Re: OT:U10 Won't boot, possible hardware failure

[Martin <inkubus@interalpha.co.uk>]

> Before I junk the unit or start bidding on eBay for parts, I thought I
> would throw general questions to this list because it's the only
> sun/sparc list that I am familiar with: 
The folks at http://www.sunhelp.org/ run a list called sun-rescue that
is very infomatative.

> Is this (dead power supply) a common failure mode for these machines?
Not that I've heard.  I have a couple of Ultra 5's (which are pretty
much identical on the inside) and a few other similar machines and
haven't had problems.

> Is there something I'm missing or overlooking? (An internal circuit
> breaker?)
Not that I know of.

> Are these machines super-sensitive to heat or humidity? 
Not really, although some of this series do seem to run a tad close to
their heat limit and the ventilation isn't as good as it could be.
Depending on how hot the area in which you run it is you might want to
look at cooling it a little more.
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/U10/spec.html

> Is it worth swapping out the power supply?
Yes.

>  Is there a cheap source of parts?
eBay is good.  However I *believe* the Ultra 10's use a standard ATX
power supply, certainly have a look and see if it is.

>  Would I be better off just buying a whole ultra 10 off of ebay
> and swapping parts as required? 
I'd try another PSU first, alternatively if you can put it somewhere
where you can watch it, getting some more idea of what happens when it
powers off might be good.

> Could I just put my drive into an Ultra 5 and have it boot? 
If it's running GNU/Linux then it should just work.  Can vouch for other
OS's.  They are standard IDE disks though.

HTH

Cheers,
 - Martin