Tom's Diary

01:55 PM: While syncing the music drives, per the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   effort, one of my external USB hard drives would not completely power up when connected to the computer through my Adaptec USB 2.o hub.  However, my other drives, through the same port, powered up just fine.  The bad one would spin up, but the data / busy light repeatedly blinks on and off, in a slow, rhythmic pattern.  Thus, this drive never becomes visible in Windows Explorer, and in fact, does not even appear on the Computer Management console (Windows XP).

Inside the external drive enclosure box, I have a Seagate ST3250620A hard drive, which I purchased brand new in early 2007.  I believe this drive has a five year warranty.  But not used to seeing Seagate drives fail so quickly, I tried different power supplies and cables, and I swapped out the USB-to-IDE bridge board in the enclosure.  Unfortunately, none of these remedies solved the problem.  So it does appear that after only three years, the hard drive itself has gone bad.

This leaves me with just five properly-functioning and up-to-date music drives.  But I get nervous when this number falls below six.  So I’ll order more external drives presently, per the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project, as well as a replacement drive (under warranty) from Seagate for this enclosure.

A corollary issue is that while investigating the problem with the 250 GB external drive described above, I also discovered that one of my 200 GB drives (also a Seagate, model #ST3200822A) won’t fully power up.  So I’ll investigate warranty service for both these units.

I’ll track this issue until I have six working and current music drives once again.  See the attached comments for updates on my progress with this.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30

10:40 PM: While syncing [Emmy]‘s iPod earlier, I received numerous synchronization errors and periodic USB connections going up and down.  I’ve seen this occasionally over the past couple months.  But it never got so bad as to prevent an uninterrupted iPod sync.   Watching the lights on my Adaptec USB hub, I noticed occasional loss of power to the hub that coincided with the dropped connections.  I observed this same behavior several years back and to resolve it then, I replaced the power supply to the hub.  This is an IT AC adapter, made by FRIWO company.  It outputs 5 volts at 5 amps.  I replaced it with one that provides 5 volts at 6 amps.  All seems to be well so far.  We once again have good and solid power to the hub and hopefully now, we can finally sync [Emmy]‘s iPod.

You know, I’ve experienced way more failures with these IT grade switching power supplies than with the traditional, transformer-based linear supplies.  True, the switching supplies are more efficient.  But in my experience, this energy savings is way offset by their higher failure rates.  Okay, I’ll take my gripe hat off now. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2009-12-20

03:00 AM: On my way to bed, I turned on my Sangean Internet radio to listen to KYW News Radio in Philadelphia.  However, getting the list of stations to choose from returned an obscure internal error.  To recover from that, I had to unplug the radio from power, wait a minute, and plug it back in.  Even then, I could not connect.  Then, I used the “Scan for Networks” feature to see if the radio was “seeing” my wireless network.  It was not, and said, “No networks found.” 

So then, I pulled out a wireless laptop, and encountered the same problem.  Now, I suspected the access point — it’s a Bountiful WiFi router.

Inspection of the router revealed that the lights on it looked dimmer than normal.  So on a hunch, I replaced the power supply adapter; I have three spares around.  That brightened up the lights again to normal levels, and restored wireless access. 

Since I keep my computers and equipment up and running all the time, I guess things do wear out after a while.    At least this time however, the router itself was okay.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-12

05:20 PM: One blue LED string failed today.  The light output shrunk; they got dimmer and dimmer. Indeed, part of the   Christmas lighting, 2009 effort,  is the periodic repair of failed strings, since I haven’t a big enough bank account to just buy new every time one goes bad. 

I checked all bulbs and they appear to be fine. The problem seems to be in the string itself therefore, and not the bulbs, though it could be that several bulbs are de-generating at the same rate and thus, replacing only one at a time would not appreciably brighten the string back up to its normal levels. 

This string contains two series legs of lights; only one is dim, while those in the other glow at full brightness.  I thought I’d take a bulb from the good leg, and plug it into each socket in the bad side.  But I discovered that the polarity of the bulbs in the good leg is reversed from that in the bad.  So the bulbs are not interchangeable across legs; at least, not in this particular LED light set.  LEDs, unlike incandescent bulbs, are polarity-sensitive.  Plus, they’re easily damaged by applying backward voltage at full power.  I learned this the hard way last year, when I blew out all the bulbs in a “now-deceased” LED set from the   Christmas lighting, 2008   project.

Indeed, many of these strings have series resisters.  So I got excited while recalling this, because in such a string, the resister going bad would cause this same, dimming behavior.  I reasoned that replacing the resister would fix them.  However, this particular string has no visible resisters, unless they’re in the plug, or unless the wire itself serves the same current-limiting function. 

Investigating further.  Stand by.

06:00 PM: Found out that one or more of the light bulbs in this string have built-in resisters.  Appears to be a 20-ohm.  However, not all the bulbs have these however, which further complicates the repair of these strings. 

06:30 PM: I started pulling bulbs and checking them by running them individually from my bench power supply (set max current to 50 MA, and the output voltage to around two volts).  I got three or four bulbs into the bad leg when I found the two bad ones.  They did glow a little.  That is, they weren’t completely burned out.  But their light output, as well as their current draw, was much lower than other bulbs in the string.  It turns out that changing these solved the problem, and both legs of the string are again glowing at equal, and full brightness.   Now, we’re ready for Santa to come down the chimney. 

