My FS 'Puter Died! :(

[n4gix]

Darn! Just after letting Windoze7 install the latest updates, upon restarting the system the update process finished up, and...

...as soon as Windoze7 attempted to restart the system again...

...the power supply apparently died. It won't even power up the monitors or run the BIOS' POST test now.

Thankfully, this Dell is still under warranty! But, who knows how long that's going to take. :roll:

 

[mike_cyul]

When you least expect it, expect it, as they say. Hope you're up and running again soon.


Mike

 

[hairyspin]

Bummer. I hope you got an on-site warranty with that one, Bill!

 

[Lionheart]

Sorry to hear that Bill.

If this is a desktop PC, please look in the case and make sure the capacitors are flat on their tops and not expanded.

Wouldnt it be nice if it was just a windows fluke instead of the hardware....


Bill

 

[n4gix]

Well, I'll be darned!

I unplugged the power cord and let it sit for about an hour...

...and the darn thing started working again. That tells me that it was tripping some rail because of heat most likely.

The case is clean, all fans are operational, so that's not an issue.

When it started up, I had to allow an auto-restore from the backup made just prior to the most recent updates. Finished that and now that the updates have been rerun, it's back in operation.
Before I do anything else though, I'm installing Acronis True Image and letting it do a full image to the NAS!

I've got to go to CompUSA tomorrow to exchange the 1TB disk I'd bought for the NAS's mirror, because the NAS won't recognize it!

The disk attached to channel 2 could not be used. The most common reasons are RAID resynch in progress, faulty drives, and disks that are too small to be added to the array.

It must a "faulty drive" then because without it there could BE no "RAID resynch in progress..."

So, while I'm there I may as well pick up at least a 700 - 800 watt PS and replace the one in the Dell.

Ain't 'puters fun!

 

[Naismith]

Dell are (were) pretty good, some years ago speakers went crackly (dry solder apparantly) and again about 3 years ago the monitor went pfzzzzzz.
On both occasions Dell sent the replacements by UPS the following day no questions asked and the same guy took away the faulty parts. Fantastic.
So unless Dell have changed their customer service level since then I would anticipate good service. Touch wood!

 

[jmig]

OT

Dell are (were) pretty good, some years ago speakers went crackly (dry solder apparantly) and again about 3 years ago the monitor went pfzzzzzz.
On both occasions Dell sent the replacements by UPS the following day no questions asked and the same guy took away the faulty parts. Fantastic.
So unless Dell have changed their customer service level since then I would anticipate good service. Touch wood!

Sorry to OT this thread Bill.

I have always heard the phrase as, "Knock on Wood."

Back to our original topic. "Will Dell Come to the Rescue of our Gauge Builder Hero?

 

[Clarke123]

Sorry to OT this thread Bill.

I have always heard the phrase as, "Knock on Wood."

Back to our original topic. "Will Dell Come to the Rescue of our Gauge Builder Hero?

Sorry let me wrestle this one off the tracks again. Looking at his location it must be European influences because round these parts it is touch wood. OK then now we're back to the knackered puter.

 

[n4gix]

Well, the good news is that the FS 'puter is still running, and Acronis True Image has successfully saved a copy of the System Restore file(s) on the NAS.

The "odd news" is that -despite me specifying a unique filename- Acronis used their really silly "My_System" for the filename!

So, I now have:

My_System.tib (which is my DevComputer)
My_System(1).tib (which is my FSComputer)

How dang silly is that! It sure makes file management and easy identification difficult! :angryfir:

 

[Lionheart]

Awesome to hear Bill! Great news.

Maybe even might be a miracle? (The computer that came back to life)!


I would love to get a system that can save my computer HD to an Image. That has to be the coolest thing.

I purchased a used Alienware laptop on Ebay. I got a new HD for it and the laptop came with a unique factory option 'image' kit called Alien Respawn. You put in your new HD, and put in the boot disk for Respawn. Follow the directions, then put in the other CD that is the Image, and in about 4 min's, its done, back to new factory settings from the day it was born. I was very impressed.


Oh, on new drives (preformatted) not being recognized. I have had this problem with Windows several times now. No matter what I do, the HD is not seen. But... If I open my iMac in Apple mode, the HD is opened in the Disk Utility. There, I can format the new Disc (HD) and even format it in Windows Fat32.

Sad that Windows cannot do this.

 

[GT182]

You are one lucky devil Bill. My computer's mother board died and that's the reason I built a new one. I was lucky and my HDDs are all ok.

I'm using Maxtor and Seagate HDDS. I've got a program called MaxBlast5 that will clone your HDD to another HDD, and it's free from the Seagate website as they bought out Maxtor. Works great, but you must have Maxtor or Seagate HDDs only.

 

[n4gix]

You are one lucky devil Bill. My computer's mother board died and that's the reason I built a new one. I was lucky and my HDDs are all ok.

I'm using Maxtor and Seagate HDDS. I've got a program called MaxBlast5 that will clone your HDD to another HDD, and it's free from the Seagate website as they bought out Maxtor. Works great, but you must have Maxtor or Seagate HDDs only.

Man, I've just gotta stay out of CompUSA. I went to swap the defective 1TB drive for one that is the exact same make/model of the one that can with the Netgear NAS Duo, and wound up spending another $200 for "other stuff," including a shiny new 700watt PS (1/2 price!). I plan to put the new PS into my Dell XPS FS machine, and keep the (still fairly new) 350 watt P(O)S as an emergency spare. :ernae:

I've now installed the new TB hd in the NAS and it's happily making an automatic X-RAID clone of the primary channel's drive.

Before I left, I set up Acronis True Image to begin making daily backups of my FS's ..\DATA folder in which FS9, FSX, and all FS related "stuff" is kept. I feel so much safer now!

 

[n4gix]

Awesome to hear Bill! Great news.

Maybe even might be a miracle? (The computer that came back to life)!

I would love to get a system that can save my computer HD to an Image. That has to be the coolest thing.

In the case of the NAS, pre-formatted or not wasn't an issue, since the NAS uses it's own (Unix type) formatting and file storage. The neat thing about the Netgear NAS Duo is that it's completely agnostic with regards to the computers that have access to it over the network.

I slipped the replacement Seagate 1TB drive into the #2 channel, and the NAS began automatically making the RAID clone.

Any version of Windows since Win98, Apple, iMac, Unix, and Linux can access the NAS, since all communications takes place with industry standard network protocols!

The main drawback to relying on a typical "System Restore" disk is that you will only restore the unit to the "out of the box" state, which is admittedly better than nothing at all! But...

With Acronis True Image and the NAS, I can restore either my Development or FS computers to the exact state they were at the time of the last "Image" created. I have it set up for a weekly Image save. I have all critical data set to backup every night, and I plan to set up an incremental backup scheme that will run every five minutes for my Development machine (since that's the one that gets used most often)... :ernae: