14 Feb
2002
14 Feb
'02
2:40 a.m.
On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Ethan Dicks wrote:
This was the second router in 4 years that had an odd
PSU that died
(I've been using undersized boxes on a top shelf, not full-sized desktop
boxes with ordinary power supplies and easy-to-replace fans). I'm not
picking on P-B in particular - consumer-grade PC PSUs can't take
24x7x365 usage forever. They don't have fans that last.
The 386 box that I was using for my voicemail system finally died a couple
months back. It ran 24x7 for at least 6-7 years and ran 24x7 before that
for at least a year at the high school I originally installed it at.
It started crashing in a most odd way one day. The video would be a bunch
of flashing pixels with most of the screen gone, and it wouldn't respond
to even a hard reset. I had to shut it off to reboot it. After it did
this a few times I figured the motherboard was finally done, and being
that PCs are cheaper and more common than dirt, I figured it was time to
move it over to a 486 I had laying around.
It turns out that the motherboard was fine. It was the power supply that
had gone bad after not having a working fan for at least 2-3 years :)
I would've kept the system running on the 386 just for old times sake and
the fact that it worked so well for so long and I'm a sentimentalist when
it comes to old hardware (as if that wasn't obvious) but the 486 is
preferable because it runs my voicemail scripts much faster.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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