Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

[rhomanski]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

The problem is the people have to have cheap since nobody will share the profit anymore.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

I got a little done today. I was going to recap the PSU's and discovered there were a couple values that I didn't have....so a quicky order to digi-key was placed. I did however disassemble & recap the backplane in the PSU cage. It was a real pain in the ass taking that cage apart, there was a bazillion little screws holding it together....Very well built, but I don't think they intended for it to ever be taken apart again. There were 4 crapxon caps on each backplane that were replaced.

Apart finally...





The culprits.... They weren't bloating....but I wasn't taking a chance on 14+ year old CapXon caps...



Next I washed out all the fans and dried them with the air compressor.



The front intake fans used to have filters on them, but when I got the server back, the filters were missing. I'm just assuming that after 14 years of use, they likely just disintegrated. I have a cure for that, I always keep this stuff around just for this reason.



New screens.



This case is a wee bit too big to put in the sink....so I washed it outside with the garden hose.... It was gross...the company that bought it never even took an air hose to it. 9 years of dirt washed out looking like chocolate milk...

All Clean!






Doors too!





That's all I felt like today...

[rhomanski]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Why does everybody think it's below them to clean these days? Years ago a tech told me he doesn't clean computers.

Good job on yours TC, looks brand new.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

they either lack the proper knowledge or tools on how to properly clean computers quickly and smartly. they probably think cleaning a computer involves manual labor and is a labor intensive task.

these days, i just use a metro datavac (220v version) i imported from the usa to quickly de-dust out my computers. thank you to the USA! a great american innovation to save my time and energy from having to manually wipe down my computer stuff which is costly time and energy wise... with the datavac, the dust bunnies just fly away from me now and out of the house!

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

I started reassembling it today. I replaced 2 of the front panel switches, as the pivots were broken. I also replaced the castors, as they had replaced them with some weird brass colored metal ones....I'm assuming they broke the originals.

It comes apart easier....reassembly always seems to take longer, atleast when you do it neatly.



Fans back in.



Wire routing.





More to come.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Happy Turkey & football day! Since my wife had to work, I figured I'd plug away at this a little more while the turkey is baking....

Motherboard drawers reinstalled.





Front panel switches & LED's wired.



SYS-A NAS bays wired.





Wired to controller.



At a stopping point. I need to scare up 3 more of the icydock SAS cages. Finding them used is apparently not as easy as the first 3 I got on the cheap... I also made new filters for the non-removable HDD's.



Saying goodnight for today.



Recapping the PSU's is the next task, the parts should be here tomorrow.



FWIW, this has been a quite enjoyable project.

[TechGeek]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Caps here yet?

[momaka]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Nice work TC. Looks like you were busy with this project even on Thanksgiving.

FWIW, this has been a quite enjoyable project.

That's great to hear, TC. Funny how you used to do this for a living, and now you continue to do it for fun. Means you probably enjoyed your job, which is awesome!

By the way, is that your PC junk/scrap on the left side of this picture?
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1480016692
(talking about the case with parts in it.)

The culprits.... They weren't bloating....but I wasn't taking a chance on 14+ year old CapXon caps...

Should have checked their ESR just for fun. Would have been interesting to see what 14-year old CapXon from a server PSU reads like. I myself have some 15-year old CapXon KM caps that still read okay on ESR and capacitance.

Not to say they are any good, though. I have quite a few bloated ones in my dead caps bin.

The front intake fans used to have filters on them, but when I got the server back, the filters were missing. I'm just assuming that after 14 years of use, they likely just disintegrated.

If they had foam filters... then yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the foam has already crumbled to dust. I bought a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 a few months back, and the fan filters on it would rip even if I barely touched them. Needless to say, I gutted them.

All Clean!
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1479683338

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1479683338

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1479683338

Doors too!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1479683338

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1479683338

Wow. Looks brand new!

Nothing like taking something down to bits and pieces and then rebuilding it again after a thorough clean. I do that with almost all PC hardware I get now. It's definitely time-consuming, but also feels like I did a complete job.

Why does everybody think it's below them to clean these days?

Who knows.
A lot of my friends from high school wouldn't even clean their rooms, let alone their computers.

I myself may not be the most organized of people, but I do clean (vacuum + dust) my room and my computers at somewhat regular intervals or whenever I see they need it.

these days, i just use a metro datavac (220v version) i imported from the usa to quickly de-dust out my computers. thank you to the USA!

Those things are awesome indeed!
If I find me a broken/discarded vacuum cleaner, I might try building one.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Caps came yesterday, I did the deed to all 5 PSU's this morning. Yes, ALL FUCKING FIVE. I only planned on doing the three...but when I checked the 2 newer ones just to be sure....well poo...found a couple crapxons. To add insult to injury, the fans are noisy too.

This is the replacement for the toasted one, all rubycon & UCC except for one 4700uF 10v capxon, sure enough its bad.... Replaced it of course....I'm glad I ordered plenty of extras, as they're useful for other things.



This is one of the older modules. All bloated, imagine that!



PSU & daughter board recapped.



Now for the BRAND NEW ONE! This one has zero hours on it, it was in its original packaging when I got it.



....yes, brand new and a failed capxon....this PSU has never been powered up.



