Crash!!!!

[snap-tech]

Do you have any disk utils like spinrite? Or winhex?

This is not an heating issue. We can fix this but will be much easier to explain by phone. 425-244-0302.

Snap-tech

Douglas

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by snap-tech

I don't have time to try and explain in detail what is most likely problem with it still crashing.

Originally Posted by snap-tech

I am available anytime.

So which is it?

You don't have time to explain

-OR-

You are available anytime?

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by snap-tech

This is not an heating issue.

Okay? So what is it then?

While heat would not be my first choice in this case (even given the limited information), power, heat, and timing issues make up 98% of problems that are intermittent in electronic devices. (Which is why I said heat and power, but my first guess would be power). It is possible to be other things, but we have very limited information here, so go with the odds.

Originally Posted by snap-tech

We can fix this but will be much easier to explain by phone. 425-244-0302.

But if you explain it here, then others can learn from it and/or know the answer for furture problems like or similar to this. Wait, or is this just about getting a client/customer? If so, then nevermind.

[SaFeHeX]

Originally Posted by Phoenix32

But if you explain it here, then others can learn from it and/or know the answer for furture problems like or similar to this.

Which of course is bad for potential future business!

I noticed the original owner says he replaced the fan at some point and uses a replacement PSU.

A different fan could be drawing a little more current than the original specification and more importantly the replacement PSU may not be big enough in the first place.

The PSU on my 2200's (i have 2 of them) use a 12 volt 3.5 amp PSU but it would do no harm if a replacement was sought with a higher current rating.

Some cheap PSU's may be rated at 3.5 amp but they may get too hot or shut down to protect themselvs if they are constantly being used at full power so to speak.

It could be that the original 2200 PSU has been made to an over rated standard giving plenty of headroom for running continuously at 3.5 amps or more.

As the 2200 has two hard drives inside, it actually surprises me that the PSU is ONLY 3.5 amps because some of the older hard drives used can draw a good couple of amps each.

Personally i would suspect the power supply....

How hot is it getting for instance?

What output current rating is it?

A fairly decent 60 Watt (12 Volt @ 5 Amp) PSU could be obtained brand new fairly cheeply on the likes of eBay. The additional 1.5 amps of headroom should help for any surges in power that the Snap may require. For instance when first spinning up the hard drive motors. (although most snaps stagger the spin up, to lower the initial inrush current)

The original Snap Power Brick is quite meaty in physical size, so i do suspect it is designed to be pushed to the limits and then some. A cheap replacement of similar rating is probably only just cutting it, until it gives up and cuts out of course!

Many PSU's have thermal trips or thermal fuses inside to do just this. They kill the power to allow themselvs to cool down a bit and then reset. Then the cycle starts over again.

If you are writing a lot of data, you will consume more power than reading data. CPU usage also effects power useage and the more power you consume the hotter the PSU will get.

A short term thing you could try is keeping the PSU it's self cool. Don't sit it on carpet, this will just keep it warm and add to the heating effect. If you have a desk fan handy try externally cooling the PSU and see if that improves the situation to some degree.

If that seems to solve the issue then you need a better power brick than you have now. Look for a decenent 60 watt job.

For reference -- it does no harm to increase available current but it is important to keep the voltage the same... 12 volt and positive center pin.

The reason the increased current doesn't matter is because whatever it is powering can only use as much current as it needs, the exess just sits there in reserve incase it is needed.

I hope this helps but it is not neccesarily the answer to the problem if that's not what the problem is! It's a cheap one to try and remedy, however.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by SaFeHeX

Which of course is bad for potential future business!

I am happy to see someone else see my point!

THANK YOU!


I myself always thought these forums were for people to seek (free) do-it-yourself help. Sure, sometimes you gotta send it to a pro, but that should be the last step after all else has failed. At least on the forums.


I make some money here and there on the Snaps, I make no bones about that. But that is when people cannot, or do not want to, do it themselves. I also keep some information to myself sometimes. But those are cases where letting the information out could cause more harm than good in the wrong hands (needs a pro doing it or can cause serious problems), or could/would damage me in some way. An example of that might be where I get a particular repair part. Why? Because that could dry up my source, and most always causes the price to me to go up significantly at the least.


