[nfbcs] Computer Shutting off During the Night

Mon Feb 22 18:54:47 UTC 2016

I'll admit that I have no idea why Dell did that but you don't have to 
left-right reverse a computer to make it impossible for an end-user to 
replace the motherboard. There are far less drastic things you can do 
than that. All you have to do is make the slots and ports not line up 
with a standard case and you won't be able to swap out the motherboard 
yourself. Well, you'd have to buy the replacement mobo from Dell. Either 
that or some company would have to start making compatible mobos hoping 
to tap into the Dell mobo replacement market. They could do that anyway 
even for a left-right reversed computer.

I am sitting here next to one of those left-right reversed Dells. It's 
my test machine. When I want to experiment with something, I try it on 
the left-right reversed machine instead of risking my workstation. I 
googled for a replacement motherboard for it and I see there are plenty 
of people selling refurbished motherboards. That makes sense. By now 
there are probably eleventy gazillion old Dell's that have been sent off 
to be recycled even though they have perfectly good mobos.

Boy, that left-right reverse thing sure was a PITA. I'll bet Dell heard 
it about that. We had so many workstations under desks and stuff where 
you could open it up without moving it or at worst by sliding it out 
from under the desk. I'd have asked my boss to cancel the order had I 
known that they were left-right reversed.

On 02/22/2016 10:40 AM, Bryan Schulz via nfbcs wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm not a dell fan just because of the proprietary design for one.
> When you look at the back of the tower, the last dell I saw had the ports on
> the right (reversed) so you're forced to buy dell parts.
> Bryan
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G Heim via
> nfbcs
> Sent: Monday, February 22, 2016 8:04 AM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Cc: John G Heim
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Shutting off During the Night
>
> Is this thing still under warranty? Personally, I'd just replace it. If
> you want to try to salvage the hard drive and stuff, maybe you could do
> that. But what is probably going to happen is that you are going to pay
> to have it checked out and then you are going to have to replace it anyway.
>
> I am responsible for over 100 Dell workstations and it's amazing to me
> how quickly and easily a Dell tech can replace a power supply or even a
> mother board. But it's not cost effective unless the machine is under
> warranty. I've never tried to buy parts from Dell. If you could buy a
> power supply or a mother board from Dell, you probably could replace
> even those parts yourself. Replacing a hard drive or memory sticks is
> trivial and you don't need Dell parts for that.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 02/21/2016 10:36 PM, Peter Donahue via nfbcs wrote:
>> Good evening everyone,
>>
>> 	This is a Dell computer running Windows 7 Home Premium. If a setting
>> was changed to cause this behavior it may have occurred the last time
>> Windows was updated. My wife tried turning it back on this morning without
>> success. It was after I unplugged it from the surge protector and plugged
> it
>> back in again that the machine came back on and booted up without trouble.
>> All other devices plugged in to this same  surge protector are uneffected
> by
>> whatever is causing this issue. It has been running flawlessly all day
> long.
>> Let's see what tomorrow brings. Here's hoping it will run alright until a
>> technician comes on Friday to help us figure this out in addition to
> helping
>> us troubleshoot our laptop and assist us with networking our iDevices to
> our
>> NAS drives. Let this teach us to take full advantage of all our iDevices
>> have to offer so when crises like this arise we won't be without access to
>> our data and life can go on as usual. All the best.
>>
>> Peter Donahue who is writing this note on the computer that likes to shut
>> itself off at or around 6:00 a.m.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Christopher
>> Chaltain via nfbcs
>> Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2016 9:55 PM
>> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
>> Cc: Christopher Chaltain
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Shutting off During the Night
>>
>> Of course, this depends on factors such as how long you have your system
>> powered off and what other power settings you have set.
>>
>> Another option maybe to suspend or hibernate the system when you're done
>> using it for the day or after it's been left idle for a while. I didn't
>> catch what kind of a computer this is or what operating system it's
> running,
>> but you should find these in your power settings. This means you won't be
>> able to do backups or downloads while it's idle, but it'll snap right back
>> to where you left it with just a touch of the keyboard.
>> This is what I do, and I find it to be a reasonable compromise.
>>
>> On 21/02/16 19:05, Mike and Jenna via nfbcs wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>>    From everything I learned in school you are using less power buy
>>> living your computer on. It takes more power to start a computer from a
>> cold boot.
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jude
>>> DaShiell via nfbcs
>>> Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2016 12:23 PM
>>> To: Nicole Torcolini via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>> Cc: Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at panix.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Shutting off During the Night
>>>
>>> Some people use nighttime hours to download podcasts and download then
>>> seed bittorrents and do updates.
>>>
>>> On Sun, 21 Feb 2016, Nicole Torcolini via nfbcs wrote:
>>>
>>>> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 12:11:42
>>>> From: Nicole Torcolini via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Cc: Nicole Torcolini <ntorcolini at wavecable.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Shutting off During the Night
>>>>
>>>> Okay, this is not the answer, so you may stop reading if you do not
>>>> want to hear what I have to say. Why do you need the computer running
>>>> 24-7? Unless you produce your own electricity, you are probably
>>>> driving your energy bill up. Also, unless either you have your own
>>>> source of renewable energy or your energy program uses renewable
>>>> energy, you are adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John G.
>>>> Heim via nfbcs
>>>> Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2016 8:04 AM
>>>> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
>>>> Cc: John G. Heim
>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer Shutting off During the Night
>>>>
>>>> I nominate over heating as a prime candidate. Points against it are
>>>> that it is occuring in the middle of the night when the computer is
>>>> not being used and when the environment is probably at it's coolest.
>>>> Is the machine doing anything in the middle of the night? Heavy backups?
>>>> Downloading updates?
>>>>
>>>> I would open it up and clean it out.  Especially make sure the fans
>>>> aren't blocked by dust anddog hair.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 02/21/2016 09:38 AM, Peter Donahue via nfbcs wrote:
>>>>> Good morning everyone,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                     We're some of those folks that like to keep at
>>>>> least one computer running 24/7. Until last week this hasn't been a
>>>>> problem. Several mornings last week including this morning we came
>>>>> down stairs to find that Mary's computer had shut itself off during
>>>>> the night. It was necessary to unplug the power adapter and plug it
>>>>> back in again to restart her PC. Once the machine was back on and
>>>>> successfully rebooted everything was fine. It runs flawlessly.
>>>>> Someone suggested that the surge protector to which this machine is
>>> connected was doing its job protecting it from being fried.
>>>> These
>>>>> shut-downs occurred three times during the past week. Otherwise
>>>>> we've been able to run the computer overnight without problems. We
>>>>> may just have to shut it down manually before we go to bed until a
>>>>> technician can check it out. Someone is supposed to come on Friday
>>>>> to troubleshoot  this issue
>>>> along
>>>>> with some issues with some of our other devices. I've heard of
>>>>> computers shutting down by themselves unexpectedly so this is not
>>>>> new to me. I'd be curious to know if there are any settings I can
>>>>> check that may be responsible for this behavior. Any suggestions
>>>>> will be
>>> appreciated.
>>>>>
>>>>> Peter Donahue
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> ble.co
>>>> m
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>> --
>> Christopher (CJ)
>> chaltain at Gmail
>>
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