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Greetings all

Sorry about the subject but it does involve a 'Fan'

Setup: 6 PC peer to peer LAN. Of which 4 are Point Of Sale terminals. All
wiring Cat 5, two of the POS terminals doubled up over one LAN cable because
the other cable run's were used for Phone/EFTPOS etc.This setup had been
running A1 for 12 - 18 months.

Since just before Xmas 03 the hub has frequently displayed 'Partition'
errors from the 'Doubled' terminals. Owner getting very frustrated trying to
'find' the fault.

I was asked if I could find anything.

Checked wiring, aligned network protocols, removed unnecessary startups,
cleaned out caches (all of Mike's 'Basic Maintenance') etc. To cut a long
story short, couldn't find anything, but still Partition errors.

Ran a temporary Cat5 and separated the 'doubled up terminals' late Friday.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday no problems (Auckland Anniversary weekend) yea were
on to it! Like ell.

Tuesday more partition errors but from just one of the PC's, aha that must
be it, but just to check swap it to the temporary Cat5. Dang if the
partition errors didn't appear on the other PC and stay on the original one
as well.
At this point a third POS terminal started to display partition errors as
well (this one was about 4 metres from the other two) What the .......

Ok conference time
What time does it occur? About 10 to 3 or 4pm. Ah so it's environmental.
When did it start? The weekend of the thunder storm. Mmm maybe lightning
strike?
How did you know it was then? Because that was the weekend we rearranged the
POS furniture/desks/filing cabinet.
From the back of the huddle a voice said 'could it be the Fan'?
The Fan? yes the fan placed on the filing cabinet in place of the floor fan
that was there before the furniture was rearranged.

Well not likely but,.........ok lets try it.

And it dam well was. Turn the fan off and the partition errors disappeared,
turn it on and they came back.

Conclusion:
Spiky interference from the Fan when running. The three terminals affected
were about within 4 metres of the offending fan, significantly their LAN
cables were all bundled together.
Proof:
NO problems since the Fan was banned to the back of the shop.

And why no problems over the weekend? Seems the staff on duty on the weekend
didn't like the fan so they left it off!

Cheers
Paul

"PC" <> wrote in message
news:r3ERb.25843$...
> Greetings all
>
> <snip>
>
> Conclusion:
> Spiky interference from the Fan when running. The three terminals affected
> were about within 4 metres of the offending fan, significantly their LAN
> cables were all bundled together.
> Proof:
> NO problems since the Fan was banned to the back of the shop.
>
> And why no problems over the weekend? Seems the staff on duty on the
weekend
> didn't like the fan so they left it off!
>

Paul, sounds like a good story for computerworld.com Shark Tank

--
Mauricio Freitas
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"Mauricio Freitas" <> wrote

> > Conclusion:
> > Spiky interference from the Fan when running. The three terminals
affected
> > were about within 4 metres of the offending fan, significantly their LAN
> > cables were all bundled together.
> > Proof:
> > NO problems since the Fan was banned to the back of the shop.
> >
> > And why no problems over the weekend? Seems the staff on duty on the
> weekend
> > didn't like the fan so they left it off!
> >
>
> Paul, sounds like a good story for computerworld.com Shark Tank

True!

You can win a t-shirt...

Must wear mine to work on Friday...



Cheers,

Brenton

In article <r3ERb.25843$>,
"PC" <> wrote:
>Greetings all

Chippie? Is that you?
(My apologies if it isn't...)

--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand