Dead Plug

[DaveH]

Last night one of my Sheevaplugs stopped working. The last entry in the log was at 04:30:43 this morning and that was it. Looking at it this evening, it's got a green light but not a blue one when I power it up again (as it was when I found it this morning), and plugging in the USB lead for the serial port produces no response from the desktop machine. The two lights on the ethernet socket are on even though there's no network lead connected.

I removed the SD card and external USB HD and they've booted quite happily with another plug, and if I try the same USB lead with the new plug that registers a COM port in the Linux log on my desktop machine.

It's almost exactly a year old (shipped on 1st April last year) and has been running 24/7 for most of the last eleven months. Is it likely to be a doorstop or can I fix it in some way? 

[NewIT_Marcus]

Dave -

Plenty of people are using off the shelf DC power converters with their Sheevaplug. Although we are out of stock at the moment, the internal PSU can be replaced. The replacement PSUs supposedly are more reliable than those supplied in new plugs up to late last year. (I'm not sure exactly when the changeover took place, but I think Jason could be more specific).

[DaveH]

I finally took the lid off the box, it's one of the main PSU capacitors that has vented. These are typically rated at 2,000-8,000 hours at maximum temperature, with reliability improving if they're at a lower temperature. For reference, 8,000 hours is 333 days or 11 months.

What's in the new supply? Hopefully it's a new design that doesn't use the cheap capacitors.

[NewIT_Marcus]

Supposedly a less cheap capacitor.

I don't know if we've had any problems with the new PSU. We might have had just 1; Jason knows better than I.

[DaveH]

I don't suppose the schematic for the old one is available? With that I could modify what I've got and be confident that it would be OK.