gjb@mrsun.UUCP (Operator) (04/07/89)
Has anyone had this problem? We have about 6 Sun 3/60 color systems that for no reason reboot. It can happen at anytime, no one has to be even touching the system. Once it happens the first time to the system it will happen again. The only solution to the problem so far has been to completely replace the base(includes power supply), and CPU board. This has been done on everyone of our systems and now we are starting to do it for the second time to some systems. As you can imagine this problem is very frustrating to the users of the users of the systems, especially if they are in the middle of an edit. Sun service is also getting alittle suspicious of us, as they say they have never seen this problem before. I thought for a while it was a static problem, but we have been controlling that and it still seems to be happening. And why is it only the 3/60, as we have many 3/50 and not one has died in this manner. All the systems are in an office environment and are not abused in any manner! I am at my wits end to solve this problem; does anybody have any cure for the rebooting sickness? Thanks
marcel@nluug.nl (Marcel Bernards) (04/26/89)
Yep! We have also a lot of 3/50 (25) and a few 3/60. I had one for a while and I had also spurious reboots . A few other 3/60 machines shows the same phenomena. When I had a 3/60 it runned as a small server (SUNOS 3.5) I saw it with several times. Other colleagues reported the same problems with 4.0 so it seemes to me it's a hardware design issue.... But which hardware is probably responsible for reboots. I questioned some 3/60 owners and i discovered some interesting things..: - All Older 3/60 have these problems ( before April '88) - It is not clear if the newer one we own could show the same phenomena - It seems to show up when there is noise on the power line . (it shows up when somone is messing' with power cords in the neighbourhood or if there is a lot of heavy or noisy equipment on the 220 V ) The SUN EURO 220V connector at the back is also a bit touchy, but this is not a 3/60 problem only. I'm considering a test with an extra Net filter. between the wall outlet and the SUN power cord. Is there someone who tested this before ???? Greetings Marcel Bernards, UNIX & Net sysadm Netherlands Energy Research Foundation ECN P.O. Box 1, 1755 ZG Petten, PHONE: 09 312246 4342 EARN/BITNET:ESU0130@HPEENR51 IP: marcel%ecn.uucp@nluug.nl UUCP: marcel@ecn.uucp,marcel%ecn.uucp@uunet.uu.net SCREAMNet : AAAAAARGHH!HUH?? : Disclaimer: "The AntiChrist is the Computer !"
ray3rd@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Ray E Saddler III) (04/26/89)
The symptoms you provided really don't shed too much light on what may be the case of your problem, however, a few items that came to mind [in arriving order] are: - Check the quality of power feeding your machines. Although I'm not real familiar with the failsafe of color 3/60's, I imagine that if the power is not real pure or up to required voltage, the system may be dieing due to the lack of oxygen ?^) - Take a serious at the processes you have running (ps lax) and look each and determine if there are any cpu hogs or unusual activities. - Review the way the users use their systems to do business. Most often, if there is a trend in many of our CAD machines locking up for no apparent reason, I have the users give me a reconstruction of events that happened just before the system demise. Let us know your findings, this sounds like a twilight zone script! Good luck! -- Ray E. Saddler III | __ __ __ __ | UseNet Boeing Aerospace | / / / // //| // | uw-beaver!ssc-vax!ray3rd P.O. Box 3999 m.s. 3R-05 | /-< / //- // |// _ | PhoneNet Seattle, Wa. 98124 USA | /__//_//__ // //__/ | 1+206-657-2824
tsmith@brl.arpa (Tim Smith (SECAD) <tsmith>) (04/27/89)
In a former life when I was with the Naval Academy we had the same problem. It would reboot whenever it felt like it, sometimes getting wedged for a few hours. All in all it was very annoying. One machine (my old machine) has eaten 4 cpu cards so far (it was delivered in Dec '88). SMI has recently decided to replace the whole unit to see if that cures the problem. As an aside I have heard that the PS in the 3/60 tends to be flakey. My experience might support this. A second 3/60 that lives all by itself on a heavy duty power conditioner has never had any problems. The 3/60 with all of the heartburn is on regular building power. Are yours on conditioned power? Might be worth a try to get a good quality power conditioner for a few of them and see if they get cured. good luck, Tim Smith (formerly of the US Naval Academy) US mail:US Army, BRL E-mail: SLCBR-SE internet:tsmith@brl.mil Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD 21005-5066 uucp :...!uunet!brl!tsmith MaBell :(301)278-6678 (or 6808) Autovon: 298-6678
jns@meridian.com (Jerry N Sweet) (04/27/89)
The same thing happens to me on my color 3/60 workstation. It is incredibly annoying. ANY sort of power glitch, low current, vacuum cleaners being run on the same circuit, anything like that, aggravate the problem. I have not taken the time to press Sun on it, although I asked one of their field engineers about it; he mumbled something about power isolation. I speculate that the problem is that Sun's power supplies on these 3/60 color workstations really can't hack offices with "bouncy" power. If it's true, the only cure would be an engineering upgrade from Sun (or whoever) or expensive power conditioning. Anyone else want to commiserate? Better yet, do you have a low-cost solution?
bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein) (05/06/89)
>the only cure would be an engineering upgrade from Sun (or whoever) >or expensive power conditioning. I'm not sure that power conditioning has to be expensive, I bought a used power conditioner (shoe box sized thing I put on the floor, Wang, 1200w) for $85 and run a 3/60 (mono) off it. It does buzz a bit but when I had a terminal on that line the screen would do these bizarre waving things when the A/C was on, this cured that. I got mine from Eli ("Home of the Bruised Computer") Heffron's in Cambridge, MA (on Hampshire St.) Might be worth looking into, these things were not discovered by the PC world and there's no need to spend $1K on a new one. On a similar note, has anyone ever heard of a "black box" which, if the power goes off, would stay off until someone comes and manually intervenes (that is, if there's a blackout I don't want my machine rebooting when I'm not there since there's a tendency for them to bounce the power on and off a few times before they get things going again, I'd just as soon have it stay down until someone is around to boot it manually.) -Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than satisfied customers.
dave@lethe.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown) (05/08/89)
jns@meridian.com (Jerry N Sweet) writes: >X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 257, message 2 of 16 >The same thing happens to me on my color 3/60 workstation. It is >incredibly annoying. ANY sort of power glitch, low current, vacuum >cleaners being run on the same circuit, anything like that, aggravate the >problem. Some older 3/50's (dimple-tops) were wont to behave the same way. One of our customers once has a system which tended to reboot spontainiously (sp?) at 10, 12, 1 and 3. The server usually stayed up, but one or the other client went west. Once they got the glitches from the elevators (!) out of the power lines, the systems died much less often. --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | {toronto area...}lethe!dave 72 Abitibi Ave., | Joyce C-B: Willowdale, Ontario, | He's so smart he's dumb. CANADA. 223-8968 |