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  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@dog.topology.org>
  To  : Richard Sharpe <sharpe@ns.aus.com>
  Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 01:28:53 +1030

Re: Is your data held hostage by a one dollar fan?

On Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 11:41:09PM +1000, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> 
> So, when someone asks you to pay a little more for a fancy hot-swap
> canisters with a nice big fan on the back and snazzy little carriers that
> the drives mount in, think carefully about it.  Especially if you want them
> to work continuously for two or more years.
> 
> Caveat emptor.


Richard,

I can second that - not that I'm expecting a vote to be taken.
But I'm continually finding that fans a a real, real problem.
In one machine I bought a couple of years ago, everything was
excellent, except that the machine (emu) was the noisiest PC I've every heard.
I couldn't get to sleep at night. The fan in the pwoer supply finally gave
up and the power supply actually made a little explosion and could not
be revived.
So I got a new pwoer supply which was fine.

But then it was so quiet, I noticed the little fan on the video card
was making a huge racket. It still does if I re-boot the machine - it makes
terrible vibrations for a few hours after being re-booted.
Why they put a garbage fan on a high-tech video card, I don't know.
And then the CPU fan made so much noise I had to replace that to get
some peace and quite too.
I used a directional microphone and headphones to locate which fan was
causing the noise.

And then my last two machines from about 6 months ago make
really scary noises with their CPU fans. I've replaced the CPU fan in
one of them (hamster), and that makes about as much noise.
But the fan in the other one (dingo) didn't even go round when I bought it.
I thought it might be one of those thermostat operated concepts.
But I used the BIOS to monitor the temperature, and as it got to
50 C and then about 55 C, I had recollections of the old TI semiconductor
manuals of about 1972, where they said that this was not good for
silicon at all. So I got a new fan - which did work, and the CPU smelled
less then too.
I still sometimes work with the mouse in one hand, and the other hand on the
video card fan of hamster to keep it quiet.

So, yes, you're right. 
I think that fans are so low-tech that manufacturers just think it's below
them to worry about it.

All in all, I think that computers are just too stressful.
I don't think us humans should be expected to put up with it.
And operating systems! They're stressful too.

The boss of my boss of my boss once asked me:
"Why do we need prototols? Protocols have overheads of 5% to 20% or
something. Wouldn't it be more efficient and simpler to not use
any protocols?"
Well, I think the same thing about operating systems.
Why don't we just make do without them?
They're too complex and they use up CPU cycles.

.....and please don't anybody reply this drivel on-list!!

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

PS. Perl/Tk with Perl/Pg (Postgres) is really excellent.
I've written in the last week with this environment on a linux box
what took me 3 months on a Palm Organiser.
This is why I want linux on a PDA.
Where is the Yopy?
Where do you get an iPaQ in Adelaide?
Why are Hollerith cards still in use?
etc. etc. etc. etc.

-- 
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