I have never felt these tech forums were a place for someone to troll for customers.

-End of rant

[Phoenix32]

Now back to the problem;

I stay clear of the Snap OS unit conversations for the most part. I have done a lot of work on the 1000, 4100, and 4000, but as David pointed out, I have never had any of the 2000, 2200, or 12000. And, this was all quite a while back. I have forgotten most of the little idiosyncrasies of these units to be honest.

Now, with that said;

As I said before, most, 98%, of all intermittent problems in electronic devices comes down to power, heat, and timing issues. This only goes to show further as you notice most people in this message thread, including myself, are circling around those exact type problems here. BUT! Keep in mind though, there is another 2% out there.


One of the multitude of reasons I switched away from the SnapOS units to the GOS units was because of the way they handle the drives. Meaning, timing issues, errors, the RAID arrays, recovery, etc etc etc...

Now why did I bring this up? Well, I got to thinking, there is a drive recovery going on here, right? What if?

What if one of the drives is having a timing issue, or an error, or...? Again, the old SnapOS is not real great at handling these type things. It might just cause/force it to go back and do some type of recovery over and over. This could lead to what you are seeing. This also can lead to either or both of overheating and/or power issues since the recovery causes higher use of power and more heat.

Just a thought. That, and since Douglas (snap-tech) does recovery service, makes me think he knows some little idiosyncrasy in this unit that causes this type thng.


Now with that said;

Capacitors and other components do age, and through leakage and other things, start using more power over time. That and the power supplies themselves age. Thus the power suggestions put forth here are still valid.


Lastly, let me put forth one more solution that I am sure is going to go over like a lead balloon.

If you watch on eBay, you can get a GOS Snap unit for pretty cheap these days. Considering the superiority of these units over the SnapOS units, and the cost it may invlove fixing this unit. Maybe consider replacing the unit with a GOS Snap Unit from eBay?

[blue68f100]

Been out of town for a week and more activity than in the last 2-3 months.

With the 2 x 500gig HD's I would pretty much bet on the PS. Writing takes more energy than reads. And I'm pretty sure the largest HD's that ever came factory were 2 x 250gigs. I didn't see where he said how mfg the drives.

With the 2200 it only takes one HD to act up knock it out. But it normally logs the problem drive.

UPS units can do strange things when batteries go bad. They may give you a warning or not. The reason I have opted for the higher end units. At least they do load test on a routine basis and report if there is a problem.

[rickmann08]

Originally Posted by Phoenix32

So which is it?

You don't have time to explain

-OR-

You are available anytime?

hahahahaha

[rickmann08]

Originally Posted by snap-tech

Do you have any disk utils like spinrite? Or winhex?

This is not an heating issue. We can fix this but will be much easier to explain by phone. 425-244-0302.

Snap-tech

Douglas

No I don't have any of those but I will give them a try. If I get a chance I will give you guys a call. Sounds like you are a repair shop? Can you give me a ball park price to fix it? I only ask because if its going to cost me a couple hundred to fix the problem then I will just dump the unit and get another one.

[snap-tech]

Call. Me anytime, no money needed
U

[rickmann08]

Originally Posted by Phoenix32

Now back to the problem;

I stay clear of the Snap OS unit conversations for the most part. I have done a lot of work on the 1000, 4100, and 4000, but as David pointed out, I have never had any of the 2000, 2200, or 12000. And, this was all quite a while back. I have forgotten most of the little idiosyncrasies of these units to be honest.

Now, with that said;

As I said before, most, 98%, of all intermittent problems in electronic devices comes down to power, heat, and timing issues. This only goes to show further as you notice most people in this message thread, including myself, are circling around those exact type problems here. BUT! Keep in mind though, there is another 2% out there.


One of the multitude of reasons I switched away from the SnapOS units to the GOS units was because of the way they handle the drives. Meaning, timing issues, errors, the RAID arrays, recovery, etc etc etc...

Now why did I bring this up? Well, I got to thinking, there is a drive recovery going on here, right? What if?

What if one of the drives is having a timing issue, or an error, or...? Again, the old SnapOS is not real great at handling these type things. It might just cause/force it to go back and do some type of recovery over and over. This could lead to what you are seeing. This also can lead to either or both of overheating and/or power issues since the recovery causes higher use of power and more heat.

