RE: Stupid user trick: using wrong power cables.

["Harvell, Joel" <jbharvell@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Why are red flags appearing in the back of my head???

Be seeing you...B

Joel B. Harvell
Food Lion, LLC
(704) 633-8250 x2709
jbharvell@xxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 10:15 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Stupid user trick: using wrong power cables.

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