Exploding Netvistas!Author: jawapro
Date: Thu 16/08/2007 11:11 AM
I have recently been scavanging a few old computers from work that were bound for the rubbish skip outside.
Now, we've thrown a lot of old junk away since I've been here - but these computers convinced me to save them.
They are IBM netvista workstations. And they dont look like much, but the inside of the case is very well designed, and easy to work on. And after pulling apart a heap of old Acers that are the opposite, I liked these enough to save 3 of them (I missed the very first one I came accross).
Well, I offered one to Mr Turkeybrain as part of a deal (will explain shortly) and I was setting it up for him the other night.
I added some harddrives, connected the power, turned it on, and waited.
Everything started fine. The BIOS Post screen came up on the monitor, everything was going well.
Then the PC exploded.
Well - maybe that's a little over the top. But one of the barrel shaped things on the motherboard (you can see my Uni Degree shinning through here) went POP and some smoke or gas or whatever came out.
So I pulled the power quick-smart, and waited to see what would happen.
Well, no fire or anything, so eventually I turned it back on and hid behind a chair in case it blew up again. But it didnt. In fact, it seemed quite happy, other than the small fact that it couldnt detect any IDE harddrives or Optical Drives. Which, of course, makes it completely useless.
So whatever the barrel thing was (TurkeyBrain called it a capacitor) it must have something to do with the IDE controller.
And although this is the only one I've seen explode (the case was off at the time) it's the third computer I've seen that cant find the IDE drives. One was my old Mara server (had previously been my gamming machine) and the other was a PC I'd built for my cousin.
And no, there is no factor that connects all 3 computers. One blew up in Devonport, one in Exeter, and one in Hobart. No pieces were the same. And I was only actually there when 2 of the 3 died. And the old server (Mara) had been working fine for months, until one day it wouldnt boot up.
So I dont know what caused all this in the other PCs - or this one. But I've got a dead motherboard now, so I'm going to work out what to do with that.
But I still have two Netvistas to get going. One I'll give to TurkeyBrain.
Why?
Well - I finally managed to talk Turkeybrain into selling me his server case (see photo).
After the last Axon LAN I went to, I decided I wanted to make myself a new server, and I wanted to do some serious case modding (adding stuff, making it cooler) and I wanted to base it on a fat case - exactly like the one Turkey bought at an auction a while back.
He still hasnt managed to get into the case (it's locked) and I eventually convinced him to sell it to me.
He gets to keep the harddrives inside the server, gets a netvista (if they dont all explode) and an undisclosed amount of cash as well.
And in return I get a very awesome case, just ready to be case modded.
Assuming I can get a locksmith to open the lock...
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