Partner mail external - red ports weekly

[rkochis]

I have a Partner II, r4.1 with an external Partner Voicemail 4 port. At least once or twice a week, all of the ports on vm come up red. The local tech says it is a power issue but I had a new UPS installed. Any ideas? Is there an errorlog on this box, so I can tell if ports or power supply is issue? (I am in PA and the site is in CA, and road trips not allowed)

Thanks in advance.

 

[drewmich]

R,

There are various possibilities into what could be causing the redlights on your 2 Brooktrout cards. The cards will stay green - when not is use - if a couple of factors exist.

1. The VM operating system is running properly with the database and its files initialized. They communicate with the voice cards and if the software ins't operating correctly, hten you can have red lights- sometimes intermittently. This can be caused by bad sectors on the drive or corrupted critical files used by the VM operating system ...

2. The hard drive is operating properly with its VM software. The hard drive on all of the AT&T - Lucent - Avaya voice mails components (both the 2.5" notebook drive and 3.5" full size drives like in the Standalone Mails) are very sensitive to flucuations in voltage. They require 5 volts with very limited over/under tolerances. Both over and under voltages to the drives cause premature wear and eventual failure. Heat can also be a contributor to the HD failures. In the case of the Standalone Mails, they use a standard PC style 200 Watt power supply. The Partner & Merlin Mails PS have had problems with inferior capacitators (Caps) failing or under performing which are designed to regulate/provide a consistent 5V power supply to the motherboard and hard drive. In our VM repair process on the Standalone Mails, we have a policy to always replace these Caps (rebuild the PS) along with replacing the hard drive.

3. The 3rd possibility would be that your Bios chip is failing or has corrupted programming on it. It was custom programmed by Brooktrout for each different release of the Partner/Merlin Mail. It regulates the main operation of all functions on the motherboard. Since the Brooktrout voice cards are connected to the motherboard via the ISA slots, they can fail permanently or intermittently depending on the Bios programming being sent improperly to the motherboard or also if the 5V power from the power supply is faulty.

4. Sometimes the Brooktrout voice cards simply fail, but not often do we see all 4 port lights go red.

Sounds like the problem is a defective VM.

Andrew Roach
President - Drew Telecom Group, Inc.
Lucent/Avaya Voice Mail-Component-Transtalk Repair Specialists
Lucent/Avaya Telecom Brokers/Resellers
drew@triton.net
269-685-5400 - voice
269-685-5500 - fax

 

[rkochis]

Drewmich,
Thank you for the excellant information.

 

[itpphoneguy]

Hi rkochis,
I have one site with a stand alone Partner Mail that does what yours is doing. It has done this for years. We finally got the customer to buy an online UPS (as opposed to backup). The voicemail no longer "locks up". This fix was just to get the customer to turn the unit off for 30s, then back on. They would have to reset the time & date (clock chip batery is dead). Be aware that some back up UPS models may take too long to switch in.
This voicemail is still in service. The customer is of the understanding that they will buy a new voicemail when that one fails permanently. (money issue).
-Chris