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#1
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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"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
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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
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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
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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
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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! |
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