Hi all,
As we are doing testing of the Capture Reference Hardware
(http://opencast.jira.com/wiki/display/MH/Capture+Reference+Hardware+v1.0),
we have run into some interesting issues with the listed supplier of the
basic hardware (CPU, Motherboard, case, PSU and hard drive) - Logic Supply.
Issue #1 - Incorrect PSU supplied
As earlier adopters of the Capture Reference Hardware ran into an issue
of the supplied PSU caused a corruption of the motherboard's CMOS after
a power loss greater than 10 seconds. Even though Logic Supply updated
their spec with a PSU that avoided this issue, our order of 2 capture
reference hardware last month (March 2011) came with a PSU that
corrupted the CMOS (aka not the picoPSU-120).
When we raised this issue with Logic Supply, the support staff appears
to have no knowledge of the corruption issue. They also seem to indicate
that they were in the process of changing their power supply to the one
that actually came with our order.
The good news is that once we brought this issue up, they quickly
replaced the PSU and said they would look into this issue. As of today,
it appears that the picoPSU-120 is still their listed PSU for the
Castronic C137 case.
Issue #2 - Motherboard failure - RMA-ed on March 10, still waiting for
replacement
This is more of a general issue regarding with buying components (rather
than going with a computer builder like Dell).
Our motherboard failed in March on a machine purchased in December
(thereby making it outside the 30-day vendor warranty period where a
replacement would have been sent right away); even though the
motherboard is still under warranty with the manufacturer, Logic Supply
estimates that it will take 6-8 weeks before a replacement will be sent
to us.
I am not sure if anyone else has had to send in parts to Logic Supply,
but it does give me pause to roll out 50+ capture agents with Logic
Supply (or any other third party vendor like Newegg) given the long RMA
process and the short warranty timeframe (of 1 year).
FWIW, 25% fail rate is probably not the norm. We have been running
Podcast Producer with 40+ capture agents and none have been sent back to
Apple for hardware fixes (I guess you could say we were due?).
Nonetheless, it is always nice to have one less thing to worry about in
a complex system such as front-to-end webcasting.
Thoughts (especially on hardware vendor options and experiences with
Logic Supply) welcomed!
Thanks,
--
Kevin Chan
Operations Team
Educational Technology Services
UC Berkeley
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