A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » Processors » Overclocking AMD Processors
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Fan Controller and Fan causes floppy drive failure



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old September 14th 03, 04:55 AM
Andrew Diamond
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Fan Controller and Fan causes floppy drive failure

My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the setup,
pathology, and history.

Setup:
I recently installed a Vantec Silver Nexus NXP-205 Rheobus (with 4 fan
controllers) in my Kingwin K11 case. This case comes with 4 80mm fans two
of which are intake fans that sit at the bottom front of the machine. Not
much above these fans is the 3.5 inch drive external bays. The bottom bay
contains my Vantec fan controller and the one immediately above that has my
floppy drive. These two intake fans, that are close to the floppy drive,
are attached to the first two of the 4 fan speed controllers. The other two
controllers are attached to the other two distant case fans but apparently
have no effect adverse on my floppy drive (regardless of how I set their
speed controllers).

History/pathology:
The two intake fans are the loudest. I experimented with turning their
speed down by setting their fan controllers to the lowest setting and
noticing that the system temperature was not adversely effected (even though
it was clear from the noise attenuation that the fans turned much much
slower). I don't use my floppy drive much but eventually, over a few weeks,
when I did I noticed it behaved erratically. I did not think for a moment
that these two things were related. Specifically, some boot floppies (3
different ones) wouldn't boot almost all of the time. I thought the
floppies were bad but they booted in other machines.

I decided to quickly bypass this problem by making a boot CD from the
floppy, one that same computer because it had the burner, using Nero CD
burner, but when I tried that it couldn't read the files from the floppy or
of that floppy's copy. I tried this multiple times.

To me, from my experience, this indicated that the floppy drive was probably
bad (versus the motherboard or the cable).

However, when I swapped the floppy with that from another computer the
supposedly bad floppy drive worked great.

So, I figured it must be the floppy cable but when I tried the original
floppy cable with the original floppy drive on the second computer it still
worked great!

Maybe a bad MB, hard to believe, so now I was confused so I reattached that
cable and floppy to my original machine but I decided, really out of
laziness, to leave the floppy drive outside the case on a mat. This time
everything worked. I booted it to the floppy no less than 10 times with no
problem (taking this floppy out and putting it back in - rebooting by power
off, reset and CTRL-ALT-DEL).

I booted up into Win2k and using Nero I was now able to make my boot CD from
this floppy. I did this multiple times.

I then repeated this whole process a few times removing the floppy from the
drive bay (but still having it attached) and then putting it back in. I
even removed it from the case out the front still leaving the cables
attached so I wouldn't have to remove and reattach the floppy cables as that
could theoretically be another source of error. Every time when the floppy
drive was in the case it wouldn't work but when it was outside the case it
would.

Couldn't believe it!

Finally, with the floppy drive installed in the drive bay, I turned up the
fan controllers of the two intake fans all the way and NOW I was able to use
Nero to successfully create the boot CD from the boot floppy.

I did this test multiple times. When I turned the two (front) fan
controllers all the way up the floppy always worked but when I turned it all
the way down it always failed. It seems to fail even if the fan controllers
half way but does work if its about 2/3 way.

Then I tried turning the other two fan controllers all the way down with the
intake fan controllers all the way up. This worked fine. But when I turned
one of the intake fan controllers all the way down the floppy failed. Here's
a table:
The first four columns are the settings of fan controller 1 through 4
respectively (values: B - bottom power, T - Top Power, H - Half Power, 2 -
2/3 Power). The fifth column is whether the floppy drive failed (values:
F - failed, W - worked)

B B T T F
T T B B W
B B H H F
2 2 H H W
B T H H W
T B H H W
T B B B F

Conclusion:
So clearly, there is a problem related to the Vantec Fan controller
controlling these fans but after that I don't know what to say. The tests
"B B T T F" and "T T B B W" indicate that the problem is context dependant
on which fans are being controlled. Specifically, turning the first two
fans, the ones close to the floppy drive, down will create a floppy failed
while turning down the other two fans may not. However "T B H H W" and "T B
B B F" indicate that the problem is NOT related to those two close intake
fans because they were set the same in both tests but setting the far two
fans low caused a failure.

