Rebooting: Power cycle vs. switch

[dosborne]

Also had a friend who moved a bunch of PCs to a different floor at his office, a long time ago, many of them had been running for years.

Was performing an inventory verification for a government agency back in the '90s. Traced a wire back to a blank wall. Renovation guys had sealed a server behind drywall a couple of years earlier. It was still operational, just had to cut it out of the wall for access ,

 

[RMerlin]

Was performing an inventory verification for a government agency back in the '90s. Traced a wire back to a blank wall. Renovation guys had sealed a server behind drywall a couple of years earlier. It was still operational, just had to cut it out of the wall for access ,

That also happened with a local university (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal). They walled in the Sun server that hosted student-run services (my first Internet access actually came through that very server, a friend who was a student but didn't need it shared his access with me). Someone eventually located the forgotten server behind that wall.

 

[dosborne]

Just goes to show you how well the old Sun, HP, Novell NetWare , etc server were that they could literally run for years, under less than ideal conditions. My windows laptop and PC can barely go a week without a BSOD.

 

[System Error Message]

So I understand what you are saying, A.power cycling does no harm and in fact can be a good way to drain everything and restart afresh.B.the best way to do it is by pulling the plug out of the wall socket?

not really, what im saying is that in the case of the device freezing (usually caused by capacitance) is the reason to power cycle. It does no harm when you do not have chemical based capacitors as those are more vulnerable to bigger power changes than solid ones, but PSUs use them as they're the cheapest way to get a larger capacitance. chemical capacitors hate big changes so they will wear out faster if you continously drain them from full to empty and vice versa, otherwise it doesnt harm anything. Sadly many networking devices arent grounded which is a problem as capacitance can build up in any conductor, even the board's wiring.

 

[royarcher]

not really, what im saying is that in the case of the device freezing (usually caused by capacitance) is the reason to power cycle. It does no harm when you do not have chemical based capacitors as those are more vulnerable to bigger power changes than solid ones, but PSUs use them as they're the cheapest way to get a larger capacitance. chemical capacitors hate big changes so they will wear out faster if you continously drain them from full to empty and vice versa, otherwise it doesnt harm anything. Sadly many networking devices arent grounded which is a problem as capacitance can build up in any conductor, even the board's wiring.

Ok I think I understand what you are saying, to the best of my capacity,to break it down only power cycle when you really need to

 

[System Error Message]

Ok I think I understand what you are saying, to the best of my capacity,to break it down only power cycle when you really need to

yup. Or when you go off on holiday for a week as the power savings outweighs the couple of large changes.

 

[royarcher]

G

yup. Or when you go off on holiday for a week as the power savings outweighs the couple of large changes.

Got ya thanks