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Christmas lighting, 2009
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-30

The CMOS battery in my Compaq R-3000 laptop computer (2004 vintage) is dead This means that the system forgets the BIOS configuration settings each time you turn it off. So, I am eager to replace this battery.  I’ll track this effort in the comments below.

Please note that this is not the same computer as the Compaq 3000 laptop, that I describe   here,   and whose battery also went dead.  Both the 3000 and the R-3000 computers require new CMOS batteries.

Tom Hesley

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• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-24

The CMOS battery in my Compaq 3000 laptop computer is dead  This means that the system forgets the BIOS configuration settings each time you turn it off.  So, I am eager to replace this battery. 

However, I’ve never done this before in a laptop computer.  So I thought I’d track the effort here so that others might learn as well, from my learning. 

Please note that this is not the same computer as the Compaq R-3000 laptop, that I describe   here,   and whose battery also went dead.  Both the 3000 and the R-3000 computers require new CMOS batteries.  Just my luck, ‘eh?

I’ll work this one as time permits.  So, do stand by. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-24

Today’s Chores

• Dispensing Mom’s meds
• Showering
• Cat litter duty
• Checking Mom’s prescription inventory.  She has enough to cover the next week at any rate.

Log

04:50 AM:  I woke up about an hour ago, way earlier than usual, partly because [Emmy] is sharing my bedroom now and likes the temperature warmer than do I.  The other part was that I went to bed early last night; sleepy from too many carbs I suspect.  Anyway, I’ve been revising and categorizing posts since around 4:00 AM.  But I feel sleepy again so I think I’ll head back to bed for a few more hours.  Hopefully I’ll be able to fall back to sleep.

09:50 AM: I’m up for the day now. 

09:55 AM: Today, we turn on all the Christmas lights for the first time, per the   Christmas lighting, 2009   project.  So I’ll work outside to connect up all strings to main power.  Then I must put away the tools used on the    wheelchair ramp project,  and sweep away all the sawdust from the porch from where I was cutting and sanding last week. 

02:00 PM: All lights connected and looking good, per the   Christmas lighting, 2009   project. 

03:20 PM: Installed the ramp barriers, per the   wheelchair ramp project.

05:00 PM: Today, we got a late   lunch from Sheetz.

06:55 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless.

07:00 PM: [Emmy] is listening to the Penguins game, the pre-game show starting right now.  I haven’t decided how I will occupy my evening.  We were going to attend the tree lighting ceremony in Bellwood.  But it’s raining out pretty steadily, and neither of us felt like standing out in that for a couple hours.  So, I thanked sister Jojo for the invitation to go with her, but declined as graciously as I could muster. 

07:30 PM: Worked the   [Emmy's] speakers hum   problem.  Looks like this humming has been eliminated via the replacement of a faulty capacitor.   She’ll be happy about that. 

09:13 PM: The Penguins are losing after two periods.  So I’ll let [Emmy] listen to the rest of the game by herself, and just blog over here in the office for a while.

10:30 PM: The Penguins won against the Florida Panthers, 3 to 2. 

12:15 AM: [Emmy], Mom, and I hung out in the kitchen for the last hour and a half; Mom, busy making a collage of family pictures from years gone by.  She also went through our Christmas garland and picked out the good pieces while pitching those that had rusted through.  I’ll put this up this week, once she locates the red ribbons that go on each end of it.

12:20 AM: Well, time once again for bed.  So take care, and I’ll see you right back here later today.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Diary Revisions: 2009-11-23
• Mom’s Status: 2009-11-23
• Sheetz Lunch: 2009-11-23

08:40 PM: [Emmy] brought pair of Harman / Kardon powered computer speakers that hum excessively, with a pretty pure-sounding 120 hertz tone. She said that one afternoon a couple weeks ago, they made this loud crackling and snapping noise, and from that point on, they hummed loudly.  Investigating…  Details of the investigation supplied in the attached comments below. 

Tom Hesley

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• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-22
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-23
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This year, as well as last, the color scheme with which we’ll decorate the outside of our house and around the property, will be deep and vibrant blues and whites.  As I put up each piece of the show, I’ll document the effort in the comments section of this post.

Tom Hesley

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• Christmas Lighting: 2010
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10:00 AM: Replaced the hard disk in the drive that failed last night at the   DJ Wedding Reception Gig.  Copying the music library to it now.

05:30 PM: The copying of the music library to the new hard drive is finished.

07:00 PM: The external hard drive with the new drive I just installed still exhibits the same behavior as observed last night at the DJ Wedding Reception Gig.  That behavior was that when turned on, the drive never completes the power-up sequence.  It spins up just so far, then shuts down and repeats the spin-up again and again.  It appears therefore, that the electronics in the drive enclosure have failed, and not the drive itself. So, I’ll no longer take this enclosure out on gigs.  It seems that I have two good hard drives with complete copies of the music library on each.

09:00 PM: The electronics I swapped was the USB to IDE bridge board.  However, there are other electronics in the case that have the power switch, the USB connector, and other functions.  Since I’ve already tried swapping the USB to IDE bridge without success, I tried swapping the whole case; I took the new Seagate 250 GB drive I populated earlier today, and put it in the case for a 200 GB drive that I’m no longer using.  So far, the 250 GB drive is working well, and I’ve tried powering it up and down several times.  It started correctly every time.  So, I’d say that this problem is fixed; I’ll scavenge the good parts I can from the defective case and throw it out. 

12:30 AM: I put the original 250 GB drive (the one that acted flaky last night) into another old 200 GB case.  It works great. So this project is complete, and successfully too. 

Tom

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