Ummm.




  #2  
Old September 14th 03, 07:19 AM
Hank
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Where you getting the power for the speed controllers? Ummmmmmm..........
let me guess, off the same one that feeds the floppy?

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.

Setup:
I recently installed a Vantec Silver Nexus NXP-205 Rheobus (with 4 fan
controllers) in my Kingwin K11 case. This case comes with 4 80mm fans two
of which are intake fans that sit at the bottom front of the machine. Not
much above these fans is the 3.5 inch drive external bays. The bottom bay
contains my Vantec fan controller and the one immediately above that has

my
floppy drive. These two intake fans, that are close to the floppy drive,
are attached to the first two of the 4 fan speed controllers. The other

two
controllers are attached to the other two distant case fans but apparently
have no effect adverse on my floppy drive (regardless of how I set their
speed controllers).

History/pathology:
The two intake fans are the loudest. I experimented with turning their
speed down by setting their fan controllers to the lowest setting and
noticing that the system temperature was not adversely effected (even

though
it was clear from the noise attenuation that the fans turned much much
slower). I don't use my floppy drive much but eventually, over a few

weeks,
when I did I noticed it behaved erratically. I did not think for a moment
that these two things were related. Specifically, some boot floppies (3
different ones) wouldn't boot almost all of the time. I thought the
floppies were bad but they booted in other machines.

I decided to quickly bypass this problem by making a boot CD from the
floppy, one that same computer because it had the burner, using Nero CD
burner, but when I tried that it couldn't read the files from the floppy

or
of that floppy's copy. I tried this multiple times.

To me, from my experience, this indicated that the floppy drive was

probably
bad (versus the motherboard or the cable).

However, when I swapped the floppy with that from another computer the
supposedly bad floppy drive worked great.

So, I figured it must be the floppy cable but when I tried the original
floppy cable with the original floppy drive on the second computer it

still
worked great!

Maybe a bad MB, hard to believe, so now I was confused so I reattached

that
cable and floppy to my original machine but I decided, really out of
laziness, to leave the floppy drive outside the case on a mat. This time
everything worked. I booted it to the floppy no less than 10 times with

no
problem (taking this floppy out and putting it back in - rebooting by

power
off, reset and CTRL-ALT-DEL).

I booted up into Win2k and using Nero I was now able to make my boot CD

from
this floppy. I did this multiple times.

I then repeated this whole process a few times removing the floppy from

the
drive bay (but still having it attached) and then putting it back in. I
even removed it from the case out the front still leaving the cables
attached so I wouldn't have to remove and reattach the floppy cables as

that
could theoretically be another source of error. Every time when the

floppy
drive was in the case it wouldn't work but when it was outside the case it
would.

Couldn't believe it!

Finally, with the floppy drive installed in the drive bay, I turned up the
fan controllers of the two intake fans all the way and NOW I was able to

use
Nero to successfully create the boot CD from the boot floppy.

I did this test multiple times. When I turned the two (front) fan
controllers all the way up the floppy always worked but when I turned it

all
the way down it always failed. It seems to fail even if the fan

controllers
half way but does work if its about 2/3 way.

Then I tried turning the other two fan controllers all the way down with

the
intake fan controllers all the way up. This worked fine. But when I

turned
one of the intake fan controllers all the way down the floppy failed.

Here's
a table:
The first four columns are the settings of fan controller 1 through 4
respectively (values: B - bottom power, T - Top Power, H - Half Power, 2 -
2/3 Power). The fifth column is whether the floppy drive failed (values:
F - failed, W - worked)

B B T T F
T T B B W
B B H H F
2 2 H H W
B T H H W
T B H H W
T B B B F

Conclusion:
So clearly, there is a problem related to the Vantec Fan controller
controlling these fans but after that I don't know what to say. The

tests
"B B T T F" and "T T B B W" indicate that the problem is context dependant
on which fans are being controlled. Specifically, turning the first two
fans, the ones close to the floppy drive, down will create a floppy failed
while turning down the other two fans may not. However "T B H H W" and "T

B
B B F" indicate that the problem is NOT related to those two close intake
fans because they were set the same in both tests but setting the far two
fans low caused a failure.

