OT: This Swift thing

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 08 June 2014 12:09:41 Roy Smith did opine
And Gene did reply:
> In article <mailman.10878.1402242019.18130.python-list at python.org>,
> 
>  Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> > You may want to reconsider that statement after the first fan failure
> > in your mini.  We've had quite a few Mac's in the tv station, as
> > video servers, graphics composers, etc.  The airflow for cooling in
> > them is controlled by baffles to get the maximum air flow past the
> > hot spots, but a fan failure usually cooks the whole thing.  And at
> > that time, Macs warranty did not cover collateral damage from a fan
> > failure. Cooked cpu? Too bad, so sad.
> 
> The CPU (or maybe I'm thinking of the video card?) in the Dell has some
> huge heat sink, a bunch of funky ductwork, and a dedicated fan.  I
> suspect if that fan were to fail, the chip it's cooling would fry
> itself pretty quickly too.

Probably.  I have lost several nvidia video cards over the years from fan 
failures.  My phenom in this box has a 75C shutdown that has not been 
tested.  Best fan & sink assembly I could buy at the time.  And I have 
gotten into the habit of replacing the 45 cent fans on the video card with 
bigger, ball bearing fans at the first hint of a squall.  A lot of this 
stuff has more engineering time in assuring it will die 2 weeks out of 
warranty, than in giving top performance.  And that goes double for stuff 
wearing an Antec label.  I'm on the 4th psu in this box, its a $12.65 in 
10 packs 350 watter, Chinese of course, running 4 terrabyte drives and a 
USB tree that looks like a weeping willow plus the original 2.1Mhz Phenom. 
165 watts IIRC.  I run gkrellm and watch its voltages.  Now about 3 years 
old, the 5 volt line is still 5.08 volts.  Whats not to like?  The 2 
Antecs I was dumb enough to try, had 5 volt lines down to 4.75 volts and 
doing random resets at the end of the 1 year warranty.  Thats not an 
excusable failure in my book.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS