Another SheevaPlug bites the dust

[LrdShaper]

Hello guys,

I have 2 SheevaPlugs. My 1st plug is here in Malaysia running SVN, Squid + Privoxy, OpenVPN, CUPS-PDF and also used for development. I've had it since April 2009 running Debian Lenny on a 320GB 2.5" USB HDD drawing power from the plug. It's been running almost 24/7 ever since, rebooting only to update the kernel. The 2nd plug, received Sep 2009, is in the Philippines as a file server and asterisk server.

Last Thursday noon the 1st plug disappeared from the network and upon checking the unit I found out that only the power LED is on (steady) the blue LED doesn't light up at all and no connection to serial. Replaced the USB cable and tried serial again, also nothing.

Knowing that it's a symptom of a failing PS, I just shrugged my shoulders, unplugged the power, USB HDD. Opened it up and sure enough saw the PS foiled. Started looking for spare power adapters and found two (5V/3A and 5V/2.5A) lying around the house.

So I tried the 5V/2.5A first and... same problem. Steady power LED, no blue LED, no serial (from both WinXP and Knoppix boot DVD). Installed ESIA on my notebook, tried again, still nothing. Windows doesn't detect anything at all, nothing showing in Device manager. No serial, no jtag. Tried several different USB cables to try to connect thru serial but still no go

Next I used the 5V/3A power adapter and tried all tests again... still the same

On all my tests only the power adapter, network cable and usb to serial cable is connected to the plug. Is there anything else I haven't tried? Any help is very much appreciated.

[noidea]

Same problem here, bro.
http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=2320.0

Was there a substantial amount of heat where the plug was located? Did it have high load averages often? I'm thinking this is a problem with the kirkwood processor.

[LrdShaper]

Yes it was surprisingly hot when I unplugged it after it disappeared from the network. Whenever I needed to reboot it in the past for kernel updates I had to unplug it and plug it in again as I'm booting off a USB HDD and it was never that hot.

[noidea]

And mine was behind books on a shelf. Heat seems the be the culprit. I was booting from the nand but had ubuntu mount an external hdd as /home /usr and /lib.
Maybe something melted on the pcb or the processor was damaged?

[LrdShaper]

I really can't tell if there's any damage on the PCB but there was definitely no burning smell from the time I first unplugged it to the time I gave up reviving it. It's in a fairly small, closed room I use as a home office together with my other devices (router, nslu2, readynas, xbox) with an AC to keep the temp in the room not too hot so if something burned I would've smelled it.

Very very tempted now to get a dockstar instead of another sheevaplug in case I won't be able to revive this.

[UnaClocker]

Looks like the Dockstar is an evolution of the Pogoplug, which was an evolution of the SheevaPlug.. Looks like a pretty nice solution.. Seagate is selling them for $39.. That's a helluva deal.

[two9er]

Heres a link to a Dockstar for $27.99 delivered. Not sure how long it will last.
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-DockStar-Network-STDSA10G-RK/dp/B002MRRU6G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3UGA76JKY8K48&s=generic&qid=1289170626&sr=1-1

HTH, Jim