• abstract protected synchronized final void longSignature() (unregistered)

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

  • Mark (unregistered)

    The good ol' robots and their cd drives. What would robots do without them? Oh, that's right.. I, Robot showed us what. :S

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Why...

  • (cs)

    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!

  • (cs) in reply to Claxon
    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!

  • Do Nut (unregistered)

    So... why couldn't the problem child machine cycle itself when the network goes schizoid?

  • Florian Junker (unregistered)

    There's still another problem: What happens when the restart robot dies? Does it have a backup?

  • (cs)
    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?

  • (cs) in reply to snoofle
    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!

    Sweet, Roomba pinball!
  • (cs) in reply to Kermos

    Come on, seriously, just replace the f*cking network card already. Dillholes like this just need to be beaten.

    Bob: "Hey, the network card is crap. The computer needs to be restarted all the time." Ted: "So, why don't we buy another one." Bob: "We paid too much for this one." Ted: "I know, let's buy an expensive switch capable of restarting the computer!" Bob: "For that price we could replace the ne..." Ted: "Better yet, we can rig our computer to restart the machine!" Bob: "Whatever."

  • (cs)

    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?

  • Nick (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr

    I get the idea that the fcking card in question is a proprietary piece of crap and that it's not an isolated defect but a design flaw present in all instances of this fcking card.

    So replacing the fcking network card would leave you out some fcking money with the same fcking problem. Better to make a fcking simple solution that gives you some f*cking fun at the same time.

  • scoot (unregistered)

    At least cross connect wire still apparently has a use.

    I still have a spool but it's kind of useless with VoIP.

    Now I see what I should be doing with it! Building service robots from old PCs.

  • (cs) in reply to minkey
    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?
    Yeah, but that way you wouldn't be able to scare the interns "See that wire there? Well, if the FBI ever comes knocking hit the eject button. Oh, and stand back, you do NOT want thermite on you."
  • Matt (unregistered) in reply to abstract protected synchronized final void longSignature()
    abstract protected synchronized final void longSignature():
    When can I start buying this stuff on thinkgeek!!!

    It's not right if you buy it, you've got make these things.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to minkey
    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.

  • (cs)

    Why was a separate computer needed?

  • (cs)

    There are also boxes that will take commands over a serial port, to turn any of a set of power receptacles on or off. I used one long ago to provide failover for an unreliable device....

  • Grew (unregistered) in reply to dabean
    dabean:
    Why was a separate computer needed?

    How would you send the command to the computer that was no longer connected to the network?

    Oh yes, by walking up to it and manually pressing the eject button on the CD Drive. Oh wait. You might as well manually press the reset button instead.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    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.
    Why not use a webcam and image analysis software (I suppose that would have to run on a third machine) to determine when the state of the CD drawer changes and reset the problem server? Like that you'd be fully Enterprise Ready in no time at all…
  • (cs) in reply to Grew

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

    done..

  • suscipere (rocking the captchah, rocking the captchah...) (unregistered)

    So, If i understand well, the machine does_not_need to be power-cycled, just rebooted, right , since you are referring to the reset switch, instead of the power button. In this case, a simple "if no ping reboot" script would do, wouldn't it ? Less hardware, and what really scares me the most is those constant reset, that are finally going to do wonders to your file systems on day... and are going to trigger more reset. Unless it's really power-cycling you need...

  • Thomas (unregistered)

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

  • Neil (unregistered)

    It looks like a cool make-do solution to me.

  • (cs) in reply to Thomas
    Thomas:
    Who needs a scheduled task that executes shutdown /r when you can show off your enterprisy MacGyver skills?

    the sad part is, you have to have some kind of task running on the other machine to eject the drive anyways...

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to XioPod
    XioPod:
    ping something.. if no return, shutdown -r -f

    done..

    Did you consider that the box that needs resetting may be having hard crashes from the haywire PCI card?

  • Andir (unregistered)

    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?)

  • (cs) in reply to minkey
    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?

    Seems that when I was working the the shop, we used micro switches (really about .5x1x2) with a roller bearing on the lever-end for limit switches. Depending on what we wanted to happen, we wired the NO or NC (normally open or normally closed) to good effect.