Ummm.






  #3  
Old September 14th 03, 09:06 AM
Kris Rawlison
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I would assume that the fan controller is somehow affecting power to the
floppy. I would suggest moving the fan controller to a cable that isn't
connected to any other components (nice thing about the Antecs, they have a
"fan only" connector) and see if that clears it up.

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.


(rest cut)


  #4  
Old September 14th 03, 07:08 PM
Andrew Diamond
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks for the response,
As it so happens, by accident, the two devices, floppy drive and fan
controller, are on different power strands. In fact, there is nothing else
on either of the power strands.
In any event, the fact that the floppy drive failure didn't happen when the
everything was connected the same way but the floppy was outside of the case
would seem to rule out power noise in the cable (right?).

"Hank" wrote in message
...
Where you getting the power for the speed controllers? Ummmmmmm..........
let me guess, off the same one that feeds the floppy?

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my

Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.

Setup:
I recently installed a Vantec Silver Nexus NXP-205 Rheobus (with 4 fan
controllers) in my Kingwin K11 case. This case comes with 4 80mm fans

two
of which are intake fans that sit at the bottom front of the machine.

Not
much above these fans is the 3.5 inch drive external bays. The bottom

bay
contains my Vantec fan controller and the one immediately above that has

my
floppy drive. These two intake fans, that are close to the floppy

drive,
are attached to the first two of the 4 fan speed controllers. The other

two
controllers are attached to the other two distant case fans but

apparently
have no effect adverse on my floppy drive (regardless of how I set their
speed controllers).

History/pathology:
The two intake fans are the loudest. I experimented with turning their
speed down by setting their fan controllers to the lowest setting and
noticing that the system temperature was not adversely effected (even

though
it was clear from the noise attenuation that the fans turned much much
slower). I don't use my floppy drive much but eventually, over a few

weeks,
when I did I noticed it behaved erratically. I did not think for a

moment
that these two things were related. Specifically, some boot floppies (3
different ones) wouldn't boot almost all of the time. I thought the
floppies were bad but they booted in other machines.

I decided to quickly bypass this problem by making a boot CD from the
floppy, one that same computer because it had the burner, using Nero CD
burner, but when I tried that it couldn't read the files from the floppy

or
of that floppy's copy. I tried this multiple times.

To me, from my experience, this indicated that the floppy drive was

probably
bad (versus the motherboard or the cable).

However, when I swapped the floppy with that from another computer the
supposedly bad floppy drive worked great.

So, I figured it must be the floppy cable but when I tried the original
floppy cable with the original floppy drive on the second computer it

still
worked great!

Maybe a bad MB, hard to believe, so now I was confused so I reattached

that
cable and floppy to my original machine but I decided, really out of
laziness, to leave the floppy drive outside the case on a mat. This

time
everything worked. I booted it to the floppy no less than 10 times with

no
problem (taking this floppy out and putting it back in - rebooting by

power
off, reset and CTRL-ALT-DEL).

I booted up into Win2k and using Nero I was now able to make my boot CD

from
this floppy. I did this multiple times.

I then repeated this whole process a few times removing the floppy from

the
drive bay (but still having it attached) and then putting it back in. I
even removed it from the case out the front still leaving the cables
attached so I wouldn't have to remove and reattach the floppy cables as

that
could theoretically be another source of error. Every time when the

floppy
drive was in the case it wouldn't work but when it was outside the case

it
would.

Couldn't believe it!

Finally, with the floppy drive installed in the drive bay, I turned up

the
fan controllers of the two intake fans all the way and NOW I was able to

use
Nero to successfully create the boot CD from the boot floppy.

I did this test multiple times. When I turned the two (front) fan
controllers all the way up the floppy always worked but when I turned it

all
the way down it always failed. It seems to fail even if the fan

controllers
half way but does work if its about 2/3 way.

