The power cord-seriously?

[DebAmstutz]

When I arrived at work this morning, the server was stuck on the local backup (again!) and so I pushed the reset button because that's what I have done several times in the past to get the server restarted after the backup stalled.  This time, the server was asking for a boot disk and we don't have one.  I called the tech guy and left voicemail.  He didn't call back and someone else called at around 7:30am.  She called him again shortly after 8:00 and he finally answered.  He came over and said that it looked like the hard drive was gone.  He took the side off the server and everything looked good, he reset some of the items inside and at one point, the server would no longer even turn on.  There had been thunderstorms in the area over the weekend, but nothing looked fried...no singeing anywhere, and no bad odors either, so he didn't think there had been a lightning strike or huge power surge.  He then found another power cord, plugged it into the wall socket and computer and voila! it booted right up! 

Is it possible for a power cord that rarely even gets moved to go bad?  He wondered if the battery backup might have had something to do with the server behavior, but the indicator lights on the backup were all okay.  I'm glad it wasn't something major, but what would cause a problem with an ordinary power cord?  Even he said it was extremely strange.

[Jeff Zylstra]

When I arrived at work this morning, the server was stuck on the local backup (again!) and so I pushed the reset button because that's what I have done several times in the past to get the server restarted after the backup stalled.  This time, the server was asking for a boot disk and we don't have one.  I called the tech guy and left voicemail.  He didn't call back and someone else called at around 7:30am.  She called him again shortly after 8:00 and he finally answered.  He came over and said that it looked like the hard drive was gone.  He took the side off the server and everything looked good, he reset some of the items inside and at one point, the server would no longer even turn on.  There had been thunderstorms in the area over the weekend, but nothing looked fried...no singeing anywhere, and no bad odors either, so he didn't think there had been a lightning strike or huge power surge.  He then found another power cord, plugged it into the wall socket and computer and voila! it booted right up! 

Is it possible for a power cord that rarely even gets moved to go bad?  He wondered if the battery backup might have had something to do with the server behavior, but the indicator lights on the backup were all okay.  I'm glad it wasn't something major, but what would cause a problem with an ordinary power cord?  Even he said it was extremely strange.

I doubt it was the power cord, but I suppose it is possible.  I had a monitor that would freeze up, and all I could do was unplug it to reset it.  The arcing of unplugging wrecked the cord eventually, but I think what happened with your server was that it did not fully release the power (and bad juju) until it was unplugged for much longer than you thought it should take.

Just as troubling is the fact that your backup is freezing the system.  You really need to find out exactly what is going on and why.  I would get someone on that pronto!  Event viewer may be helpful there.  If not, running some of the SysInternals utilities before backup may help as well.

Regardless of what you find, I would definitely do a CHKDSK on your server drives to check and repair any damage since it sounds like this may even be a contributor to the backup locking up.  The other thing would be to run a utility to check all of the hardware components and make sure you don't have a bad RAM chip, video, network card, etc....   Your tech guys may want to update BIOS, video, and network card drivers while they're working on the system. 

You're lucky you didn't lose the hard drives and data without a recent, good backup.  You just can't have your backups failing.  You just got a second chance at life. Your tech guys should be all over this.

P.S.  You may even want to run out and get a USB hard drive to copy the Applied and other data to so you have a recent, good backup.  Even if you don't use the backup software.  The operating system can be rebuilt (ugly but possible).  The TAM and other data can't be.

[Mark]

I've experienced a bad power cord on two or three occasions that i can recall, however the symptoms did not quite match what you experienced.

[DebAmstutz]

One would think that the tech would be all over this but I really don't know.  The owner is aware that the backups have not been 100%.  They rarely tell me anything about what's going on with the tech stuff so maybe there's a plan in the works to fix the backup problem.  I just thought it was really odd.

[Jan Regnier]

Is it possible that the actual power supply is going bad rather than the cord itself?  My personal computer just had this happen and it fried the power cord at the connecting end to the computer.  I don't know how long it had been "going bad" - but I didn't really have any "symptoms" prior it the cord getting fried. 

