About 6 years ago I had to set up servers for my colleague at
a laboratory inside ALTTC (Advanced Level Telecom Training Centre),
Ghaziabad,Near Delhi. I hooked up the server, monitor, keyboard,
mouse and the works! I first switched on the monitor and next I
tried switching on the server but it refused to do so.
Based on my years of “on-the-job” experience, the first thing
I suspected was the SMPS. SMPS seemed to be order because the
power ‘ON’ LED on motherboard was on. Next, as a standard procedure, I pulled out all the peripheral cards, disconnected keyboard, mouse and all other
connections except the power cable and tried again.
a laboratory inside ALTTC (Advanced Level Telecom Training Centre),
Ghaziabad,Near Delhi. I hooked up the server, monitor, keyboard,
mouse and the works! I first switched on the monitor and next I
tried switching on the server but it refused to do so.
Based on my years of “on-the-job” experience, the first thing
I suspected was the SMPS. SMPS seemed to be order because the
power ‘ON’ LED on motherboard was on. Next, as a standard procedure, I pulled out all the peripheral cards, disconnected keyboard, mouse and all other
connections except the power cable and tried again.
Still NO SIGN of server switching ON! Due to non-availability of CRO or such other testing equipment,
I could not test the motherboard and called up the supplier and
told all the symptoms, who advised me to bring it to Delhi, as he
did not have service centre at Ghaziabad. Meanwhile, I called up
our Delhi office to borrow another server and after some initial
reservation they agreed but asked me bring along the ‘faulty’ server. We confidently connected power to the new server! But, still no sign
of life! NOW I was really at my wit’s end! My whole confidence was at the
lowest ebb! By now it was late in the evening. Completely exhausted,
on an impulse I checked the supply voltage. It was 110V AC instead of
normal 220V AC, which one would normally expect. (We later found that
a special supply network of 110 V AC had been created for these
equipment supplied by Fujitsu, Japan.) But why did the monitor switch on at 110 V AC? Well it turned out
that the monitor had higher voltage tolerance range. Even today the remark of my boss keeps ringing in my ears “ Gana,
sometimes you need to stop using too much of brain!”
--------- R. GANAPATHI RAO
Research Associate,CENTRE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF TELEMATICS,
ELECTRONICS CITY,BANGALORE.
1 comment:
May be the monitor is designed to work for a vide variety of voltage of 90 V to 270V ?????
It will be too much to tell that you ought have read the manual of the monitor before trying to commission it. Even now you have not verified from the name plate of the monitor to find out the range of voltage where the monitor will work !!!!!
Manual of any electrical gadget ranging from an electric razor to a 400 KV transformer have first line common namely: FIRST READ THE MANUAL BEFORE REFERING TO THE SUPPLIER.
Just like you, I also was not in the habbit of reading manuals until there were A TROUBLE SHOOTTING. In one case I read the manual after failing to commission an equipment without reading the manual.There were more than 25 diagrams in the manual. In one such diagram, there was a DOTTED LINE. In the explanation it was stated TO BE CONNECTED IF SYSTEM CONDITION DEMANDS !!!!!
On further re inspection. it was found that the points were not connected. When the two points were connected, the equipment worked correctly.
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