Power Supply Failures

[Ayman Altounji]

01 Feb 2001.

Good Evening All,

To get the facts right as of date :
- check the power supply revision -
there is a label on the power supply (some of you may have to remove the
power supply to read the label) that shows the revision code (REV 0?)
- the revision code should read '0' (zero) followed by either a number or an
alphabet. I could not differentiate between the number 1 and alphabet i.
- if the alphabets are F, G, H or I, then you probably have an "affected" power
supply (do not read 'defective')
- the power supplies that are not in the "affected" list should/must read revision
02 (zero two) or higher.

The above information is from 'Compaq'. I have found their 'Support Centre' to
be very helpful, have you guys/gals tried the same?

I hope the above info is of assistance.

Best of Luck ! :)

[Ayman Altounji]

Correct - there are some earlier power supplies that have been failing a bit more than normal. It's best to call this issue into support and confirm what power supply you have. They can then arrange a replacment right there - if needed.

[Ayman Altounji]

I've got a blown Rev. 02 here. It took a bit longer than the other PUS that was a Rev. 0G.

[Ayman Altounji]

In response to Ron G (Compaq). These PSU's failing a "bit" more than usual. This appears to underestimate the situation. 100% of the ML350 servers we have purchased have failed within 2 months. In all cases the PSU gave up. In one case with an explosion loud enough to heard throughout the building. Compaq engineers appear to be unware of the seriousness of this problem. In one instance replacement PSU's blew immediately. The fourth PSU eventually held stable. (But for how long?) I work for a company supporting a number of different customers who are now asking us how we can prevent a recurrence of the situation. In all cases the servers were down for at least 12 hours resulting in much gnashing of teeth.
Will Compaq resolve this situation and start dishing out helpful advice to pass onto customers, or heaven forbid "compensation".

[Ayman Altounji]

I also had the same problem with more bad power supplies. It went down after 1 months and after three daily. COMPAQ relaced it, but the problem is same. In addition in the server are two EICON ISDN cards - because of RAS -, which have consumption ~8A!
Can somebody help me?

Csaba K?rti EDS

[Ayman Altounji]

Make sure to replace the power supply with SPS# 163346-001 of rev 5 or 5P.

[Ayman Altounji]

Our ML350 PSU started failing intermittently yesterday, our Compaq dealer would not ship us the replacement PSU until we had run the diagnostics... which wasted a day!!! We are paying for priority postage $85 and for engineers time at $160/hr (not allowed to do it ourselves) to fit it over the weekend. It is Revision 0I or 01, had I known it was a defective, I mean affected part I may have replaced it beforehand, or at least had a spare on hand.

[Ayman Altounji]

Yes, my power supply has also gone down.

[Ayman Altounji]

I am having problems also. We have 40 servers. Within 4 months 7 power supplies failed. Compaq sent me replacement rev 5 supplies. All my supplies were Rev 1 or lower. Since the new supplies have gone in we have had 2 more fail. My customer is not happy. I hope this can be resolved soon.

[Ayman Altounji]

This is no coincidence. We are running 60 ML350's and over the last year have lost more than half the power supplies. Once this became an issue Compaq replaced all the power supplies in the remaining servers. This has unfortunatly not fixed the problem and we have had four more die in the last month. We now keep a stock of spares so we can get our sites up quicker and would suggest you do the same.