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Help Troubleshooting Intermittent Restarting of BCM 400 v3.7 1

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johndoe88

johndoe88

Programmer
Jun 19, 2002
19
US
We have a BCM 400 v3.7 that started rebooting intermittently yesterday, sometimes every few minutes and sometimes ever few hours. I've checked the Alarm Banner & Browser and I've only got logon (528) and logoff (538) events. I've also looked through the system event viewer and not found anything that seems relevant.

From what I've seen it seems like I could have an issue with either the BFT, MSC or power supply. Where else should I look to try and narrow down the issue?

Thanks,

J
 
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This is an old BCM. Check the BFT for bulging capacitors. Then look at power supply and cooling fans.

Marv ccna
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Sales, Installation & Service for Norstar, BCM, Samsung & Allworx Serving Ottawa and Eastern Ontario since 1990
 
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It rebooted 5 times within about 30 minutes this morning but hasn't rebooted since I started monitoring it 2 hours ago. I was wondering if there could be a device (or user) doing something to cause it to drop voltage or something else causing the reboot. It is on a Battery backup which appears to be working normally.

I had checked the BFT a few weeks ago and it was okay and we had replaced the hard drive recently. Any way to verify it's the power supply without swapping it out?

A few more parts and she'll be brand new! [thumbsup2]

Thanks,
J
 
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Replace the power supply, it's probably failing.

Save yourself the grief and change it .

Most faults I go to its the power unit.
 
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Okay sounds good thanks for the advice. What power supply do you usually use for these units. I see a lot of people use the OEM Sparkle FSP300-60PLN, but wondering what other brand/models have proven a good choice?
 
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I had one of those old things do the exact same thing over the course of a few months. Believe it or not, the solution was to just turn it off and thoroughly clean the inside of the unit. After I did that and booted it back up, it never failed again.

It's probably been running for around 10 years or more and over time that dust, airborne grease etc just builds up on it and causes all kinds of high resistance shorts on the BFT.

Not saying that that's your problem, just that it was for me. And this system was sitting in a normal office environment. If that doesn't do it, I agree with changing the power supply. God help you if it's the hard drive though. You might want to get a backup out of it asap just in case.
 
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Yeah we just replaced the hard drive so I'm relatively prepared for that with a good image of the original v3.7 drive and backups. Always good advice! Well I've got a new 500W power supply here in the office so I'll probably give it a go and clean it up while I'm at it. I'm going to make an extra backup now, just for good measure..
 
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What is the color of the capacitors in your BFT?
Is this an original 3.7 system or upgrade from lower versions?

Regards

Nikos
 
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I seem to recall that the original Green capacitors were the ones that failed and they were replaced with Blue ones, but that was many years ago.

I've also sorted weird faults by taking the covers of and getting the cleaner out and also reseating the parts. Loads of dust and muck get caught on the circuit board over time as well as in and around the fans.

No harm in changing the power units to be on the safe side. I thibk it's the same model as for the BCM 450 systems.


Firebird Scrambler
Nortel Meridian 1 / Succession and BCM / Norstar Programmer in the UK
Advance knowledge on BCM support
 
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I agree with dog and FB, dust can cause the electronics to get too hot.

But usually its BFT/PS/HD

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Well the BCM power supply failed completely last night so replaced it with an EVGA 500w model we had just received and it powered up okay and hasn't gone back down since so you guys were right, thanks again for the good advice!

Also discovered the main 120mm fan had failed so I was able to install a basic 120mm case fan I had on hand that has a 4pin molex power. Also verified the cpu fax was operational. Wondering if that should be sufficient or if I should go ahead and search out the OEM system fan?
 
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