mikew@wheeler.wrcr.unr.edu (Mike Whitbeck) (03/15/90)
I recall recently seeing a post about an ICD FAsT drive that would go into convulsive recalibartion. Well mine (30M) started doing that as well! Here is what I did: I opened the case and all the problems went away---- hmmm temperature problems??? I put the cover on and the troubles returned. hmmmm TEMPERAURE PROBLEMS! I moved the SCSI-out cable away from the fan and that fixed it!! SAVED A FEW BUCKS HERE! In foolin' around I determined that the zilog chip on the omti 3520 controller board SEEMS to be the sensitive little gremlin- it gets qwite warm. As a test I set a KODAK film can filled with hot tap water on it--- problems! ------ cool tap water --OK! I also note that this little guy really gets-off on stray EMI. Now here is a question for any hardware freaks out there. Given the (presumed) sensitivity to EMI would it be BAD to glue a heat sink fin on top of the Zilog with heat sink compound? This would help cool the chip but would it be too good of an antenna and capacitively couple into the chip? CLUE: a human (or nearly so) finger about 1/16 to 1/8 inch away from the chip causes the disk acess led to flash! [YEAH-YEAH I know but what the hell I touched the chip and it still lived- the disk is fine (lucky rnt I)]. Thanks. Hope this helps someone. Always remember- your mileage may vary- you may kill yourself or your hardware- so keep your cover on (unless u R nuTs like mE). ~ ___________________________________________________________ ~ |Mike Whitbeck | mikew@wheeler.wrc.unr.edu | ~ |__________________________|__RENO___NEVADA_______________|