The strange thing is that all of these computers were working properly.
Three were running Windows XP Pro or Windows Server 2003. One was
running FC4. They all died during the FC5 installation. My thoughts, in
rough order are (1) some problem with the electrical poser in the room
(although three on Windows installations on 32 bit machines done at
about the same time have caused no problems), some kind of issue
involving overheating, if somehow, FC5 is not correctly controlling the
fans, or (3) FC5 has trouble with dual AMD computers, at least with the
motherboards we are using.
The behavior of the computers is really odd. The one that went “poof”
near the start of the installation is totally dead (this one had running
FC4 and I was doing a fresh installation). After trying to do the
installation a couple times with the other computers, I cannot even turn
them on. Letting them sit for a while (a period like overnight) which
would allow the computer to completely cool and discharge its
capacitors, I can get it started. However, it only runs for a little
bit. For example, with Knoppix, I cannot get past the “Hit Any Key to
Boot into Knoppix” screen. I checked one that I did get into the BIOS,
and the BIOS indicated that the power supply voltages were correct.
Most of these computers were plugged into UPS units, although these are
a bit old.. I’ve requested Maintenance to check the power in our lab.
The 32 bit computers have 400 watt power supplies and the 64 bit
computers have 450 watt power supplies. They have lots of cooling fans,
and the cooling units on the CPUs are very robust. These computers have
all worked fine in the past running FC4, Win XP Pro, and Win 2003 Server
for 2 – 3 years.
If I had to guess it is going to turn out that the power in our lab has
problems and that Linux is less tolerant of that than Windows.
Being an old timer I remember something called the “Hacker’s Test”. It
had a number of things you had to do to qualify as a true hacker. One
was to break hardware with software. I never thought it was possible,
except by mis-configuring video cards pr or over-clocking a CPU.
I’m going to try to test the lab current and the power supply current
this weekend if I can get in to campus. (I live about 20 miles from campus.)
Thank you very much for your thoughtful replies. They are greatly
appreciated.
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