New server update 3 (in General)

My vendor (http://www.coloradoservers.com) replied that they've seen a lot of CPUs get just a little unseated by rough handling courtesy of UPS -- not enough to be able to see or feel a difference, but enough to cause problems. At their suggestion I removed the CPUs and heatsinks, and re-seated them. It worked; the server is happy again.

On one hand that's good, but on the other it's bad.

I presume you still have to ship the server back to it's intended destination so how can the same issue be avoided on the return leg ?

umm... secure the heat sink and CPU in a safe area within the case, and leave a not tellin them to put it back correctly? It would avoid them coming apart and possibly breaking this time?

Yes, I still need to ship it out again. I don't think there's much I can do to keep this from happening again, other than cross my fingers... Obviously it made it to me in good shape the first time, so UPS doesn't drop it too hard _every_ time. :)

(I'm looking into whether FedEx will do a better job but my impression is they're all pretty much the same.)

United Package Smashers.

it's shameful that the NOC monkies couldn't do that...

Isn't Grant available to do overnight shipping for you (I assume you've got him chained down in the basement to serve as the family babysitter, but it might be nice to let him out for a few days).

I miss good ol' Grant. :(

Best of luck with figuring out what to do.

I miss Grant too. (He moved to NJ to get his law degree.)

Now, i don't expect any compensation, but it has been like 4 times now that i couldn't log into CB. That is like 640+ BA not spent... i do not mean to be annoying or anything, but can we have any type of compensation?

I do not even know if my inability to log in is due to the server, but i do know that i was not able to do so 4 times now.

Can we have any kind of BA compensation?

no.

Who's Grant?

Didn't they re-seat the CPU when they re-seated everything else earlier?

As a note, the big difference between FedEx and UPS is how they train employees. For example, at UPS, pacakages go down these chutes to trucks for a given area. They get scanned at the top where the person chooses a truck and sends it down, then rescanned at the bottom to verify it's going to the right place. They routinely send packages down to the wrong destination to ensure that the employees on the receiving end are doing their job and catching the mistakes. This same attitude is applied everywhere, including package handling. The bottom line is that the UPS business model is not geared towards ensuring the safety of your package. They do, however, make good on insurance claims without any hassel at all, so if you ship it with UPS, always get insurance.

On a slightly related topic, my mom bought a new vacuum cleaner a few months ago. The light bulb in the front didn't work, so she ordered a new one. It came a few weeks later in a paper package, completely smashed.

Fortunately, they sent another one free of charge, this time in a cardboard box wrapped in about 5 layers of bubble wrap :-P

What is with all the recent severing? I know this is carnage blender but do we always need to be updated on how the system is being repeatedly dismembered? :)

There are R's and then there are R's, Zog.

i was severed from the server in an extremely severe manner and would now like severance pay.

I guess we know now how Severus Snape got that first name and why he seems to be cranky all the time ... he hasn't been getting his daily allotment of ba.

It's odd that you say that about UPS, NS. My wife works for a
brokerage company and ship stuff daily. They try not to use UPS
now. Once they sent $20k of ICs out and their customer received
a box of laundry detergent. Another time, they shipped a delivery express to Austria and the tracking showed that instead of arriving
in two days, it actually got sent to Sydney, Australia. Twice. It
arrived quite late.

UPS - 75 Million packages and letters a week - if only one-hundred thousand go astray or get smashed each week - that's still an amazing level of accuracy. 99.999% to be precise. And I'm sure their accuracy is far higher than that.

Complain all you like - put into context they do an amazing job.

Unless your context is "2 out of the 5 things I personally ship in a year" arrive damaged or not at all.

United Postal Smashers was pretty funny. Made me laugh hard, and that was pretty good too Bast (your last post). Hopefully the new server will arrive without dismemberment. It's St. Patty's day...make sure you put a 4 leaf clover in the box or something. You had better get to lookin. :D

I shipped the server back out again (via FedEx) tonight after running cpuburn and stress to make sure there wasn't something subtle wrong still. Cross your fingers. :)

/me crosses fingers

*crosses fingers, toes, eyes, wires, monkey necks...*

Last Gasp -- Ever hear of "Six Sigma"?

I have now... very interesting... I work in the TV industry... I'd be amazed if we could approach that level of "perfection" in keeping commercials on the air in the manner intended (we're lucky to approach 99.5%).

Well, to be fair, it applies to certain industries better than others. Further, few if any broadcasters give a guarantee that a commercial will be aired as intended -- at least, not outside of the initial contract. As long as the contract is fulfilled, that error margin you talk about would be inside the 3.4 defects per million.