Cables...

One of my favorite tech writers and descent sci fi author, Jerry Pournelle, used to always say to check your cables first whenever experiencing any kind of problem. I guess I forgot that advice!

I took the EPIA 5000 and turned it into a dedicated print and file server. My printer lacks network support, so it needs a computer to be shared on. I used to keep it plugged into my desktop - but my Quad Core HP draws too much power and puts out too much heat.

When I first setup the EPIA 5000, it worked great. So I built a little stand for the printer so I could tuck the EPIA 5000 and my various network paraphernalia underneath and out of the way. For some reason, every time I got the EPIA 5000 tucked in there - it would fail to boot. If I took it out and hooked it into a monitor - it worked!

I thought it was the hard drive. After all, I did find it in the dumpster. I also thought the drive was drawing too much power for the miniscule first-gen Mini-ITX power supply. I had the box apart and was debating transfering the drive contents to another drive when it hit me - the cable might be flaky. I swapped out the IDE with a fresh one (probably from the dumpster as well). Sure enough, it's cranking right along now!