tlug: Up and running again - thank God - but why?

[Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>]

  Hi guys (and gals?),

  Hope you'll forgive a question that's not really LiGnux-related -
hell this is hardly even electronic.  I seem to have some kind of 
electrical problem.  My box has been down for about 40 hours now,
and I just (somehow) got it back up minutes ago.

  Let me explain the problem first as succinctly as possible, then
I'll sketch in some background.  I push the ATX power switch on the
front of the case, and _nothing_ happens.  Even the power supply fan
doesn't come on.  Hours or days later, with everything else disconnected
from the box itself, I plug it in and it fires up right away - without
the power switch being touched at all.

  This has happened twice now in pretty much the same way.  It was
even worse the first time, a year ago now, because I had just upgraded
the motherboard from the ASUS P2B to the ASUS P2B-S (with the onboard
U2W scsi).  You can imagine that after major surgery like that, I was
checking and rechecking a million things.  No go. So, finally I gave
up and took the box to my parts supply shop.  We plugged it in and -
presto! - it fired up without even the power switch being pressed.

  We decided that it was probably a mains power supply thing - too
many things plugged in on the ancient pre-war wiring in this old
wooden house.  I kept the number of devices that were on at one time
to a minimum and the box has worked happily ever since (even with 
all the external devices powered up at once, in fact).  I was a little
uneasy at first, but - hey! - if it ain't broke...  And after a while
I just forgot about it.

  Until this Sunday.  I'd been using the machine all day, turned it
off for dinner, and switched back on later in the evening - nothing!
I checked and rechecked everything inside the box, tried plugging it
into a different outlet on its own - still nothing.  I could only
imagine, however improbable, that maybe the power supply had given up
the ghost (the fan had been groaning for ages), so I took that out and
had it tested yesterday at a parts shop up in Kokura.  Nothing wrong
with the power supply.   

  I put it back in this morning, unplugged and replugged every 
relevant connection several times, tried this, tried that - no go.
So, once again, I was forced to give up and prepare the box for a trip
to my usual parts supply shop here in Fukuoka.  I took out the main
hard drive (for peace of mind), put the case back on, and was just
ready to put it in the cardboard box, when I thought I'd try plugging
it directly into the newest outlet in the house.  I'm thinking to
myself, 'this is pointless', when BOOM! it powered up, just like the
first time, without me touching the power switch at all.    

  So, I've put the main drive back in, plugged it back in in the 
usual place, and here I am - as if nothing had ever happened. And I
wouldn't be surprised if it worked for another year without
complaining, BUT I have got to find out what's going on here.  

  I should mention that I have wondered a lot about the basic
electrical setup here since the first incident.  Of course, this _is_
Japan.  Three-prong plugs?  Earth?  Ground? What??  And I have noticed
that even with the power off, if I'm working on my box - and have
inadvertently left it plugged in - I definitely get a little tingle
from the metal parts of the case.  I mention this in all ignorance,
only hoping that a more clued-in soul may see the relevance.     

  Sorry for the long-winded description and not really being on topic,
but there are so many real experts on this list, I know someone will
know the answer to this perplexing problem.

  Cheers,  Dennis

Dennis McMurchy, 
Sointula, B.C. / Tojinmachi, Fukuoka
Canada           Japan


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