[Jeff Golas]

Sometimes the power supplies can get "confused" and not output correctly until its reboot - ie "unplugged". I've seen that with PC power supplies, but moreso with laptop power bricks. It does happen.

[Mark]

Sometimes the power supplies can get "confused" and not output correctly until its reboot - ie "unplugged". I've seen that with PC power supplies, but moreso with laptop power bricks. It does happen.

Correct, and you often need to wait for the capacitors to "drain" before reapplying power.  They can hold a charge for a while and they are an integral part of the power supply circuit.

[Jeff Zylstra]

Sometimes the power supplies can get "confused" and not output correctly until its reboot - ie "unplugged". I've seen that with PC power supplies, but moreso with laptop power bricks. It does happen.

Correct, and you often need to wait for the capacitors to "drain" before reapplying power.  They can hold a charge for a while and they are an integral part of the power supply circuit.

Exactly.  This happens with everything, including computerized appliances.  Last month a hawk hit the power lines near our house and blew out the transformer.  When the power came back on, our refrigerator had an error code that I couldn't clear, even after unplugging the frig for 10 minutes.  After three attempts I gave up and called a repair guy for an estimate.  Over $500 for the board to be replaced!  Since it cooled, but wouldn't make ice or dispense water, I procrastinated.  Good thing.  After 3 weeks it suddenly started working normally again!  Yee-ha!  Lesson learned.  I am going to install a surge suppressor outlet so this doesn't happen again.  Leviton makes one for about $20 at Home Depot that I am installing. 

[Mark]

It is also the exact reason why you wait for the light on a motherboard to go out after unplugging a computer and before working on it.

[Jeff Zylstra]

It is also the exact reason why you wait for the light on a motherboard to go out after unplugging a computer and before working on it.

Yup.  I have a Dell Laptop that says it won't recognize the battery and therefore won't charge the battery.  Supposedly, taking the batter out while holding down the power switch "clears" the error.  No joy so far after numerous attempts.  Anyone have a fix for this? (I had to ask  )

[Mark]

Yup.  I have a Dell Laptop that says it won't recognize the battery and therefore won't charge the battery.  Supposedly, taking the batter out while holding down the power switch "clears" the error.  No joy so far after numerous attempts.  Anyone have a fix for this? (I had to ask  )

Yep.  Warranty repair/exchange.  If it's out of that window, replace.  I have seen people spend money replacing batteries and power adapters over and over to remedy this with no joy.  Today's laptops are not worth a damn.  Whether you paid $200 or $2,000 I say expect it to last from 1-3 years and price wont always get you a lengthier life than that but I would hope if you pay $2,000 it lasts the full 3 I am predicting.

Of course my only source on this is experience, but that is what I have observed over the last few years.  Problems outside of battery/power issues I think is the luck of the draw, but what you have to consider is that heat kills.  If the battery is not charging properly or the power supply/adapter not performing as it should, this can create heat which can harm more than just the power related circuitry.

IDK, just the way I look at it.

[Jeff Golas]

That $20 surge suppressor is going to have 59 cents worth of actual surge suppression technology. 2 little parts called "Varistors" - at a certain number of Joules/Watts they blow apart like a fuse. They don't do anything to actually suppress a surge unless its a BIG surge.

For example, going from say, 115v to 130v will not do anything to them.

Jeff

Sometimes the power supplies can get "confused" and not output correctly until its reboot - ie "unplugged". I've seen that with PC power supplies, but moreso with laptop power bricks. It does happen.

Correct, and you often need to wait for the capacitors to "drain" before reapplying power.  They can hold a charge for a while and they are an integral part of the power supply circuit.

Exactly.  This happens with everything, including computerized appliances.  Last month a hawk hit the power lines near our house and blew out the transformer.  When the power came back on, our refrigerator had an error code that I couldn't clear, even after unplugging the frig for 10 minutes.  After three attempts I gave up and called a repair guy for an estimate.  Over $500 for the board to be replaced!  Since it cooled, but wouldn't make ice or dispense water, I procrastinated.  Good thing.  After 3 weeks it suddenly started working normally again!  Yee-ha!  Lesson learned.  I am going to install a surge suppressor outlet so this doesn't happen again.  Leviton makes one for about $20 at Home Depot that I am installing.

