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External hard drive (temporarily) kills PC?
by Srdjan Todorovic 07 Feb '13

07 Feb '13

Hi all, I just got my brand new Western Digital Elements external hard drive today, and it seems to like killing my PC. I plugged in the power from the supplied power brick, hooked up the USB and BOOM!, usb keyboard and mouse die, as does X, as does whatever music I was playing. I have to press the reset button on the PC. It keeps doing that if the external hard drive is powered up and you are connecting. I've booted up now with the USB connected and then plugging in the power, and seems fine. Can anyone please suggest what's wrong and how to fix it? Thanks, Srdjan

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Re: [ALUG] two weeks or so, and it dies again!
by Peter Alcibiades 06 Feb '13

06 Feb '13

On Tuesday 05 February 2013 08:18:20 nev young wrote: > On 04/02/13 08:05, Peter Alcibiades wrote: > > Can you think of anything else to try? > > > I did have something similar a few years back and it turned out to be > the northbridge* chip overheating. > There was no sensor for that chip but just looking at the board I could > see some discolouration round there and on the reverse of the main board. > > I fitted a small fan to keep it cool and it's been fine ever since > though a little nosier. > > > * or is it southbridge. > Any how it's a chip on the main board with a heat sink stuck to it. > > Nev > > > > Thanks for this, yes,it does seem like a plausible explanation - and I've found a few northbridge coolers on Amazon, including a flower passive one from Zalman, quite well rated, and a wonderful heatpipe one with a fan in it. Quite large, have to check if it will fit. Quiet PC carries this as their sole northbridge cooler. Apparently soutbridge is not a problem as its heat output is very low. So thanks, will have a go. Al

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Re: [ALUG] two weeks or so, and it dies again!
by Peter Alcibiades 06 Feb '13

06 Feb '13

On Wednesday 06 February 2013 09:39:23 you wrote: > On Tuesday 05 February 2013 08:18:20 nev young wrote: > > On 04/02/13 08:05, Peter Alcibiades wrote: > > > Can you think of anything else to try? > > > > > I did have something similar a few years back and it turned out to be > > the northbridge* chip overheating. > > There was no sensor for that chip but just looking at the board I could > > see some discolouration round there and on the reverse of the main board. > > > > I fitted a small fan to keep it cool and it's been fine ever since > > though a little nosier. > > > > > > * or is it southbridge. > > Any how it's a chip on the main board with a heat sink stuck to it. > > > > Nev > > > > > > > > > Thanks for this, yes,it does seem like a plausible explanation - and I've found a few northbridge coolers on Amazon, including a flower passive one from Zalman, quite well rated, and a wonderful heatpipe one with a fan in it. Quite large, have to check if it will fit. Quiet PC carries this as their sole northbridge cooler. > > Apparently soutbridge is not a problem as its heat output is very low. > > So thanks, will have a go. > > Al >

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two weeks or so, and it dies again!
by Peter Alcibiades 05 Feb '13

05 Feb '13

This is weird and part of the ongoing power-down problem. It goes two weeks continuously. Then this morning as I send an email, down it goes. On-off switch has no effect. Change the leads, still no effect. Leave it for a half hour, come back and it starts perfectly. This has to be some sort of heat reset, doesn't it? But the thing I cannot understand is why it should just suddenly happen. gkrell shows cpu temps of 35. The bios at startup showed a bit over 40. I did have a resistor from quiet pc to slow down main fan speed, which has been fine for a couple of years now, but on the offchance I removed that. However, given the latest crash it cannot really be that. Looks like there is an i5 in the future of this case, which is a pain and not cheap either - by the time we get new board, new processor, and a proper shuriken cooler.... Can you think of anything else to try? Al

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Anyone using Pluma?
by Anthony Anson 02 Feb '13

02 Feb '13

Decided to speelchuck a Pluma plain text document and it kept highlighting words like didn't, couldn't, wouldn't and so-on, even though the word was listed in the replacement choices, so I told it to 'replace' out of sheer devilment (possibly). So, it replaced didn't with didn't't and couldn't with couldn't't and wouldn't with wouldn't't. Is this a 'feature' of Pluma, or has my installation got its knickers in a twist? I might just remove Pluma and substitute Gedit... -- Tony

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Collecting SNMP traps and processing them
by Mark Rogers 01 Feb '13

01 Feb '13

Any SNMP experts here? I need to collect SNMP traps, process them (basic string manipulation stuff), append them to a log file and periodically upload that log file to an FTP server. I've never done any work with SNMP on Linux but this seems like it should be trivial. Net-SNMP/snmptrapd looks like a good starting point but I'd appreciate comment from anyone who's used it (or done something similar a different way). (From experience, messages will be received in bursts and I therefore need to be able to batch them up before sending via FTP. The goal will be to have data uploaded via FTP every minute (if there's something to report). I'm looking to replace a Windows system which is massively more complicated than I think it needs to be.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Centos - anyone use it?
by James Freer 31 Jan '13

31 Jan '13

Just out of interest i was wondering if many folk on here use Centos. I've decided now to stop using *buntu after 5 years. I've had a few gripes with *buntu in the past and two bugs in xubuntu i found in (im)Precise - time for a change. Besides that i've been wondering why some packages are being left out - apparently dpkg have changed their description fields and if the author doesn't amend they are left out. *buntu seem to be going on a downhill slide in lots of areas and before unity. james

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Bit off topic
by Anthony Anson 31 Jan '13

31 Jan '13

I have several chargers with different rates of delivery: has anyone any idea where I should start looking for data relating to recharging NiCad and Nion batteries? Like: Output of charger Time to charge per mA capacity of each type of battery Or a way to calculate time, allowing for (expected) losses in the process. No, I'mnot being (very) lazy. On this GPRS connection a thorough websearch is time-consuming, and, at £15 per Gig. expensive. -- Tony

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Thunderguts
by Anthony Anson 31 Jan '13

31 Jan '13

Not sure if my reply to Chris Walker was sent - tried twice. Thunderwotsit wouldn't send to the 'Sent' folder, and the message remained on screen. May be due to the Vogonfone connection, which may be dropping out. -- Tony

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st February.
by Viperfang 29 Jan '13

29 Jan '13

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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