Hardware trouble? Me? Or ...??

[Beartooth]

On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:51:34 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:

> On Sat, 2008-08-09 at 16:07 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
>> The young friend was here yesterday evening, and concluded immediately
>> that the power supply was dead. Maybe it did arc somewhere; odd that
>> that hasn't happened before.

> Not at all. Power supplies can die after a while like everything else,
> even when on a UPS. Silly question: is your UPS properly grounded?

	Well, all of my UPSs (iirc) are wired by the maker (APC) to 
complain if not; this particular one, a duplicate of what my computer 
shop uses, would probably do its celebrated imitation of a fire engine in 
a fight to the death with an ambulance if it found itself ungrounded. It 
wakes me up easily if we have a power failure in the night -- and I sleep 
on the floor above.
 
>>         The dead power supply is a type we can't get around here.
> 
> If you mean the brand then I wouldn't worry about it. They are all
> pretty standard (and are also liable to fail after a few years).

	The last couple Dave has assembled are in what he calls toaster 
boxes, which are designed to be stacked; that saves desk space 
wonderfully. But the inside, when the local friend got the lid off, 
looked utterly unlike any I've seen before; and the local friend didn't 
try to pretend I'd be able to replace the part when it comes. I suspect 
it's the external geometry rather than the specs that we have to match.

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.