All 5 modules recapped. I also stripped the fans down, popped the bearings out of the sleeves (ball bearing without dust shields), and soaked them in brakleen. This removed all the dried out clumps they call 'grease'. I then repacked them with some ZEP2000 grease. All fans spin free & quiet now.



Pile-o-crapxons!



...and its alive!



I ditched the SCSI HDD's. U160 controller is slow in comparison to the 12 port SATA2 9550SX. Installed Server 2008 R1. That's the reason its nice to have a copy of R1, it has a 32 bit version.

...now to see if I have any BBU batteries that are actually still good. Gone through 2 so far, only have 2 spares remaining....

[momaka]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

This is one of the older modules. All bloated, imagine that!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1480203794

I guess no need to image anything. You just showed us.

Now for the BRAND NEW ONE! This one has zero hours on it, it was in its original packaging when I got it.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1480203794

....yes, brand new and a failed capxon....this PSU has never been powered up.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1480203794

Quick, sell those CapXon's on eBay - they are unique and have vintage value now! - A must for any audiophile that wants "warm" sound.

By the way, I just got an Antec EarthWAtts EA-500 two weeks ago, and it was half-full of bloated OST caps. There was virtually zero dust in the PSU and on the fan. So those had nearly zero hours on them.

Yup... crap caps sitting on the shelves doesn't make them any better over time.

Pile-o-crapxons!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1480203794

New year's eve fireworks?

...and its alive!

Awesome! Excellent job.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

By the way, is that your PC junk/scrap on the left side of this picture?
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1480016692
(talking about the case with parts in it.)

No, thats a customers. The hipro PSU fan quit, overheated, and went ballistic. Took the motherboard & processor out with it. The memory & HDD were the only survivors. I was just recovering data for him.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

well there went 5 hours of my life I'll never get back. Installing the OS on SYS-B kept yielding BSoD's....after eliminating all the RAM, I focused on the motherboard and processors....long story short, I finally saw a second bad intel processor in my computer career that spans more than 2 decades! Wonky Prestonia 2GHz CPU. I had a pair of 2.4GHz Prestonias in an old Dell workstation. Issues went away. I managed to narrow it down to which one it was....so I could properly salute it...

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Pile-o-crapxons!

should mail those to c hegge so he can burn them in the fires of damnation and watch them explode then upload the video for us here to enjoy crap caps being destroyed!

[stretch0069]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

ahhh. the memories.

[TechGeek]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

well there went 5 hours of my life I'll never get back. Installing the OS on SYS-B kept yielding BSoD's....after eliminating all the RAM, I focused on the motherboard and processors....long story short, I finally saw a second bad intel processor in my computer career that spans more than 2 decades! Wonky Prestonia 2GHz CPU. I had a pair of 2.4GHz Prestonias in an old Dell workstation. Issues went away. I managed to narrow it down to which one it was....so I could properly salute it...

I had a bad Celeron CPU in a motherboard... shorted and was tripping the OPP protection in my Dell Dimension 2400 upon powerup. System powered up with an amber power light, HDD not spinning up and no POST. Also combined with a bad MoBo and bad RAM. All out of an old '04 HP Pavilion a1000y computer that I'm rebuilding and selling. IDK how something like that happens, but something HAD to have gone ballistic in the 5VSB section in an old FSP 200W PSU.

[dan8139]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Wow, great old rig, I never knew they made a case which could take two systems!

Had to look up Intel Prestonia as they didn't ring any bells, ah yeh, the old 2.4GHz 533FSB Xeons! Remember them well. Are those boards Serverworks chipsets?

I've got an old case from the same vintage which has been sitting around here for years, dual PSUs and I think 14 5.25" bays... I'll find a use for it one day.

That old shit from back then is so inefficient power-wise though, although there's no reason that case couldn't run a couple of high efficiency PSUs and low power boards is there?

Congrats on the dedication man, amazing stuff.

[dan8139]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

I've also only seen half a dozen bad CPUs (which weren't killed by external factors) in 20 years.

Of those, 4 AMD (or Cyrix or blah) and 2 Intel. Both Intels worked, but would not run stable at their default clocks.

Intel fucking know how to fab a chip, they are amazing devices.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

^
I think the bad PSU's were probably the cause of the bad CPU. This is the second bad intel CPU I've ever seen that wasn't caused by a failed overclock or otherwise user inflicted. the other unexplained failed one was ironically enough another netburst xeon. I did manage to kill a pair of coppermine P3 700/100 s370 in the process of trying to make them run in powerleap adapters in a BP6.

Yes, these are serverworks boards. Very stable.

[keeney123]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

^
I think the bad PSU's were probably the cause of the bad CPU. This is the second bad intel CPU I've ever seen that wasn't caused by a failed overclock or otherwise user inflicted. the other unexplained failed one was ironically enough another netburst xeon. I did manage to kill a pair of coppermine P3 700/100 s370 in the process of trying to make them run in powerleap adapters in a BP6.

Yes, these are serverworks boards. Very stable.

Sometimes you got to up with cantankerous old friends.

[Topcat]

Re: Some True BCN History - Homecoming of a long lost friend!

Possible course correction mid-stream.....



I have a matching pair of these.