mms7r@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (M Mitchell Smith) (03/20/91)
Last night the ``right-angle'' cable harness between the power supply and backplane in my BA23 MicroVAX II went up in a cloud of smoke (and a hearty Hi Ho Silver Away!). The ``left-'' or ``top-'' most five lines (5V) and pins 8-10 (COM) got hot enough to melt the phenolic plastic connectors right to the pins. Owch! Anyone had experience with this scene from Batman the movie? What are the likely candidates for the failure? What ``collateral damage'' can I expect? Email (and condolences :-) please to mms7r@virginia.edu -- Mitch
sfreed@ariel.unm.edu (Steven Freed CIRT) (03/20/91)
In article <1991Mar19.192444.22258@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, mms7r@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (M Mitchell Smith) writes:
-> Last night the ``right-angle'' cable harness between the power supply
-> and backplane in my BA23 MicroVAX II went up in a cloud of smoke
-> (and a hearty Hi Ho Silver Away!). The ``left-'' or ``top-'' most five
-> lines (5V) and pins 8-10 (COM) got hot enough to melt the phenolic
-> plastic connectors right to the pins. Owch!
I believe there was an FCO about 3 years ago on this... we had it done to
all of ours, and yes, some of them had gotten a little toasty. From what
I remember, The harness was built by a 3rd party for DEC and was not up
to spec.
--
Steve. sfreed@ariel.unm.edukludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) (03/21/91)
mms7r@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (M Mitchell Smith) writes: >Last night the ``right-angle'' cable harness between the power supply >and backplane in my BA23 MicroVAX II went up in a cloud of smoke >(and a hearty Hi Ho Silver Away!). The ``left-'' or ``top-'' most five >lines (5V) and pins 8-10 (COM) got hot enough to melt the phenolic >plastic connectors right to the pins. Owch! Yup, this happens a lot. DEC has a patch out for this one. When this was discovered a few years back, DEC was giving out free replacement cable harnesses. They still might do so. I encourage anyone who has the old-style harnesses to replace them. It is possible to have a cabinet fire in machines with the old harness which are not properly cleaned, and I can assure you that it's not a pretty sight. --scott
rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner) (03/21/91)
In article <1991Mar19.192444.22258@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> mms7r@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (M Mitchell Smith) writes: > >Last night the ``right-angle'' cable harness between the power supply >and backplane in my BA23 MicroVAX II went up in a cloud of smoke >(and a hearty Hi Ho Silver Away!). The ``left-'' or ``top-'' most five >lines (5V) and pins 8-10 (COM) got hot enough to melt the phenolic >plastic connectors right to the pins. Owch! If your microVAX is more recent than early 1987, the following does not apply. This is a known problem with the older BA23 power harness. DEC produced an FCO for it back in 1986 or 7. By that time they had discovered that the cable was not up to spec on a loaded power supply. However, in the usual DEC fashion, no FCO is applied to your systems until you've seen the problem it fixes. That policy struck me as damn stupid in a case like this. I'm afraid I don't have the FCO (ECO?) number any more since I am no longer at the same place I worked when I found out about this (at a DECUS symposium), but Digital Field Service should be able to find it for you. If your MicroVAX is on contract, the harness they replaced it with should be the newer one. Mine weren't on contract when I learned about this, but I forked out the $13 apiece and replaced them all myself. For that price I wasn't about to wait until they burned. -- Ruth Milner Systems Manager NRAO/VLA Socorro NM rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu
rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner) (03/21/91)
In article <1991Mar20.161229.27817@news.larc.nasa.gov> kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) writes: >mms7r@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (M Mitchell Smith) writes: >>Last night the ``right-angle'' cable harness between the power supply >>and backplane in my BA23 MicroVAX II went up in a cloud of smoke > > When this was discovered a few years back, DEC was giving out free >replacement cable harnesses. Not in Canada they weren't. But it doesn't surprise me to hear that, as usual, things were better in (at least parts of) the U.S. -- Ruth Milner Systems Manager NRAO/VLA Socorro NM rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu