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Date:	Sat, 3 Jul 2004 17:25:24 PDT7
From:	"J. R. Fox" <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: On Thin Ice

Content Type: text/plain

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Peter Skye wrote:

> I've had a number of these types of symptoms over the years, and most of
> them were due to one of the following:

Thanks for your reply, Peter.

> -- 1. Heat. Leaving the case off can help. Sometimes the fan bearings
> get dirty and spin slow.

Speed I can't attest to, but all fans are spinning.

> Sometimes the machine is in direct sunlight or
> near some other source of heat. Sometimes the case is cramped between
> things like desks and file cabinets so the heat can't escape from the
> case.

Does not apply here.

> Is the case hot anywhere when you move your hand around on it?
> Are any of the drives "too hot" when you touch them?

Never has been and isn't now.

> Do you have enough chassis space to leave empty bays between the drives
> for better
> ventilation?

Yes. In fact, one of the fans takes up a bay between the two hard drives.

> -- 2. Power. As the power supply gets older it may not be able to
> supply quite enough current. Try a heavy duty power supply.

This is already a 425 or a 450, premium brand, about two years old at this
point.

> -- 3. Dirty (oxidized) connectors. Pulling off the cables and pushing
> them back on a few times makes everything work okay for a few more
> weeks; when the problem occurs again you pull off the cables and push
> them back on again, ad infinitum.

This is very possible. Is there some good contact cleaner one can dip the
connectors into, or spray on them, which effectively cleans them and then
totally evaporates, leaving no residue ?

> I've also had an occasional bad cable
> where either one of the ribbon wires has a problem (flexing the cable
> while the system is running causes a failure) or the connector isn't
> making a good connection with the cable (snip off the connector and
> crimp on a new one). Try wiggling the cables around while the machine
> is running and see if it fails.

Also possible. I will look into this. The cable is from Granite Digital:
expensive and supposedly one of the best available. However, I had to
replace their *other* SCSI cable (for the other SCSI chain, supporting the
slow devices), which had failed, at the time of the last system rebuild,
about two years ago. It would not shock me if *this* SCSI cable had also
reached end-of-service. I think their cables have a lifetime guarantee, but
you have to send them in for evaluation. So far, I have not wanted to do
this.

Jordan

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