Just a thought. That, and since Douglas (snap-tech) does recovery service, makes me think he knows some little idiosyncrasy in this unit that causes this type thng.


Now with that said;

Capacitors and other components do age, and through leakage and other things, start using more power over time. That and the power supplies themselves age. Thus the power suggestions put forth here are still valid.


Lastly, let me put forth one more solution that I am sure is going to go over like a lead balloon.

If you watch on eBay, you can get a GOS Snap unit for pretty cheap these days. Considering the superiority of these units over the SnapOS units, and the cost it may invlove fixing this unit. Maybe consider replacing the unit with a GOS Snap Unit from eBay?

Thanks for the info Pheonix! Yeah I am wondering if it is a power issue. It only started doing this a few months ago and never did it before? Which is why I was wondering if it was a power issue or maybe not getting enough power to it? I had it plugged in to a my UPS but with 2 other computers. So I went out and bought another UPS to see if maybe that was the issue but I have no way of testing it. Of course I would like to fix it but not if its going to cost me a fortune!! I will also check ebay.... that were I got this one

I reformatted the drives yesterday and when I get in later today I will post the log report that I have after I checked it for errors. I received a lot of System yellow flags!!

Thanks everyone for helping fix my issue!!

[rickmann08]

Originally Posted by blue68f100

Been out of town for a week and more activity than in the last 2-3 months.

With the 2 x 500gig HD's I would pretty much bet on the PS. Writing takes more energy than reads. And I'm pretty sure the largest HD's that ever came factory were 2 x 250gigs. I didn't see where he said how mfg the drives.

With the 2200 it only takes one HD to act up knock it out. But it normally logs the problem drive.

UPS units can do strange things when batteries go bad. They may give you a warning or not. The reason I have opted for the higher end units. At least they do load test on a routine basis and report if there is a problem.

Hi Blue, thanks for the info!! Unfortunately I don't know the mfg names of the hard drives.

I am going to post the logs very soon so that everyone can see what I have after I formatted the drive and checked it for errors.

[rickmann08]

Originally Posted by snap-tech

Call. Me anytime, no money needed
U

Thanks!!! I am at my day job right now but once I get in I will give you a ring so that I am in front of the machine.

[rickmann08]

Ok I am attaching a PDF of the server log. This was made after I formatted the drives and then did a repair on the drive (not sure if it did both).

You will see that on page 5 it has some warning errors but I can't tell if they have been fixed or not.

I guess by this I am on OS Server v4.0.860

[snap-tech]

Can u do the following command at the debug page on snap.

De info -i -l -p

Save as html and post it.

Snap-tech

[rickmann08]

Sorry I don't know how I would do that. Your dealing with a designer with a little bit of tech knowledge. I don't even know where the "debug page" is at

To access the control panel I have to do it via a web browser.

Can I do it there?

FYI - I formated the drive the other night and then restored the factory settings and reconfigured it for a mirrored drive. Now I am putting all of my files back on the snap and haven't heard it crash....... YET!

[snap-tech]

Yes web browser,

Http://ip/config/debug

Then type de in -i -l -p

Save as html

[rickmann08]

I will try that as soon as I get in. Sorry for not calling..... been busy trying to fix this while working!

[snap-tech]

You are more than welcome to call me tonight.

It will be easier to explain by phone.

After done and fixed I will take my time and let you all here reading this
Post know what we did to fix. Its not a secret.

Snap-tech

Douglas

[rickmann08]

Originally Posted by snap-tech

You are more than welcome to call me tonight.

It will be easier to explain by phone.

After done and fixed I will take my time and let you all here reading this
Post know what we did to fix. Its not a secret.

Snap-tech

Douglas

Thanks for letting me know. I will try to give you a ring tonight. Sorry for the late reply but I was at a client's shop and we had 1 to many beers Now I am backed logged on my design work

[rickmann08]

Hey Snap-tech
I tried to post the HTMl file but no luck and because the server crashed I have to wait untill it finishes so that I can access to my web files.

Thanks
Rick

[Phoenix32]

Did this ever get solved?