It was the power supply
31 Dec 2005Yeah. Oh yeah. Everything else works fine, but the brand-name power supply (AOpen) had to keel over and die. Admittedly, it was only a 235W in a system with two optical drives, two hard drives, and a 1.8GHz processor with 768MB of RAM (I just kept adding things to it without really thinking about power til yesterday, when the type of crash/hang I kept getting struck me as being a classic power problem), but… a web-cam?!
That’s ridiculous. But true.
Anyway, I’m planning on violating (yet again — serial offender, here) the “No user-serviceable parts” sticker on the now-dead power supply so I can fix it to use it in another system. I swapped it out for some generic Happy Star Lucky Fortune Power thing (yeah, the name is parodic… it mightn’t have to be, though!) I had lying around — only 250 watts, mind — and everything turned back on again.
Well, kinda. The web-cam still doesn’t work on this machine, but I’m inclined to think that’s Linux (kernel-level/modprobe crap) being screwy, and not hardware particularly. Might be power again, but I doubt it.
And the web-cam is fine. I tested it on a Windows box and was delighted with the rather-un-crappy quality of it. Which you’d kinda expect seeing as it does 1.3MP still images, but I digress. Fixed-focus, but the exposure auto-balance is pretty decent, so I’m happy. Good exposure capabilities are what make crappy cameras less crappy.
As for the hub-that-wasn’t-a-switch, well… it’s going back this afternoon, if the place is open. They open IT-shop-like hours (i.e. open late, close later :P), so I’ll head down after midday. Hopefully I can just get a refund on the 3Com hub, because I don’t really need a new switch after all (though I want one that’s more solid + doesn’t make squealing noises incessantly!).
Oh, yeah, pictures. Here’s the 3Com hub on the inside. Because I had to unplug the fans, which were grinding annoyingly (barely spinning), and because I make it a habit to open up any bit of second hand gear to check for… dust, insects, anthrax. Whatever. The real reason is geekery.
Note howit’s designed to readily accommodate 24 ports. The 6 port model, reputedly, also has the same design, though presumably you’d need different types of chips there (divide 12 by three then try and multiply by a whole number to get 6… you can’t). Anyway, it’s after 12… I’m off!