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

[stretch0069]

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

ahhh. the memories.

[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!

[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...

[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.

[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!

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!

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.

[TechGeek]

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

Caps here yet?

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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!

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

[diif]

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

Not trying to bring politics into the mix, but hopefully Trump can bring that American dream back. It's just sad that more than 90% of household goods are China-made.

The problem is people want cheap. They generally don't care where it comes from.

[ReeceyBurger123]

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

Not trying to bring politics into the mix, but hopefully Trump can bring that American dream back. It's just sad that more than 90% of household goods are China-made.

Dont get your hopes up, they are all the same. Same agenda same game, just different characters. All corrupt.

[TechGeek]

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

Not trying to bring politics into the mix, but hopefully Trump can bring that American dream back. It's just sad that more than 90% of household goods are China-made.

[keeney123]

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

All that hardware should keep you busy in case you have nothing to do. Love the story about the formation of bad caps. It attest to the fact the American Dream is still alive.

[Topcat]

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

I started disassembling this case today. When it first got here, I noticed there was an extra power supply module inside the HDD side of the case....I wondered why, and then curiosity got the better of me and I contacted my inside source at the company that I sold this system to. He told me that around 2010 or so one of the modules had incinerated itself. They had such a hard time locating a replacement that when they did, they ordered a spare, just incase....and I'll get back to this subject in a few minutes.

So anyway....the case apart.







I replaced the heatsinks & fans. The fans were very out of balance, worn, and noisy! I scored NOS 4x OEM Intel full copper on fleabay.



The removable trays. These trays are on ball bearing drawer tracks in the case, which allow them to open like a drawer or be removed...great design IMO. Modern tool boxes don't even have drawers of this good quality!



Testing afterward, just to make sure I didn't kill it.



Trays reassembled.


Now for the PSU story! Three of them were flunky ass dirty, one was moderately dirty, and one was new in box.





PSU module disassembled.



These are so nasty that I bathed them in the sink with simple green and then blasted them with the air hose to chase the water out.



Then I see it.....the modules from SYS-B loaded with CapXon.....none of them appeared bad in the two modules from SYS-B.


...but then I get to SYS-A's modules, the system that had the one self destruct back in 2010....the surviving module, low & behold, bloated CrapXons...so its obvious what caused the destruction of the other module, even though I didn't get to autopsy it....its pretty self-explanatory.





This is the replacement module, they wised up and used UCC KZH instead of those shitty CrapXon's....





So here's the stopping point for now.... The hotwash cleaned PSU's are ready for recapping...atleast 3 of them anyway...



That's all for now.

[momaka]

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

That's awesome TC!
Good to see an old friend come back.

No....DSL in a rural area and being on the outer fringe of the node....its not the fastest... Fine for browsing...but useless for anyting server-related.

Maybe used it as a redundant data back-up of BCN then. That way, even if anything ever happens to BCN, none of the info and pictures will be lost.

Maybe also good to have if the internet goes off and you feel like reading some old posts on BCN.