Dead Equipment...

A few days ago, while getting ready for bed, I heard a pop from the other room so I investigated and found a burnt smell emanating from the area that I have my laptop and RBoxes setup. I turned everything off and left it for the night. The next morning when I started everything back up, I got a whiff of the same burnt smell from the night before but it quickly dissipated; however, I noticed that one of the RBoxes wasn't working or at least the blue light wasn't blinking. It did however, have the power light on.

For two days I have tried everything that I can think of to see if the RBox was actually dead. I have completely unplugged it then plugged it back in, I have rebooted, reloaded drivers, moved it to another computer, reinstalled and let it try and mine a wu for 8 hours that should have taken only 30 minutes. The official prognosis... short of an electronics technician... it is dead.

Rest in piece little RBox.

A "pop" you say. %-(
You could have blown the top off of one or more of the three round capacitors on the board.

http://blog.nwoolls.com/wp-content/u...er-R-Box-2.jpg

(Visually apparent by a bulging or split open top.)

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Originally Posted by Ron Shurtz

A "pop" you say. %-(
You could have blown the top off of one or more of the three round capacitors on the board.

http://blog.nwoolls.com/wp-content/u...er-R-Box-2.jpg

(Visually apparent by a bulging or split open top.)

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When I took it apart, that is what I expected but nothing appeared to be burned or out of place; however, a strong burnt smell was emanating from the part labeled R47. A resistor I assume.

Yep, you let the magic smoke out ... it'll never be the same!

Weren't you told that smoking is bad for your health? 8-x8-x8-x8-x

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Originally Posted by Bryan

Yep, you let the magic smoke out ... it'll never be the same!

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Sure did... and there's no putting it back. :)

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Originally Posted by c303a

Weren't you told that smoking is bad for your health? 8-x8-x8-x8-x

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I got tired of all my old habits, I thought I would try a new one. :D

Yep, it looks like a power resistor.
Now the power is all gone.

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

Sure did... and there's no putting it back. :)

I got tired of all my old habits, I thought I would try a new one. :D

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So your new habit is snorting resistors? I can't imagine how you could possibly isolate the smell to a single resistor on a board if you haven't been practicing hard. :))

I think one of my R-Box 32 devices has passed away.
The USB connection started getting flaky and now has failed altogether.
Reinitializing it worked for awhile, but it gradually disconnected more often.
It has now failed completely. I could hear the Windows USB connection tone followed immediately by the disconnection tone and it does nothing and is not recognized by Windows on any USB port. Last several tries have produced no Windows recognition of any sort.

@STMahlberg
If I sent the ASICs board, would you be interested in trying to use the power transistor as a donor to your dead R-Box?

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Originally Posted by Ron Shurtz

I think one of my R-Box 32 devices has passed away.
The USB connection started getting flaky and now has failed altogether.
Reinitializing it worked for awhile, but it gradually disconnected more often.
It has now failed completely. I could hear the Windows USB connection tone followed immediately by the disconnection tone and it does nothing and is not recognized by Windows on any USB port. Last several tries have produced no Windows recognition of any sort.

@STMahlberg
If I sent the ASICs board, would you be interested in trying to use the power transistor as a donor to your dead R-Box?

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That would be cool :D but I wouldn't be able to fix it until December sometime until I can afford a reworking station. I still have a RBox 100 that I have to fix as well.

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

That would be cool :D but I wouldn't be able to fix it until December sometime until I can afford a reworking station. I still have a RBox 100 that I have to fix as well.

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I will keep it around in case you want to play surgeon sometime.

I was going to purchase a replacement R-Box 32, but now I'm not sure with the BU changes coming. :confused:

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Originally Posted by Ron Shurtz

I will keep it around in case you want to play surgeon sometime.

I was going to purchase a replacement R-Box 32 but not I'm sure now with the BU changes coming. :confused:

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Yeah... with the last two news feeds from BitCoin, I have concerns as well; it's starting to sound like they are moving to mine BitCoins only and the BOINC credits are going away... just a guess though.

Well, hell... Just lost the PSU on my server this morning. The cheapest one I've found is $100; it might as well be a $1000. Looks like I'm down 1 rig indefinitely. :((

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

Well, hell... Just lost the PSU on my server this morning. The cheapest one I've found is $100; it might as well be a $1000. Looks like I'm down 1 rig indefinitely. :((

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Bummer.... :(

I feel your pain.

All I did was add just one more GPU. It was showing 1000 watts, so I walked away thinking all was good. Three boxes and five gpus fell silent, so I knew something was wrong. I gave it one star in a product review for not going up in flames. Decided not to run that GPU I had just added.


Attachment 2581

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Originally Posted by somanyroads

All I did was add just one more GPU. It was showing 1000 watts, so I walked away thinking all was good. Three boxes and five gpus fell silent, so I knew something was wrong. I gave it one star in a product review for not going up in flames. Decided not to run that GPU I had just added.


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I had a kill-a-watt that looked exactly like that a few years ago. I've since added dedicated circuits for most of my crunchers. I still get a bit nervous when I have everything fired up. Glad you caught it early!

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Originally Posted by somanyroads

All I did was add just one more GPU. It was showing 1000 watts, so I walked away thinking all was good. Three boxes and five gpus fell silent, so I knew something was wrong. I gave it one star in a product review for not going up in flames. Decided not to run that GPU I had just added.


Attachment 2581

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Originally Posted by Sphynx

I had a kill-a-watt that looked exactly like that a few years ago. I've since added dedicated circuits for most of my crunchers. I still get a bit nervous when I have everything fired up. Glad you caught it early!

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So has a hobby gone too far when you start thinking about installing an automated fire suppression system for your computers? =))

Edit: On a side note. We used Watts Up? Pro ES when I worked for Energy Management. They're a bit of an investment but they are durable and accurate.

Yes, I feel nervous when everything is powered up too. I melted a service pole a year ago, that cost 2k.

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Originally Posted by Haunted Forest

... I melted a service pole a year ago, that cost 2k.

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@-) Yoooowwwwzzzaaarrr!

Just for fun, I plugged the power cord back in the PSU on my server and it turned on. The cool thing about this PSU is that it's hot-swappable; I didn't want to turn it off so I just slide it back in its cage on the server and the rig fired up again. I don't know how long it will run but I'm sure not going to unplug it to find out.

The cage has room for one more PSU and I know something is amiss with the one I have so I'm saving my nickels and dimes to get another one. I've never seen redundant hot-swappable PSU's before; that's not really saying much but it is very cool.