    So you COULD wire the NO side and place the switch on the (wooden) table leg at about the limit of the CD tray's travel and get the same effect. And you could cover those bare wires. You could also use the NC side for an indicator lite. or something. Light's on means everything is okay (or soon to be). Lights out means a reboot is coming.

    Enterprisey enough?

  • (cs) in reply to Andir
    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?)

    now THAT is enterprisey! You should wins some sort of enter-prize. heh.

  • (cs)

    for version 2 of this device, you should open the CDROM drive up, disconnect the tray drive motor, and wire in a normally-open reed relay instead of the bare wires. I have to say this is a fairly amusing device... the third? fourth? fifth? electronic device doing something critical in a very hackish way here: ITAPPMONROBOT the fisher price enterprise technology device the door-opening robot for the guys locked out of their office ... are some that come to mind...

  • anonymous coward (unregistered)

    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.

  • (cs) in reply to anonymous coward
    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.

    this would almost work... they're open collector with pullup resistors, so they should be used as negative-side switching to drive the relays - not positive-side switching. I've actually seen people do this, when combined with a small N-channel MOSFET to make sure the relay coil current wasn't too much... it worked surprisingly well. I'm not too sure on the direct connect method, it probably would work with some motherboards and not others depending on design. You could also rig something up to short the POWERGOOD# line on the ATX supply connector to ground if you were in a hurry, grounding that will always hard reset the machine.

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

  • Rob (unregistered)

    How hard is it to write a simple app to ping a normally reachable address and have the system reboot, all by itself, when the ping fails?

    Seems like that would make a lot more sense.

  • Gonzalo... (unregistered)

    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!

  • (cs) in reply to kastein
    anonymous coward:
    PS: gloves. This post entirely for humor, please god no one ever take it as a serious suggestion...

    Oh, fer goodness' sake, why not? Yin's are givin me ideas! The things ye kin do wen ye tink outside da box!

  • Blackice (unregistered)

    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")

  • Rob (unregistered) in reply to Rob

    And, of course, it would be deployable to as many computers as you need.

    Unless the bad network driver or whatever was locking the machine to hell; but nothing in the article would imply that. At least not, from how I read it.

  • Campbell (unregistered)

    Cable the reset button to the Receptionists desk. Then email the receptionist when you want the machine reset.

    That's how my tape robot works too...

  • (cs) in reply to Gonzalo...
    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!
    Too easy & not enterprixey enough
  • Noob (unregistered) in reply to Nick

    f*ck yea!

  • (cs) in reply to Andir
    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?)

    Enterprisey. Simple. User friendly. In short brillant!

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is the URL to the "Meaninglessness" article. I mean, how does that article link come out as

    http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/MeaningleBneB.aspx

    unless someone's written it out by hand with german betas and then OCR'd it off a wooden table?

  • (cs) in reply to Kermos
    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?

    My guess (and this is just a guess here) is that the wires hit when the drive opens OR closes, and the picture of it open is just because it looks more dramatic.
  • Gonzalo... (unregistered) in reply to Andir
    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?)

    You could also tap some C4 to the other end.. maybe you will have lucky with your boss

  • Onigiri (unregistered)

    I also had a similar setup where a piece of software would start failing after an impermanent amount of time. Killing/restarting the software wouldn't work.

    Attempting a graceful reboot of the machine would cause the aforementioned program to lock the computer solid.

    Our solution was essentially the same as this, however consisted of a perl script that used the ControlX10::CM17 perl module to control an X10 firecracker&transceiver to power cycle the machine. It would issue a power off, wait a few seconds then issue a power on. No need for moving parts.

  • Onigiri (unregistered) in reply to Onigiri

    How I got impermanent from indeterminate is beyond me

  • helix (unregistered)

    shutdown -r

    or

    init 6

  • (cs) in reply to Blackice
    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")
    You must be the sort of person who uses a genderbender to plug a 25 pin rs232 cable into a parallel port and then wonders why it won't work.
  • Brains First (unregistered)

    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.

  • (cs) in reply to Brains First
    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.

    Umm, eject -t on a linux box? Used to do this all the time in college when I was ssh'd in to my computer from the labs, just to mess with my roommate. 2 CD drives randomly opening and closing. Didn't take him long to learn to ignore anything funny happening with my machines.

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