Then I tried turning the other two fan controllers all the way down with

the
intake fan controllers all the way up. This worked fine. But when I

turned
one of the intake fan controllers all the way down the floppy failed.

Here's
a table:
The first four columns are the settings of fan controller 1 through 4
respectively (values: B - bottom power, T - Top Power, H - Half Power,

2 -
2/3 Power). The fifth column is whether the floppy drive failed

(values:
F - failed, W - worked)

B B T T F
T T B B W
B B H H F
2 2 H H W
B T H H W
T B H H W
T B B B F

Conclusion:
So clearly, there is a problem related to the Vantec Fan controller
controlling these fans but after that I don't know what to say. The

tests
"B B T T F" and "T T B B W" indicate that the problem is context

dependant
on which fans are being controlled. Specifically, turning the first two
fans, the ones close to the floppy drive, down will create a floppy

failed
while turning down the other two fans may not. However "T B H H W" and

"T
B
B B F" indicate that the problem is NOT related to those two close

intake
fans because they were set the same in both tests but setting the far

two
fans low caused a failure.

Ummm.








  #5  
Old September 14th 03, 07:08 PM
Andrew Diamond
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks for the response,
As it so happens, by accident, the two devices, floppy drive and fan
controller, are on different power strands. In fact, there is nothing else
on either of the power strands.
In any event, the fact that the floppy drive failure didn't happen when the
everything was connected the same way but the floppy was outside of the case
would seem to rule out power noise in the cable (right?).

"Kris Rawlison" wrote in message
.. .
I would assume that the fan controller is somehow affecting power to the
floppy. I would suggest moving the fan controller to a cable that isn't
connected to any other components (nice thing about the Antecs, they have

a
"fan only" connector) and see if that clears it up.

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my

Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.


(rest cut)




  #6  
Old September 14th 03, 08:08 PM
Frank Hagan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
Thanks for the response,
As it so happens, by accident, the two devices, floppy drive and fan
controller, are on different power strands. In fact, there is nothing

else
on either of the power strands.
In any event, the fact that the floppy drive failure didn't happen when

the
everything was connected the same way but the floppy was outside of the

case
would seem to rule out power noise in the cable (right?).

"Kris Rawlison" wrote in message
.. .
I would assume that the fan controller is somehow affecting power to the
floppy. I would suggest moving the fan controller to a cable that isn't
connected to any other components (nice thing about the Antecs, they

have
a
"fan only" connector) and see if that clears it up.

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my

Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.


(rest cut)


This might be a long shot, but same thing occured to me and the solution was
shorter screws to hold the floppy in the slide-out mounting bracket. Drove
me nuts for a couple of days :-P

FRH


  #7  
Old September 15th 03, 12:05 AM
Andrew Diamond
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

At one point, again out of shear laziness because I was alternately testing
the floppy drive in and out of the case, I was generally running without
having the floppy drive screwed in at all.
"Frank Hagan" wrote in message
link.net...

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
Thanks for the response,
As it so happens, by accident, the two devices, floppy drive and fan
controller, are on different power strands. In fact, there is nothing

else
on either of the power strands.
In any event, the fact that the floppy drive failure didn't happen when

the
everything was connected the same way but the floppy was outside of the

case
would seem to rule out power noise in the cable (right?).

"Kris Rawlison" wrote in message
.. .
I would assume that the fan controller is somehow affecting power to

the
floppy. I would suggest moving the fan controller to a cable that

isn't
connected to any other components (nice thing about the Antecs, they

have
a
"fan only" connector) and see if that clears it up.

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my

Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case

fans
causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the
setup,
pathology, and history.

(rest cut)


This might be a long shot, but same thing occured to me and the solution

was
shorter screws to hold the floppy in the slide-out mounting bracket. Drove
me nuts for a couple of days :-P

FRH




  #8  
Old September 15th 03, 03:46 AM
The TweakOholic
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Just out of curiocity, why are you still using your sloppy drive?

