gone from home, half my farm is dead.

[CryptokiD]

ive been gone from home a while now. i logged into the seti@home account status page and realised half my seti farm is no longer operating, or at the very least, no longer communicating with the internet. some of them, for over a month!

i had a friend go over and check on things and he said a few computers had blue screens of death. i had him reboot the ones which would accept a reboot. some wont start though.
no wonder my rac dropped like a prom dress :bang head

i need to go home and fix my farm.
i should take pics too. you guys might get a kick out of it. i have a few computers that have rubbermaid containers for cases, stacked together like a ghetto rackmount.

anyone think there is any possibility of a computer somehow shorting out (maybe the power supply?) and catching fire in a plastic rubbermaid homemade case? im starting to get worried.

[razorface]

i should take pics too. you guys might get a kick out of it. i have a few computers that have rubbermaid containers for cases, stacked together like a ghetto rackmount.

anyone think there is any possibility of a computer somehow shorting out (maybe the power supply?) and catching fire in a plastic rubbermaid homemade case? im starting to get worried.

LOL, I'd love to see it. I don't think they'll catch fire, but they will definately overheat! You leave home for a month at a time?

[nzaneb]

Are any of the components enclosures grounded at all? All I would be worried about in those containers is static build up. One little discharge, could be all it takes, and no more boot :bang head

[QuietIce]

Rubber takes an amazing amount of heat before it'll burn so I wouldn't worry too much about that part of it. On the other hand I can see nzaneb's point about static, rubber is notorious for that. IMO - better to use bricks and boards to make your "tower" rather than rubber containers.


I'd like to see pics as well ... ;)

[rainless]

ive been gone from home a while now. i logged into the seti@home account status page and realised half my seti farm is no longer operating, or at the very least, no longer communicating with the internet. some of them, for over a month!

i had a friend go over and check on things and he said a few computers had blue screens of death. i had him reboot the ones which would accept a reboot. some wont start though.
no wonder my rac dropped like a prom dress :bang head

i need to go home and fix my farm.
i should take pics too. you guys might get a kick out of it. i have a few computers that have rubbermaid containers for cases, stacked together like a ghetto rackmount.

anyone think there is any possibility of a computer somehow shorting out (maybe the power supply?) and catching fire in a plastic rubbermaid homemade case? im starting to get worried.

I feel you. I just found out that I lost my lifetime collection of 1,000 comics in the dumbest possible manner.

I had family over at my place during my five years in France. I get back... I can't find my comics anywhere. I don't speak to those people anymore... but I just figured they'd sold them and got over it. Well my mother visited me last month notices something and she tells me like YESTERDAY "You know the drain for your toilet has a leak and it's raining all over your comics whenever you flush it...

...................






....wait for it.....................






"...I meant to tell you that."

WHEN THE HELL WERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME THAT?!?!?!

These things happen my friends.

I like to refer to the logic of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

Ralphael - "I lost a Sai..."
Splinter - "Then... it is gone."
R: "But I can get it back! I can get it back!"
S: "Ralphael! Let... it... go."

[oakstave]

From one modder to another: If you want to stick with those rubbermaid tubs, I have a low cost suggestion, other folks feel free to comment if you don't think this would work:

Take several static bracelets, remove the paper, and tape the bracelets to each tub, and clip the ground to your rack, or another grounded object. I think this could take care of static build up in your 'cases'.

@rainless: You need to think more positively. You could make a lot of money on Ebay selling the very rare issues of "Brown Hulk vs. the Sewage Monster" The Scratch and Sniff Edition, of course.

[Neuromancer]

anyone think there is any possibility of a computer somehow shorting out (maybe the power supply?) and catching fire in a plastic rubbermaid homemade case? im starting to get worried.

Those plastic rubbermaid containers will carry a staic charge across the surface, so yes that could be a problem. THink of it as laying a PC board on an ESD bad and powering it up. Might not kill it instantly, but it will kill it eventually.

[CryptokiD]

ok rubbermaid containers are not actually rubber. they are some kind of high impact semi rigid plastic like car bumpers are made out of.

think "giant tupperware" and you get the idea.

i do have the motherboards screwed down to the rubbermaid containers. the covers of the power supplies are removed so the naked power supplies pcb's are also screwed down to the rubbermaid cases internally. i had to do this to save room. i guess i could add a ground strap from the neutral and ground wire of the 110v mains power and screw it down to the rubbermaid plastic case. plastic is non conductive, so it wont ever hold a charge, but i guess it would hold static electricity. you guys think if i did just that, it would solve any static issues? the other thing is my rubbermaid cases are sitting directly on a tile floor which is laid ontop of concrete which is sitting on the dirt under the house, so the cases are directly touching earth.

the other thing is, some of my computers which are in conventional computer cases have also bsod's out and wont start. so i dont know if i had a lightning strike or what. maybe the a/c temporarely quit. if my room gets over 85 degrees i know most of the pc's will error out.

thanks to all of yous and ill be home in a few days, clean everything up and grab some pics after i get settled back into my home.

[Duner]

Yeah, I had a power surge take out the motherboard on 1 of my rigs. I'm happy nothing else died though. I run caseless with literally nothing around it. Just sitting on a wooden shelf.

[QuietIce]

I've had lightning storms shut down several rigs at once. One power spike up the mains and, if nothing else, the PSU gets a little jolt and the voltages spike a little. Not usually enough to destabilize a stock rig but once you OC stable voltage becomes more critical so it doesn't take much.

Yeah - if you're using those plastic storage containers they make then it shouldn't be that bad, especially if it's the flexible plastic instead of the real rigid stuff. I'd be tempted to run a ground wire from the PSU chassis to at least one board stand-off though - one of the upper left four.

I think your line of grounding is flawed. IIRC, floor tile won't hold a static charge but I don't think it conducts either. Isn't ceramic a common insulator ...?

[petteyg359]

I'm going to support the "replace the plastic containers with bricks and boards" idea.