[PLUG] Power up issue

[Matt McKenzie]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 4:00 PM, Richard C. Steffens <rsteff at comcast.net>wrote:

> On 01/10/2013 03:33 PM, Jim Garrison wrote:
> > Do you get any beep codes (sequences of beeps in distinct groupings).
> > If so check the motherboard manufacturer's support documents to
> > decipher the codes.
>
> Not that I noticed. Just the loud fan noise. I'll have the box open when
> I power it up after disconnecting the other stuff. I assume it's not a
> good idea to let it run very long without the CPU fan running.
>
>
>
I would strongly suggest *not* disconnecting the CPU fan.
What they are saying is disconnect the major load inducing peripherals,
basically the drives (hard drive, optical drives, floppy, etc).

It depends on what type of CPU you are using, what generation, etc... but
running a CPU with no cooling for any appreciable amount of time can lead
to trouble.
In some cases with older hardware, it can literally mean the CPU could
smoke itself!  *see below

I know in your case (it sounds like anyway) you are not actually removing
the heatsink/fan assembly, so you should be OK for a brief amount of time.
I have learned by the school of hard knocks to be extra cautious with this
kind of thing.







*I have a nice little "war story" about that if anyone cares to keep
reading.

---[begin war story]----

I worked for a small company a few years back, eRacks.com, based in So.
CA.  They are a reseller of mostly rackmount servers, but with Linux/BSD
pre-installed.  They also do desktops, and after I was there, laptops (I
helped launch that).

Anyway I wore many hats there, including system engineer, software install
and setup, even equipment purchasing at one point.  Another was hardware
assembly.  This was my first time really working with heavy duty
"enterprise" class hardware, not just typical desktop stuff I usually
worked on.  They do everything from basic 1U type servers with a "desktop"
type motherboard, to more complex setups in 1U, 2U, 4U, and I think even a
5U.  Custom ordered chassis, custom routed cooling (in some cases I helped
figure that out for a particular chassis setup even).  Quite fun.

So early in my time there I was doing hardware assembly, and initial "burn
in" tests on a bunch of 1U servers, with AMD CPUs.  This was the 32bit
AthlonXP days... Palomino or Thoroughbred I think they were, around that
generation.  For those who aren't aware, those CPUs had very little
temperature control/tolerance.  As in, if you maybe somehow accidentally
powered on a system with an AthlonXP, with no heatsink/fan assembly, you
had a smoked CPU.  Been there, done that, *once*.  Yes cone of shame for me
;).

So I had a sort of assembly line going, setting the systems up, installing
the CPU, RAM, HDD, etc, and the custom sized heatsink/fans that would work
in a 1U chassis.
I had some already setup, and powered on, running Memtest and CPU burn in
procedures.  So I was getting in to a bit of a zone, and went through a
line of systems, which I thought were all done, and powered them on.  I got
to one machine, and within 2 seconds of hitting the power rocker switch I
had an "oh crap" moment... I didn't have the heatsink/fan on one of them.
It was a bare CPU, and by the time I reached to the back to turn it off at
the power supply, the CPU had literally let out a puff of smoke.
My boss is a tech, not a marketing type, so he was at least understanding
about the incident, sometimes this kind of stuff happens, but of course
gave me a stern warning to be more careful, and of course I was after that.

As an addendum, some time later, we received a stack of similar 1U AMD
based systems back for repair from a big client (not sure if I should give
their name, but a major So. CA university).  They were using the systems
for some bio-science simulations and such.  Apparently the rack setup in
their lab was sub-obtimal though, because the entire stack of systems
(maybe 10-12 I think it was?) had burned out CPUs.  Though in this case
they all did have their heatsink/fans.  They had simply stacked the
machines, one on top of another, not mounted in a rack with proper air
space between them.  We had to replace them with systems that had more
cooling and better airflow in the chassis, and of course a strong
suggestion to actually mount them in a rack ;).

OK that's it for today thanks for reading.

---[/war story]






----------
Matt M.
LinuxKnight





> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
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