M
Marcus Dean Adams
Guest
So I learned something today that I've never encountered before, faulty peripherals can cause a computer to refuse to boot properly.
The TLDR is that my brother's server had a weird VGA to HDMI converter cable that shorted out and kept his server from booting.
Full story
My brother has a file/media server that I built for him out of some spare parts he had laying around, a copy of Debian Linux, a mini-ITX case and a big ass hard drive for storage.
Recently there was a power flash at his house, and after the power came back on, his server was inaccessible (he hasn't bought an UPS yet). He's an OTR truck driver and is gone Monday through Friday, and in addition to movies and things for his wife and kids, he uses his server while he's on the road to stream audio books from home while he's on the road so he doesn't have to use up storage space on his phone. He asked me to go see what was going on, so I ran over to his house to check it out.
The computer would power on just fine, but there was no signal on the display, and it was not accessible over the network. Sometimes you would get a single POST beep (which should mean all is well), and sometimes no POST beep at all, and once we just got a solid, non-stop beep until I killed the power. I took the cover off and examined the motherboard and other components for obvious signs of damage like blown caps, burnt traces, etc. I tried swapping the RAM sticks around to see if one of the RAM sticks or slots had been damaged, nothing. I had hope because at the end of the day, it was powering on. Then, in the process of handling the server, my hand brushed across the VGA cable on the back and it burned the shit out of my hand. It was extremely uncomfortably hot. The VGA portion of the motherboard inside was cool to the touch, but the square portion of the cable itself was burning hot. I disconnected the cable and all is well. Booted and rebooted the server several times and everything works fine; his wife can stream movies in the living room and he can stream audio books to his phone from a thousand miles away, we just don't have a display at the moment.
The cable in question is a USB "powered" VGA to HDMI converter, since the television he uses as a display doesn't have VGA input. The cable has a VGA input, 3.5mm audio input, and a USB connector since it apparently requires some additional power for some reason. The square portion of the connector itself actually had visible bulges on both sides. Something about the power outage obviously blew the shit out of something inside this cable, and something about the malfunctioning cable was preventing the server from booting properly.
I just thought I would share this story because it's something I had never encountered before.
The TLDR is that my brother's server had a weird VGA to HDMI converter cable that shorted out and kept his server from booting.
Full story
My brother has a file/media server that I built for him out of some spare parts he had laying around, a copy of Debian Linux, a mini-ITX case and a big ass hard drive for storage.
Recently there was a power flash at his house, and after the power came back on, his server was inaccessible (he hasn't bought an UPS yet). He's an OTR truck driver and is gone Monday through Friday, and in addition to movies and things for his wife and kids, he uses his server while he's on the road to stream audio books from home while he's on the road so he doesn't have to use up storage space on his phone. He asked me to go see what was going on, so I ran over to his house to check it out.
The computer would power on just fine, but there was no signal on the display, and it was not accessible over the network. Sometimes you would get a single POST beep (which should mean all is well), and sometimes no POST beep at all, and once we just got a solid, non-stop beep until I killed the power. I took the cover off and examined the motherboard and other components for obvious signs of damage like blown caps, burnt traces, etc. I tried swapping the RAM sticks around to see if one of the RAM sticks or slots had been damaged, nothing. I had hope because at the end of the day, it was powering on. Then, in the process of handling the server, my hand brushed across the VGA cable on the back and it burned the shit out of my hand. It was extremely uncomfortably hot. The VGA portion of the motherboard inside was cool to the touch, but the square portion of the cable itself was burning hot. I disconnected the cable and all is well. Booted and rebooted the server several times and everything works fine; his wife can stream movies in the living room and he can stream audio books to his phone from a thousand miles away, we just don't have a display at the moment.
The cable in question is a USB "powered" VGA to HDMI converter, since the television he uses as a display doesn't have VGA input. The cable has a VGA input, 3.5mm audio input, and a USB connector since it apparently requires some additional power for some reason. The square portion of the connector itself actually had visible bulges on both sides. Something about the power outage obviously blew the shit out of something inside this cable, and something about the malfunctioning cable was preventing the server from booting properly.
I just thought I would share this story because it's something I had never encountered before.
