[Asterisk-Users] Motherboard failure with 2 Digium TE405P car ds

Mon Apr 18 12:45:32 MST 2005

I'll have to agree.
Check power supplies under load and see what kind of voltage you are getting
(12/5v legs).

James

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of mattf
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 2:00 PM
To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Motherboard failure with 2 Digium TE405P
car ds

I have 2 temperature probes in the server, they record peak temperature and
neither have gotten within 5 degrees of our peak usage Asterisk servers'
average temperature. Also the current machine has all new components and no
dust buildup or fan blockage.

Our server room is monitored by two independant room temperature sensors
that log temperature every 15 minutes and if it gets over 85F the system
will phone 3 of us every 15 minutes until the temperature goes down or the
system is turned off. We have not had any AC problems since we put the new
AC system in 6 months ago.

We went to this length because we have had several of the things you
mentioned happen to us as well, The server room has a dedicated AC unit, you
need a key to change the thermostat temperature, and our machines have very
good air flow front to back with either very few or no significant heat
traps.

This seems to be a power or motherboard issue that I cannot figure out. Does
anyone have the actual power usage rating of the Digium TE405P card?

Thanks,

MATT---

-----Original Message-----
From: Race Vanderdecken [mailto:asteriskusers at codetyrant.com]
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 2:27 PM
To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion'
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Motherboard failure with 2 Digium TE405P
cards

Just from long term experience it might be a heat problem.

Check the really basic stuff first.

The air flow might not be adequate for the box. Make sure your ribbon
cables and such are not blocking flow.

Two cards might draw too much power, causing the power supply to
overheat causing everything to overheat.

Don't add more fans, put in better/more efficient fans or a better power
supply.

After six months are you getting dust build up on the fans or vents?
More dust traps more heat which cause more power to be needed to run
fans and convert AC/DC which causes more heat, and so on. But you are
reporting a five week breakdown.

Put a recording thermometer in your boxes. It could be the cooling is
not running as expected in the room. Do you own the room?

I once had a room where the janitor would shut the air-conditioning off
at night because he knew nobody was in there. Then he would turn it back
on in the morning before I got there. The machine was dead, but the room
was ice cold. That took three weeks and a lot of IBM repair guys later
to discover. I only found it because I checked the room on a weekend and
it was 90+ in there.

Don't over tax the air-conditioners. I once had a room where the company
insisted on keeping it at 60 because things kept over heating, every
time there was an over heating they pushed the thermostat lower. Turns
out the air-conditioner was turning itself off because it was
overheating from the demand. Then after a few hours off it would
comeback on, cool and overheat itself because it was unable to keep the
room as cold as a meat locker.

Even better, another time someone brought in a portable cooler to keep a
room/closet with a switch in it like an icebox. They vented the heat
from the portable cooler out of the room into the dropped ceiling via a
20 foot exhaust hose. By stuffing the exhaust hose into the plenum the
hose was accidentally pointed at the thermostat of the HVAC thermostat
for the entire office. So with 90+ degree air pointed at the office HVAC
thermostat the office HVAC thought it was 90 inside and kept the place
so cold we could barely work there during the winter.

Moral of the story, sometimes it ain't anything you are doing.

Race "the Tyrant" Vanderdecken

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of mattf
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 10:35 AM
To: 'asterisk-users at lists.digium.com'
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Motherboard failure with 2 Digium TE405P cards

Hello,

I have spend a long time trying to figure out exactly what is the
problem
with one of my Asterisk servers, it is the only one at any of our
locations
that has two Digium quad T1 cards in it with 7 T1s connected to it. Most
of
the rest of our Asterisk servers run identical hardware except that they
only have a single TE405P board in them. Here's what seems to happen to
this
system starting 6 months ago:

Take brand new Asus motherboard with P4 processor, 2GB RAM, SATA or SCSI
drives and two TE405P Digium quad T1 boards. Hook up one local and one
long
distance T1, hook up 4 crossover PRIs to other telco equipment, hook up
one
channelbank.

The system will run perfectly for about 5 weeks, then randomly the
channel
bank users will notice a weird audio cracking sound and the system will
crash. Upon investigation the second TE405P card will have it's lights
all
off and on reboot they will not go back on again. After frantically
switching the PCI slot that the lights-out card was in to a free slot
the
card works again and everything is happy again, but now no digium card
will
work in the other slot again. Another 5 weeks or so passes and again one
of
the Digium quad cards stops working. At this point I swap out the entire
system(including quad cards) with another system that has been running
for 6
months with no problem and put the malfunctioning system in production
with
a single quad card(which now has been running fine 4 months later) and
after
6 weeks it happens to the new system. The whole process repeats itself
and I
am now on my 3rd set of completely different components serving in this
role(even with different brands of components) and my first PCI slot
just
failed last week. We need to have the capability to handle 7 T1s on this
machine and it is not over-heated or overloaded from a system load
standpoint. We also have $200 550W Enermax power supplies in these
servers
that have never failed us before.

So here's the question, do two Digium TE405P boards draw too much power
or
do something else that would harm a brand new motherboard over time?

Does anyone else out there run two quad board in production? if so what
hardware do you use?

I'm just looking for some user feedback before I contact Digium hardware
support on this.

Thanks,

MATT---
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