[Billy Welsh]

That $20 surge suppressor is going to have 59 cents worth of actual surge suppression technology. 2 little parts called "Varistors" - at a certain number of Joules/Watts they blow apart like a fuse. They don't do anything to actually suppress a surge unless its a BIG surge.

For example, going from say, 115v to 130v will not do anything to them.

Jeff

Sometimes the power supplies can get "confused" and not output correctly until its reboot - ie "unplugged". I've seen that with PC power supplies, but moreso with laptop power bricks. It does happen.

Correct, and you often need to wait for the capacitors to "drain" before reapplying power.  They can hold a charge for a while and they are an integral part of the power supply circuit.

Exactly.  This happens with everything, including computerized appliances.  Last month a hawk hit the power lines near our house and blew out the transformer.  When the power came back on, our refrigerator had an error code that I couldn't clear, even after unplugging the frig for 10 minutes.  After three attempts I gave up and called a repair guy for an estimate.  Over $500 for the board to be replaced!  Since it cooled, but wouldn't make ice or dispense water, I procrastinated.  Good thing.  After 3 weeks it suddenly started working normally again!  Yee-ha!  Lesson learned.  I am going to install a surge suppressor outlet so this doesn't happen again.  Leviton makes one for about $20 at Home Depot that I am installing.

So Jeff G., what do you recommend?  I've had 2 cheap LCD tv's from Sam's get fried power supplies from surges.  I'm getting what I paid for with the cheap parts installed, but it's a hassle I'd like to avoid in the future.

[Jeff Zylstra]

Exactly.  Not sure at the specs on these, but I figure that they're better than nothing.   I've heard claims that momentary surges of several hundred volts are more common than you would guess.  It's those frequent surges that worry me more.  I'm not sure that anything is going to handle a direct lightning strike, regardless of what the "$25,000 of insurance" says on APC or other surge suppressors.   They are definitely designed to be sacrificial.  That's why I'm bummed that these didn't have indicator or warning alarm to show that they were working or not.  Leviton does make both warning lights and alarms on these.  Not sure they're 100% or even 90% effective, but something is better than nothing.  These refrigerators are getting to expensive and too sensitive to go without some kind of protection.

That $20 surge suppressor is going to have 59 cents worth of actual surge suppression technology. 2 little parts called "Varistors" - at a certain number of Joules/Watts they blow apart like a fuse. They don't do anything to actually suppress a surge unless its a BIG surge.

For example, going from say, 115v to 130v will not do anything to them.

Jeff

Sometimes the power supplies can get "confused" and not output correctly until its reboot - ie "unplugged". I've seen that with PC power supplies, but moreso with laptop power bricks. It does happen.

Correct, and you often need to wait for the capacitors to "drain" before reapplying power.  They can hold a charge for a while and they are an integral part of the power supply circuit.

Exactly.  This happens with everything, including computerized appliances.  Last month a hawk hit the power lines near our house and blew out the transformer.  When the power came back on, our refrigerator had an error code that I couldn't clear, even after unplugging the frig for 10 minutes.  After three attempts I gave up and called a repair guy for an estimate.  Over $500 for the board to be replaced!  Since it cooled, but wouldn't make ice or dispense water, I procrastinated.  Good thing.  After 3 weeks it suddenly started working normally again!  Yee-ha!  Lesson learned.  I am going to install a surge suppressor outlet so this doesn't happen again.  Leviton makes one for about $20 at Home Depot that I am installing.

[Jim Jensen]

Heard a story yesterday that the LG refrigerators have a fuse that can provide protection to the unit, but it's soldered in place and service techs apparently recommend replacing the fridge when it goes out because its difficult to get to and isn't simply easily removed and replaced.