Comment On The Son of ITAPPMONROBOT

Claxon:

Not very enterprisey though is it? What happens if you get another machine that also needs power-cycling on a regular basis too? Are you going to hot wire that one too? What about when the company "Hits it big" and you get 20 of these machines? No, no what you need is one of those programmable Roombas, and have it regularly patrol the server room hitting reset buttons every few hours.

The budget for the project can be taken from the cleaners salary who you'll no longer need thanks to your Roomba!

As you’ll see in the close-up, the wires are placed such that the leads will gently touch when the drive opens.

snoofle:

Claxon:

Not very enterprisey though is it? What happens if you get another machine that also needs power-cycling on a regular basis too? Are you going to hot wire that one too? What about when the company "Hits it big" and you get 20 of these machines? No, no what you need is one of those programmable Roombas, and have it regularly patrol the server room hitting reset buttons every few hours.

The budget for the project can be taken from the cleaners salary who you'll no longer need thanks to your Roomba!

You, Sir, are hired!

minkey:

Maybe it's just the 6 years of Air Force Aircraft maintenance speaking, but two bare wires touching scares me. You couldn't have bought a 2 dollar button at radio shack that the drive hits? so you could place the button where you want AND cover everything?

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When can I start buying this stuff on thinkgeek!!!

minkey:

Maybe it's just the 6 years of Air Force Aircraft maintenance speaking, but two bare wires touching scares me. You couldn't have bought a 2 dollar button at radio shack that the drive hits? so you could place the button where you want AND cover everything?

dabean:

Why was a separate computer needed?

Anon:

minkey:

Maybe it's just the 6 years of Air Force Aircraft maintenance speaking, but two bare wires touching scares me. You couldn't have bought a 2 dollar button at radio shack that the drive hits? so you could place the button where you want AND cover everything?

A simple magnet and reed switch would seem to be a viable solution too. No exposed wires necessary.

Thomas:

Who needs a scheduled task that executes shutdown /r when you can show off your enterprisy MacGyver skills?

XioPod:

ping something..
if no return,
shutdown -r -f

done..

minkey:

Maybe it's just the 6 years of Air Force Aircraft maintenance speaking, but two bare wires touching scares me. You couldn't have bought a 2 dollar button at radio shack that the drive hits? so you could place the button where you want AND cover everything?

Andir:

I have a much better solution to this, that would allow multiple servers to be rebooted with minimal hardware.

Rig up one of those 12" clocks (you know.. the ones with hour/minute hands made of metal) so that one wire from every PC rubs against the center bolt of the clock and the other wire is positioned to trigger a reset at a specific time each day. You'd have to run the trigger wire from the back in a spot so it just barely touched the hour hand. (maybe a fine wire on the end of the hour hand?)

anonymous coward:

If you're really in the business of abusing obsolete technology to get some general purpose IO lines, old parallel port cards give you 8 open collector outputs capable of switching about 10mA each.

Attach these lines to a relay and you could reset 8 machines per card.
If you didn't have a relay, or if you just want to live dangerously, forget the relay and sink the +5v side of the reset switch directly into one of the pins on the parallel port, making sure to join the 0v reference of both motherboards so the logic levels line up and you've got the same solution. You'll need a current limiting resistor for each line if you want the solution to last more than a day without blowing up the parallel port card.

Also, the flow control lines of a serial port can be used to similar effect.

anonymous coward:

PS: gloves. This post entirely for humor, please god no one ever take it as a serious suggestion...

Gonzalo...:

I don't understand why is so complicated.. It wouldn't be better to just put the CD tray at the same level at the reset button, so when the tray open instantly hit the button?? no extra wires!

Andir:

I have a much better solution to this, that would allow multiple servers to be rebooted with minimal hardware.

Rig up one of those 12" clocks (you know.. the ones with hour/minute hands made of metal) so that one wire from every PC rubs against the center bolt of the clock and the other wire is positioned to trigger a reset at a specific time each day. You'd have to run the trigger wire from the back in a spot so it just barely touched the hour hand. (maybe a fine wire on the end of the hour hand?)

Kermos:

As you’ll see in the close-up, the wires are placed such that the leads will gently touch when the drive opens.

Looking at the image, shouldn't that be when the drive CLOSES?

Andir:

I have a much better solution to this, that would allow multiple servers to be rebooted with minimal hardware.

Rig up one of those 12" clocks (you know.. the ones with hour/minute hands made of metal) so that one wire from every PC rubs against the center bolt of the clock and the other wire is positioned to trigger a reset at a specific time each day. You'd have to run the trigger wire from the back in a spot so it just barely touched the hour hand. (maybe a fine wire on the end of the hour hand?)

Blackice:

So you took the time to connect your wire to the problem computer's reset switch, why not just connect the wire to the robot cd drive's "eject signal" wire? No exposed wires, no moving parts (at least none that affect your "circuit")

Brains First:

This is a joke. The wires toutch when the drive CLOSES.

Has anyone managed to get a remote computer to close an open drive? I thought that was impossible.

You can eject but you can't close, sounds stupid but it's true from my experience, so this 'wallace and grommit' approach just wouldn't work.

There are very simple ways of writing scripts to monitor connections and reboot if necessary using third party software or freeware.