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Shaktai · Jun 29, 2008, 08:54 PM

Just noticed that I can't seem to connect to the Team MacNN Einstein Stats page. Says server not responding. Tried 3 times several minutes apart.

reader50 · Jun 30, 2008, 12:50 AM

I had a power flicker here a few hours ago. My G5 lost internet, but didn't crash. Looks like the servers did - uptime of 5 hours and change.

I've restarted the dyndns client, all should be good now.

Shaktai · Jun 30, 2008, 12:59 AM

Thanks Reader50. It's looking good and everything works and seems to be updating,

BTBlomberg · Jul 8, 2008, 08:11 PM

Reader50,

You may be aware, but in case not, it looks like something happened again. Stats have been down most of today.

reader50 · Jul 8, 2008, 10:26 PM

Fixed.

Another power flicker apparently, which I've not been paying attention to because my G5 ignores them. The server boxes are a lot more sensitive. It's around 100 outside, with some light sprinkles, but no lightning, so the strikes must be happening a good distance away.

The webserver didn't fully reboot this time, but even if they do, the @reboot cron tag doesn't seem to work for a root-enabled program. Which the inadyn dyndns client seems to require. So after an auto reboot, teamstats is usually up, but may be on a slightly different IP address.

Maybe I'll try using the router's dyndns client instead, but it's not one of those officially supported by the dyndns people.

BTBlomberg · Jul 8, 2008, 11:05 PM

Thanks. Stuff like that makes me glad I don't manage a web server any more. I haven't tried the DYNDNS stuff from home, but I know my D-Link only worked with a couple of services. My 2Wire from AT&T U-Verse seams not to offer DYNDNS. At least not that I have found yet.

Good luck.

reader50 · Jul 14, 2008, 04:00 PM

The teamstats webserver crashed this morning, and hasn't been able to reboot. I suspect the HSF needs to be removed & new thermal paste applied. I'll be poking into this over the next day, see if it can be repaired. The DB box appears to be fine.

I'd just fixed a Rosetta parser issue, and was going to upload the repaired code when the server couldn't be reached.

reader50 · 08:52 PM

Reseating the HSF with fresh Arctic Silver didn't change anything. Closer inspection revealed the probable enemy of Team MacNN.

Note the villain in pic left, below the power supply connector. It should look much like the larger capacitor on right, which is healthy.

Since the DB box is still healthy, I could reset port mappings and make the DB box host teamstats all by itself. It has all the web frontend in place, but lacks the crontab & some of the specialized sig code which is unrelated to the team. This might overload the DB box alone, I'm inclined not to try this if Web can be fixed in the next few days.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll strip down Web, get the MB out and see if it's doable. I've replaced bad electrolytic capacitors before.

Shaktai · Jul 15, 2008, 12:08 AM

Good luck with it. We will all wait patiently.

BTBlomberg · Jul 15, 2008, 12:07 PM

Yeah. That does not look good. Good luck replacing that. What type of MB is it? If it's older there may be cheap replacements out there for it if you fail.

In the mean time I enjoyed the photo's from your remodeling. That kitchen was significant remodeling for sure. I have done my share of that stuff in my time and will likely be doing more. Turned out nice.

Anyway, good luck with the computer fix.

reader50 · Jul 15, 2008, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by BTBlomberg

In the mean time I enjoyed the photo's from your remodeling. That kitchen was significant remodeling for sure. I have done my share of that stuff in my time and will likely be doing more. Turned out nice.

I haven't remodeled my kitchen since about 8 years ago, and I didn't have a camera at the time. Is it possible you are thinking of someone else?

BTBlomberg · Jul 15, 2008, 02:33 PM

Sorry,
I checked out the stats page earlier at:
http://teamstats.macnn.com/
And got torak.net
Thought that was just resolving to another machine of yours.

Must be the DYNDNS going to someplace else. May be another user got your IP and the DYNDNS has not figured it out.

It is an impressive remodel though. All the way down to the studs.

Good luck with the computer fix.

reader50 · Jul 15, 2008, 03:55 PM

Yes, that's someone else on the same subnet. The dyndns client is currently on the box that's down. Time to try the router's dyndns client instead - I'd talked about that, but hadn't tried it yet. It was always easier to restart the client on the web box. Currently impossible, of course.

reader50 · Jul 15, 2008, 08:49 PM

The webserver has been stripped down, and the MB removed. MB is a K7T266 Pro2-A, quite old by present standards.

I can reach & replace the bad cap, it's a 1,000 uF, which can be readily found at Radio Shack. However, I looked over the rest of the board before trying to fix anything.

That particular capacitor was part of a bad production run. There are 15 on the board; 13 show visible bulge, and ~8 show some possible leak sign. The one pictured above is by far the worst, but at least 6 need replacement before the board might come back to life. Assuming the failing capacitors didn't cause anything else to blow. Realistically, all 13 that don't look perfect should be replaced to make the board reliable again.

I have doubts about replacing that many without making any solder mistakes. It's possible if done carefully, with no time pressure. Making a new server box might be more sensible, but I have a widescreen LCD on my wish list first, which would push any substantial teamstats upgrades back a few months.

