Sudden Reboots

[Sean Farley]

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004, Jim Durham wrote:

> I have had this problem now with at least 3 FreeBSD servers over a
> period of about 2 years. I had put it down to some hardware problem
> but it seems to be too much of a coincidence with 3 different machines
> doing the same thing.

I had sudden reboots over a period of two years.  Recently, they started
happening more often.  It turned out that the capacitors had gone bad.

Capacitors from about two to three years ago used a poor formula.  This
site has information about it:  http://www.badcaps.net/.

The interesting thing for me was that the capacitors did not show any
signs for about two years.  They looked like they had flat tops without
leaking.  I think they may have spilled their guts when, I turned the
computer off for about a week for a vacation.  They must have missed
me.  :)

In case the power supplies are over-taxed, here is an on-line
calculator:  http://takaman.jp/D/index.html?english.

Sean
-----------------------
sean-freebsd at farley.org