I was planning to buy this same unit to control the speed of my HDD cooler.
From what you're describing, I fear that the Vantec fan controller is having
an effect on power that's supplied to other devices by the PS. If that's
the case, that's a serious problem! Have you contacted Vantec about this
issue?

Two things come to mind.
1) Does the Vantec control unit require grounding to the case?
2) Have you tried swapping power supplies?!

Keep us posted.....
-------------------------
Do you "eat to live" or "live to eat"?

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.

Setup:
I recently installed a Vantec Silver Nexus NXP-205 Rheobus (with 4 fan
controllers) in my Kingwin K11 case. This case comes with 4 80mm fans two
of which are intake fans that sit at the bottom front of the machine. Not
much above these fans is the 3.5 inch drive external bays. The bottom bay
contains my Vantec fan controller and the one immediately above that has

my
floppy drive. These two intake fans, that are close to the floppy drive,
are attached to the first two of the 4 fan speed controllers. The other

two
controllers are attached to the other two distant case fans but apparently
have no effect adverse on my floppy drive (regardless of how I set their
speed controllers).

History/pathology:
The two intake fans are the loudest. I experimented with turning their
speed down by setting their fan controllers to the lowest setting and
noticing that the system temperature was not adversely effected (even

though
it was clear from the noise attenuation that the fans turned much much
slower). I don't use my floppy drive much but eventually, over a few

weeks,
when I did I noticed it behaved erratically. I did not think for a moment
that these two things were related. Specifically, some boot floppies (3
different ones) wouldn't boot almost all of the time. I thought the
floppies were bad but they booted in other machines.

I decided to quickly bypass this problem by making a boot CD from the
floppy, one that same computer because it had the burner, using Nero CD
burner, but when I tried that it couldn't read the files from the floppy

or
of that floppy's copy. I tried this multiple times.

To me, from my experience, this indicated that the floppy drive was

probably
bad (versus the motherboard or the cable).

However, when I swapped the floppy with that from another computer the
supposedly bad floppy drive worked great.

So, I figured it must be the floppy cable but when I tried the original
floppy cable with the original floppy drive on the second computer it

still
worked great!

Maybe a bad MB, hard to believe, so now I was confused so I reattached

that
cable and floppy to my original machine but I decided, really out of
laziness, to leave the floppy drive outside the case on a mat. This time
everything worked. I booted it to the floppy no less than 10 times with

no
problem (taking this floppy out and putting it back in - rebooting by

power
off, reset and CTRL-ALT-DEL).

I booted up into Win2k and using Nero I was now able to make my boot CD

from
this floppy. I did this multiple times.

I then repeated this whole process a few times removing the floppy from

the
drive bay (but still having it attached) and then putting it back in. I
even removed it from the case out the front still leaving the cables
attached so I wouldn't have to remove and reattach the floppy cables as

that
could theoretically be another source of error. Every time when the

floppy
drive was in the case it wouldn't work but when it was outside the case it
would.

Couldn't believe it!

Finally, with the floppy drive installed in the drive bay, I turned up the
fan controllers of the two intake fans all the way and NOW I was able to

use
Nero to successfully create the boot CD from the boot floppy.

I did this test multiple times. When I turned the two (front) fan
controllers all the way up the floppy always worked but when I turned it

all
the way down it always failed. It seems to fail even if the fan

controllers
half way but does work if its about 2/3 way.

Then I tried turning the other two fan controllers all the way down with

the
intake fan controllers all the way up. This worked fine. But when I

turned
one of the intake fan controllers all the way down the floppy failed.

Here's
a table:
The first four columns are the settings of fan controller 1 through 4
respectively (values: B - bottom power, T - Top Power, H - Half Power, 2 -
2/3 Power). The fifth column is whether the floppy drive failed (values:
F - failed, W - worked)

B B T T F
T T B B W
B B H H F
2 2 H H W
B T H H W
T B H H W
T B B B F

Conclusion:
So clearly, there is a problem related to the Vantec Fan controller
controlling these fans but after that I don't know what to say. The

tests
"B B T T F" and "T T B B W" indicate that the problem is context dependant
on which fans are being controlled. Specifically, turning the first two
fans, the ones close to the floppy drive, down will create a floppy failed
while turning down the other two fans may not. However "T B H H W" and "T

B
B B F" indicate that the problem is NOT related to those two close intake
fans because they were set the same in both tests but setting the far two
fans low caused a failure.

