Subject: pmax power supply maintenance
To: None <port-pmax@NetBSD.org>
From: Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia@hp.com>
List: port-pmax
Date: 03/17/2004 23:34:47
Just wanted to share my experience with the maintenance of my DS5000/260 
power supply...

Just acquired a DS5000/260 recently, but was hearing some high-frequency 
    and loud tic-tic-tic.. sound coming from the fans. So I took the PSU 
apart and junked the original fans (note to self: before junking 
anything from a classic computer, take down the specs).

Since I have a bunch of Evercools (12V 0.14A), I spliced 3 units into 
the PSUs and tried booting 1.6.2, it booted...yay!

A couple of seconds later I noticed the following flood of messages on 
the console:

Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
Power supply overheating.
Power supply OK again.
        :
        :

(over the course of 2 or 3 days)
I found out that this is coming from a bit in the IOASIC register which 
seems to be toggling 1 and 0 at a quick rate. I figured if the PSU is 
really overheating it'll be a steady "overheating" messages, so my case 
seems to be a borderline case..

I felt around the PSU and noticed a patch which is warmer than the rest, 
near the front led, so I decided to replace that fan with another from 
my spares, a NMB 12V, 0.3A (very powerful little bugger, the only one I 
had). After which that area was cooler than before, nevertheless, the 
messages still showing up..

The next day, I scoured the shops nearby hoping to find another 0.3A fan 
like the NMB, but failed. All I found was a couple of Panaflos which was 
0.25A, which was not that shabby I thought. What the heck, I bought 3 of 
them.

Well, after replacing the remaining Evercools with the Panaflos, the 
messages stopped!!

And the moral of this story is:
When it comes to fans, size matters (CFM -wise), the DS5000 PSU's 
thermal sensor is very sensitive as it is an IC-type and not NTCs like 
in regular el-cheapo peecee power supplies.

OBTW, I love my PMAZC-AA (dual SCSI) controller, it's fast! :-)




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          8P"YP"Y88       Wai-Sun "Squidster" Chia
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