Stupid user trick: using wrong power cables.

[rob@xxxxxxxxx]

We got a new box and rack in.  We are transitioning an older one to move 
offsite.  In the interim we really didn't have enough power supplies for 
the IBM PDU's.  If you look at the IBM PDU's you will see that the outlets 
are different than standard PDU's.  So I had the brilliant idea to change 
the cables on the three units and plug them into power strips until we 
could get the other rack offsite.  Those cables that were built for the 
IBM PDU outlets won't fit into a standard power strip.  So I figured out 
that if you take your basic power cable from any PC they acted like a 
gender bender from the IBM cables to standard outlets.
The CEC fired up with no problems.  The other two units wouldn't fire up 
at all.  Me and the CE tried reseating cards, etc.  No luck.  After a few 
hours it dawned on us that maybe the other two units were not 110v.  Well, 
the PDU on the existing rack still had two outlets available.  So we took 
another cable (looks like the old cable that went from the original IBM AT 
to it's monitor) and extended the supplied cable to the other PDU.  That 
worked and now we can fire up the whole new unit.  Granted, we could only 
plug in one power supply of each expansion unit because we ran out of 
outlets.  According to hardware that's the first they've heard of anyone 
trying to use a normal 110 cord into the other cord as a gender bender. 
They're thinking that making the end work like that was probably not a 
good idea.

Rob Berendt