Ummm.






  #9  
Old September 15th 03, 05:56 AM
Andrew Diamond
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

New test - It seems to be the EMI from the Vantec controller itself rather
then the fans, per se, or the power lines. In my latest experiment I moved
the entire Vantec controller unit outside the case without detaching any of
the cables (while the machine was still on. Cheap thrills). I turned the
two intake fan controllers all the way down to ensure failure. However, now
the floppy copy (via Nero as described previously) test worked fine. I did
this twice. Then I gently slit the unit back into the case and ran the test
again and, as expected, it failed.

Note that the Vantec unit's electronics are unshielded and some of them
come within about 1/4" of the bottom of the floppy drive.

I'm really happy I didn't put this immediately under my HD. They,
fortunately, are in removable 5.25" bays located a few inches above my
controller.

Thanks for your response.


"The TweakOholic" wrote in message
able.rogers.com...
Just out of curiocity, why are you still using your sloppy drive?

I was planning to buy this same unit to control the speed of my HDD

cooler.
From what you're describing, I fear that the Vantec fan controller is

having
an effect on power that's supplied to other devices by the PS. If that's
the case, that's a serious problem! Have you contacted Vantec about this
issue?

Two things come to mind.
1) Does the Vantec control unit require grounding to the case?
2) Have you tried swapping power supplies?!

Keep us posted.....
-------------------------
Do you "eat to live" or "live to eat"?

"Andrew Diamond" wrote in message
. ..
My thesis, which will sound nutty, is the following: The use of my

Vantec
Fan Controller to turn down the speed of my two intake 80mm case fans

causes
my floppy drive to fail. I will defend this below but now for the

setup,
pathology, and history.

Setup:
I recently installed a Vantec Silver Nexus NXP-205 Rheobus (with 4 fan
controllers) in my Kingwin K11 case. This case comes with 4 80mm fans

two
of which are intake fans that sit at the bottom front of the machine.

Not
much above these fans is the 3.5 inch drive external bays. The bottom

bay
contains my Vantec fan controller and the one immediately above that has

my
floppy drive. These two intake fans, that are close to the floppy

drive,
are attached to the first two of the 4 fan speed controllers. The other

two
controllers are attached to the other two distant case fans but

apparently
have no effect adverse on my floppy drive (regardless of how I set their
speed controllers).

History/pathology:
The two intake fans are the loudest. I experimented with turning their
speed down by setting their fan controllers to the lowest setting and
noticing that the system temperature was not adversely effected (even

though
it was clear from the noise attenuation that the fans turned much much
slower). I don't use my floppy drive much but eventually, over a few

weeks,
when I did I noticed it behaved erratically. I did not think for a

moment
that these two things were related. Specifically, some boot floppies (3
different ones) wouldn't boot almost all of the time. I thought the
floppies were bad but they booted in other machines.

I decided to quickly bypass this problem by making a boot CD from the
floppy, one that same computer because it had the burner, using Nero CD
burner, but when I tried that it couldn't read the files from the floppy

or
of that floppy's copy. I tried this multiple times.

To me, from my experience, this indicated that the floppy drive was

probably
bad (versus the motherboard or the cable).

However, when I swapped the floppy with that from another computer the
supposedly bad floppy drive worked great.

So, I figured it must be the floppy cable but when I tried the original
floppy cable with the original floppy drive on the second computer it

still
worked great!

Maybe a bad MB, hard to believe, so now I was confused so I reattached

that
cable and floppy to my original machine but I decided, really out of
laziness, to leave the floppy drive outside the case on a mat. This

time
everything worked. I booted it to the floppy no less than 10 times with

no
problem (taking this floppy out and putting it back in - rebooting by

power
off, reset and CTRL-ALT-DEL).

