Miscellaneous Operating Systems/Hardware

I never thought about it because I don't have much equipment but I read a post on here that I can't find now that said something about not letting hardware sit powered off for too long. What do you guys think, how often should servers and PCs and similar devices be allowed to sit without being powered on and used for awhile?

Today I had a bad experience with a PC that had been shut off but left plugged in since the end of May. I turned it on and nothing happened. I had problems with this mobo before and whenever the battery dies it fails to post. But this time it didn't even come on. I tried switching it off at the PSU in the back and tried starting it again and there was a very loud crack like somebody lit a firecracker. And it stank. Amazingly it started and ran fine. After a while I turned it off and turned off the power to it and when I am less aggravated I'll open it up and look for a blown capacitor. This made me wonder about the servers I have sitting around that I can't use as much as I would like because of noise/heat/UPS/electric bill issues. How often should they be operated to keep them in good condition?

Thanks.

Actually, electrolytic capacitors age faster when they're powered up, so you'll get a longer calendar life out of them if they're turned off when not needed. All else being equal (which of course it never is) their lifespan (hours they last while powered) will be the same whether they're left continuously on or turned off/on with random periodicity. There are a ton of articles on the topic but basically, since the power supply industry became commoditized if a manufacturer can save a fraction of a cent by buying a cheaper cap from a different vendor, they'll do it. For them, it's the end user's responsibility to keep indestructible backups and just throw away and replace any hardware that fails. That's pretty much commodities in a nutshell; if it's broke and the warranty's expired you throw it away and get a new one, nobody else cares especially not the manufacturer...

Half a day for every two months is enough to "blow out the cobwebs".



IMO

Also keeps the pram batteries topped up, etc...

Gotta optimize that prooofit !

Here's the other side of that same coin : this afternoon I have to write an email to a company I am helping to buy some equipment in the US for $1,250,000. The US company could really use that money - they've been on the edge of bankruptcy several times over the past few years, I just checked their "webcacst" quarterly report, (God I hate "webcasts" and all that other Rich Internet Experience shit ! Put up a fucking text document, assbreaths ! Nobody but a fat ugly teenaged twat wants your stupid fucking loser webcast) and they are down 15% over the same quarter last year but of course, "things are looking up, we got an order for ten sets of Mouseketeeer hats !" Yeah right.

Anyway, they could really use the money. And if we buy it, the equipment goes to China so their competitors don't get machinery cheap to take away their work. I am representing one of the largest builders in the world for this type of equipment. You would think that these dipshits would take advantage of the opportunity to become buddies with some big players, you would think they would go out of their way to do a good job.

You would be wrong. They are trying to bait-and-switch us for an extra ten thou. My email will recommend that we back out of the deal due to fraud on the part of the US.

Fuck them. And fuck the horse they rode in on. My guys will buy from Germany. China avoids the US now as much as possible because American companies are total shit.

So they can take their little two dollar cheap-ass prooooofit and shove it up their rosy red asses. Hi Sky ! What brilliant business logic ! your precious fucking loser Hahvud University teaches !

And I will lose the commission Thanks, crooks

On one of my boxes, if I don't power it up every couple months, stiction sets in on the drive.

Thanks guys. Vishnu I realize stuff has a theoretical service life but there does seem to be something to the idea that equipment left running doesn't fail very often for some reason.
Yeah the mobo battery dies fast on this mobo if I pull out the plug and when it does the mobo doesn't post. Real fine piece of work.

Hamei, if you didn't turn this thread into a corporate rant I would have had to PM you to see if you're ok Dude! Faxxing you a virtual six-pack. Drink to me, drink to my health, ...!

It got worse. Hard to believe but it really did ... this place in the US has been on the verge of bankruptcy about six times over the past five years. They had some stuff for sale. I talked one of the largest machine tool builders in the country into buying it. State-owned, gazillion-plus workers, direct connection to the treasury of China, that kind of thing.

First, the US imbeciles jerked us around as if my guys were some teenage girls getting their first car tuned up. We have cash money in hand to buy these clunkers, not too much, just a million, million and a half, breaking into the US, putting in a few lines for Ford and one for GM, nothing special. You'd think we'd be someone they'd want to be friends with. But no, these dickheads decide they're going to have a innernut auction instead, yeah, gonna get rich ! and jerk us around some more. THEN we get the big pressure, okay, come inspect the equipment, have to be here in three days, have to put up 20%, have to pay in full in 30 days, all that small-time hustler con artist bullshit but wtf, we'll take a look. Fly over from China and what do we see ? One out of three machines doesn't even run. Needs $40,000 in parts. Wtf ?

Businessmen, oh yeah.

US ? you fuckers are toast. It is not possible to survive like that.

We now return you to your 'cheapest capacitors on the planet, max profit' thread. Hahvud, whoooo-peee.

What it comes down to in the end is really pretty simple, the only reality that matters to them are the values in their spread sheets, all else is but opinion.

"Nothing exists but particles and the void, all else is but opinion." -Democritus of Abdera.

If their spreadsheets were reality-based, then it would just be greed. But they are basing their decisions on fantasies, so they add stupidity to the mix.

Wind is dead in the US. Just about the only thing that uses 3 meter machines of this type in any volume is wind. Hence no market, honey chile. No buyers = low prices. Not a chance in hell they will get anywhere near what they think in an innernut auction.

But all these "managers" read some story in Reader's Digest about this here new high-tech world where we'll all get rich buying and selling each other virtual hamburgers, so by god theyr'e gonna get me some a thet.

They are stupid stupid stupid and I'd laugh my ass off at them - just like last time two years ago when we wanted to buy a machine for $260,000 but they were gonna have theirselves a innernut auction ! so they got $85,000 instead. Rich, I tell you ! Rich ! We'll reach 250,000 households ! (None of which want a $900,000 gear cutting machine but hey now ! that part of the equation is too complex for their Hahvud-eddicated pea brains !)

Alas, one can't escape one's environoment. The stupidity of American management is drowning us all Finance ! Finance ! The brilliant quants with their advanced algorithms have conquered the boom-bust cycle !

They've conquered something, all right. They conquered California's brilliant PUC and ripped off the citizens for a few hundred million, in just one financier-designed scam. At least Whitey is honest.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-h ... 850.column

Fucking loser thief bastards, you guys are swamped with them. Take these goddamned idjuts out of their little ivory towers and give them a real job at real middle class salaries and rebuild a United States that actually knows something. The fact is, the Cultural Revolution was a good thing. Y'all need to re-educate a large portion of your society, preferably in a coal mine. Picking onions would do as a second choice.

"iPhones are so special !" Yeah right, you morons. Go eat an iPhone. Drive one home after work. Cook on it. Wash your clothes in it. Do anything useful with it beyond retarded blather about what your cat ate for breakfast, I dare you.


Nothing's changed much over the years, has it ?