In the short term, I'll either assign my Sawtooth to perform Web duties, or set the DB box to handle everything alone. Then possibly try the capacitor swapping if I have lots of free time.

BTBlomberg · Jul 16, 2008, 12:41 AM

Originally Posted by reader50

MB is a K7T266 Pro2-A, quite old by present standards.

Yes, I would say so. I have a gigabyte board running an Athlon XP 1700+ in my basement office. Right now mainly used for SETI and MyTheater DVB. Only reason I have that is my brother had an AlienWare with a bad board and he upgrade it with his replacement so he gave me the CPU and other components to build my own. That was quite a while and several power supplies back though.

eBay would likely have a bunch of Socket A ATX boards for cheap. But, if you have a better machine for the DB machine and the load is not bad, combining may be a good idea. No need to spend your money for stats. Just as long as the box can handle it we all should be fine.

Thanks for your efforts.

Shaktai · Jul 16, 2008, 02:30 AM

Originally Posted by reader50

I have doubts about replacing that many without making any solder mistakes. It's possible if done carefully, with no time pressure. Making a new server box might be more sensible, but I have a widescreen LCD on my wish list first, which would push any substantial teamstats upgrades back a few months.

In the short term, I'll either assign my Sawtooth to perform Web duties, or set the DB box to handle everything alone. Then possibly try the capacitor swapping if I have lots of free time.

Okay, we have all been down this road before. Reader50 shouldn't be having to shell out for the new Mobo on his own. He should be able to get the new widescreen LCD he wants and "WE" the team members should help support the equipment that provides us with great stats. I haven't had steady work since December but am sure I can give up a beer or two to help buy a new Mobo for the stat's server. I got 10 bucks I'm willing to chip in right now. More if I get the new job I am hoping for. Anybody else willing to help out? We all benefit but it must be a team effort. For years Reader50 and Scott have worked to hold this team together and provide us with our team pages and stats. Surely there are a few of us who can throw together enough for a new mobo, and if there is any extra it can go to help pay for the internet bills.

So who is in? I know I am.

siliconman · Jul 16, 2008, 12:21 PM

If reader50 supplies an email address, I'll send $20 paypal. Who else is in?

jbcool · Jul 17, 2008, 04:55 AM

Your just trying to make me look bad aren't you Shaktai. You've see me I look bad naturally.

I think we can figure out some type of solution for reader50 for all the hard work done over the years.

Reader50 check your private messages for your present.

reader50 · Jul 17, 2008, 12:00 PM

'fraid I was a little preoccupied in the real world for the last couple days, which is why things developed slowly. The DB box is up solo, and teamstats is live again. Stats are updating.

The DB motherboard is a few revs newer than Web, with more RAM and a slightly faster CPU. I looked it over before booting this morning - all the caps look normal.

crontab adjusted for one box & uploaded ... check
rosetta parser fix uploaded ... check
tidied up a few unupdated files ... check
router repointed to DB box ... check
router DynDNS client activated ... check
stats sig files ... working on this
special hosted files ... working on this

So far, load looks OK. One of the HDs thinks it is full, which stopped me from getting the sigs stuff up - working on this. It's probably old tempfiles hanging around somewhere.

If the DB box can handle everything, then I'm not willing to blow anyone's cold cash, so let's wait and see if we have a problem first. We never actually tested if DB could handle it alone, and the circumstances were different when the 2-box setup was built.

Scott was running a niced client on each box at first (SETI & RC5), which may have pushed him towards the 2-box configuration. Today, they handle server duties only. When I got the boxes, I upgraded them slightly but otherwise used them as already configured.

reader50 · Jul 17, 2008, 01:48 PM

Deleting 4 GB of logfiles helped, and the DB HD being low on space may have contributed to a few other recent glitches. We'll track down more wasted space, it should have over 20 GB free.

Sigs are not appearing because the GD image functions are not installed on this box. Scott will have to handle that.

A different script that I wrote for seanc is working - it doesn't require GD. It's a custom star script, which no one has noticed or figured out yet.

Scotttheking · Jul 17, 2008, 02:12 PM

Done

Shaktai · Jul 17, 2008, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by jbcool

Your just trying to make me look bad aren't you Shaktai. You've see me I look bad naturally.

I think we can figure out some type of solution for reader50 for all the hard work done over the years.

Reader50 check your private messages for your present.

Heck I can't do much to make you look bad right now. You're kicking my rear on every project where I used to be ahead of you. Darn heat has forced me to shutdown my mac mini much of the time as well. I'll find good work soon again though, then will see what I can do to catch up.

Thanks for helping out.

BTBlomberg · Jul 17, 2008, 06:46 PM

Great to hear reader50. I also am looking for full time work and with 4 kids did not have much to offer, but would have liked to if needed. Hopefully it will hold up. The pages almost seam snappier. Maybe because it does not have to talk between the machines to render pages. No lag time.

reader50 · Jul 17, 2008, 07:29 PM

Sigs are working again.

Response times are not honest yet, I've been doing table repairs & other things that temporarily drive the load up. We'll probably need a few days before we know for sure.