I booted up into Win2k and using Nero I was now able to make my boot CD

from
this floppy. I did this multiple times.

I then repeated this whole process a few times removing the floppy from

the
drive bay (but still having it attached) and then putting it back in. I
even removed it from the case out the front still leaving the cables
attached so I wouldn't have to remove and reattach the floppy cables as

that
could theoretically be another source of error. Every time when the

floppy
drive was in the case it wouldn't work but when it was outside the case

it
would.

Couldn't believe it!

Finally, with the floppy drive installed in the drive bay, I turned up

the
fan controllers of the two intake fans all the way and NOW I was able to

use
Nero to successfully create the boot CD from the boot floppy.

I did this test multiple times. When I turned the two (front) fan
controllers all the way up the floppy always worked but when I turned it

all
the way down it always failed. It seems to fail even if the fan

controllers
half way but does work if its about 2/3 way.

Then I tried turning the other two fan controllers all the way down with

the
intake fan controllers all the way up. This worked fine. But when I

turned
one of the intake fan controllers all the way down the floppy failed.

Here's
a table:
The first four columns are the settings of fan controller 1 through 4
respectively (values: B - bottom power, T - Top Power, H - Half Power,

2 -
2/3 Power). The fifth column is whether the floppy drive failed

(values:
F - failed, W - worked)

B B T T F
T T B B W
B B H H F
2 2 H H W
B T H H W
T B H H W
T B B B F

Conclusion:
So clearly, there is a problem related to the Vantec Fan controller
controlling these fans but after that I don't know what to say. The

tests
"B B T T F" and "T T B B W" indicate that the problem is context

dependant
on which fans are being controlled. Specifically, turning the first two
fans, the ones close to the floppy drive, down will create a floppy

failed
while turning down the other two fans may not. However "T B H H W" and

"T
B
B B F" indicate that the problem is NOT related to those two close

intake
fans because they were set the same in both tests but setting the far

two
fans low caused a failure.

Ummm.








  #10  
Old September 15th 03, 05:19 PM
Matt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 04:56:16 GMT, "Andrew Diamond" wrote:

New test - It seems to be the EMI from the Vantec controller itself rather
then the fans, per se, or the power lines. In my latest experiment I moved
the entire Vantec controller unit outside the case without detaching any of
the cables (while the machine was still on. Cheap thrills). I turned the
two intake fan controllers all the way down to ensure failure. However, now
the floppy copy (via Nero as described previously) test worked fine. I did
this twice. Then I gently slit the unit back into the case and ran the test
again and, as expected, it failed.

Note that the Vantec unit's electronics are unshielded and some of them
come within about 1/4" of the bottom of the floppy drive.

I'm really happy I didn't put this immediately under my HD. They,
fortunately, are in removable 5.25" bays located a few inches above my
controller.



Is it a switchmode controller then (electrically noisy!).

My own "magic resistor" cost me a pittance to build (actually, I had
the components already) - and is fully linear (ok, so it wastes a
little power).
http://www.junkroom.freeserve.co.uk/fanspeed.htm
I wouldn't call it perfect, but it does my extra fan a treat


Maybe I should do some really neat ones (hide how little works there
are in a wraparound heatsink) and sell 'em on ebay!
I'd probably rework the design to "fail fast" in the event of the
preset (or possibly external varaiable) suffering a loss of contact.

I mucked around with all sorts of ideas based on 3 terminal
regulators, "traditional" transistor voltage regulators, until I hit
on this one.

For the fan position, I had to extend the wires anyway, but the
simplicity of insertion was still a bonus.

And finally, if you think it looks like a throw together, I take that
as a compliment - EVERY part was pulled straight from my junkbox, and
even the veroboard had seen service before. I didn't breadboard test
it or anything - straight from an empirical design to the soldering,
and it worked (apart from direction of control) exactly as hoped.


--
I may be dozzzy, but take the ZZZ's out to mail me
http://www.junkroom.freeserve.co.uk/jvc2080.htm - 2x2x24 CD-RW troubles

If you drop a cactus, don't try to catch it!
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:27 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.