Subject: Re: Qube 2 Hardware Question...
To: Peter H. Froehlich <pfroehli@ics.uci.edu>
From: Kevin Lahey <kml@patheticgeek.net>
List: port-cobalt
Date: 08/12/2002 16:03:47
In message <B010C8D8-AE3E-11D6-97BB-0003936CFB76@ics.uci.edu>,
"Peter H. Froehlich" writes:
>I have been lazy about my Qube 2, but with my upcoming move into 
>teaching, I'd like to finally set it up as a server for students.
>
>I was wondering if there are any weird electric/thermal limits 
>regarding the kinds of hard drives I can put in there? I have no 
>idea whether a Maxtor pulls more power than a IBM or whatnot, and 
>what all of that has to do with my power supply.

If you drill down on the information pages at the various vendors,
you can eventaully find out how much the drives draw.  I replaced
the 6.4GB disk that came with my Qube 2 with a 60GB 5500-RPM Maxtor
that drew about the same power.

>I guess what I am asking is: Is there anyone here who ever put 
>something into their Qube 2 and fried it because of (verfied!) 
>power or heat issues?

Well, now that I've made that claim, my box is currently down
with a bad power supply.  I suspect that it might be due to the
way I had it hookedup on a cheap UPS, which the power supplies might
or might not be vulnerabe to.  I also had a PCI-based 802.11b card
in it, as well.  The machine ran great for ten or twelve months with
just the new drive in it, and about two months with the WiFi card.
It had been on the UPS for about three months.

I have the impression that the Qubes are pretty robust.  I've had
Cobalt engineers suggest that I disconnect the fan if it is too loud,
'cause they are pretty cool-running.  I decided not to try it...

Good luck,

Kevin
kml@patheticgeek.net