuff away in the server room. Not tonight, though: shower and bed, I think, and see what further disasters the morning might bring.
I hate hardware.
agc, new batteries for our brace of old 420VA UPSen. Move the 420s to the study, one for each of ramtops' and my workstations, with the comms stack running off one too; run the W2KAS and Linux servers off the 2200.It all started off well: batteries into the 2200, batteries swapped in the 420s. Put 2 newly arrived GB into
ramtops' G5 on top of the supplied 512MB and plugged it into one 420 as a first step. Booted: fine, ran for 10-15 minutes: fine. Fired up VPC: UPS he screamen and blinken ze lights.Should have thought of that: no way a 420VA box is going to cope with a twin 2.5GHz G5 at anything approaching full throttle. We rethought over lunch: 420s back on the servers 'cos we know that works; 2200 into the study with both our workstations off it. Bosh. OK: off to Maplin to get a couple of line kettleplugs to retrofit onto 10-way power towers (predictable collateral damage of a couple of CAT5 leads and a bluetooth skype headset).
Swap two 13A plugs for IEC320s? 10 minutes a shot max? Well, that's what I thought. The cable on those 10-ways is too thick: both overall to go into the plug sleeves and in core to easily wrap round the terminals. Much cursing and bruised and pricked fingers later I solved the first problem with some talc - which was Somewhere Safe, but
ramtops found it, a miracle in itself. The second was finally solved by dint of a Third Hand supplied (in lieu of my still missing prehensile tail) by ramtops. Of course, the easy solution would have been to swap cable as well as plug, but the 10-ways, admirable as they are in every other respect, can't be opened without breakage: for my safety FFS... What do they expect people are going to do with them? Swap earth and live on random sockets and play Russian fucking roulette with plugging metal appliances into the thing?Anyhow. Time to start actually plugging things in and powering them up. We went mad and actually stuck labels onto each mains plug as we went. Havelock (W2KAS) plugged in and powered up; detritus (linux server)... went part way through his boot and stopped whilst making a vile and ever worsening noise of dying hardware. From feel, the problem lay with the primary backup drive (in a removable cradle). Pulled it, powered up again and, yes, detritus booted as he should but still making a vile noise - dying fan this time.
This is starting to feel personal.
Took detritus' side off and discovered the sick fan was in the PSU. Thankfully a spare was at hand, as
ramtops' old XP box, magrat, is newly retired - her newly G5ed VPC has taken on that rôle. At last, all seemed well: detritius up and running with no untoward noises, albeit with only the secondary backup drive (external firewire) online for now. I decide to just swap the plug on the other 10-way before dinner; having got the measure of the things, no problem this time.Dinner was readymeal chez Jordans today - no way were we going to cook from scratch. So, tub of goulash out of the freezer with basmati consumed in the company of Tivo'd BBF and very good they were too. Finally, back upstairs to label and plug everything in in the study. Everything as it should be now - 2200VA UPS unstretched and humming quietly. Nothing to do now but source a new backup drive and tidy stuff away in the server room. Not tonight, though: shower and bed, I think, and see what further disasters the morning might bring.
I hate hardware.