Last week, I upgraded the to latest kernel (2.6.7-rc1) on our Linux machine (which is the file server, web server, etc). Then after a few hours it claimed two of the hard drives had suffered failures, so the software RAID drive was messed up. I rebooted into the old kernel and was luckily able to reconstruct the RAID drive. (The drives were no longer in a failed state and I didn't need to copy from backups.) I decided to try the new kernel again, so I booted it and mounted the RAID drive read-only. I smelled a burnt plastic odor while hooking up network cables to use both ethernet ports on the motherboard, and upon further investigation, noticed that the power supply fan was not turning and it was very hot to touch. This is bad, because it is the only case fan. An autopsy revealed that a couple diodes had burned out in the power supply electronics. We went to Fry's Electronics and picked up a quiet and efficient Seasonic Super Tornado power supply replacement for around $70. Things appear to be running OK, but I fear that the drive failures were actually due to the new kernel, and they will fail again. The old kernel has some security holes and doesn't utilize both NICs, so I really want the new one to work.
Posted by seander at May 31, 2004 12:03 AM