Ontopic Random Computer-Electronics Thread

Motherfucker.

So I ordered a 4TB WD Blue in October of last year from Amazon. The drive I got was DOA. The replacement they sent me is the drive that died. It's been in operation for 7 months.

Fucking cucks.
 
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So a client of mine, their home and office next door got struck by lightning awhile ago. Lost a bunch of networking gear and computers. I'm interested in fixing, if possible, the Synology Nas that they had. Older model, just going to use it in my office if it can be repaired. No lan link light but all other lights seem to confirm that it is okay.

I tore apart the unit down to the pcb. Cannot find any smoked or missing chips, resistors, traces, or caps. Any ideas? It has a marvell chipset for onboard nic.

@gee
 
Josh said:
So a client of mine, their home and office next door got struck by lightning awhile ago. Lost a bunch of networking gear and computers. I'm interested in fixing, if possible, the Synology Nas that they had. Older model, just going to use it in my office if it can be repaired. No lan link light but all other lights seem to confirm that it is okay.

I tore apart the unit down to the pcb. Cannot find any smoked or missing chips, resistors, traces, or caps. Any ideas? It has a marvell chipset for onboard nic.

@gee
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If it's flipping it's shit, it may be doing a check on the data volume, and this can take hours or more depending on how large the volume is. So let it sit and hang out if you want.

A bad drive can also cause it not to boot, or boot extremely slowly.

Synology's typically take 5 - 10 minutes to start up.

Something to try is to take all the drives out. It'll have firmware to boot itself up with.

Download their discovery tool, it'll tell what it's doing.

PS, I own two Syno's.
 
Josh said:
So a client of mine, their home and office next door got struck by lightning awhile ago. Lost a bunch of networking gear and computers. I'm interested in fixing, if possible, the Synology Nas that they had. Older model, just going to use it in my office if it can be repaired. No lan link light but all other lights seem to confirm that it is okay.

I tore apart the unit down to the pcb. Cannot find any smoked or missing chips, resistors, traces, or caps. Any ideas? It has a marvell chipset for onboard nic.

@gee
Click to expand...
Most destroyed ICs display no outward signs of damage, at least nothing that's easy to see.

As far as I know those things have a hidden serial console you can get into. Here's an example, which might not correspond to the one you've got.
https://wrgms.com/recovering-a-failed-synology-diskstation-ds2xx-serial/

Find a suitable FTDI breakout board or cable, Bus Pirate or whatever you can get your hands on and try doing the same, and try and get into the console. Confirm the thing actually boots up and does stuff and runs a functioning OS before you go any further.

If it boots up fine, appears to do everything normal but the ethernet port just doesn't work, lightning blew something there. Either the ethernet transformer is bad (which could be integrated into the RJ45 connector, or in a separate package) or the ethernet PHY chip is dead.

Fuck around on the serial console. If the PHY itself is dead, chances are you'll get some kernel error messages from the ethernet driver, because the MAC in the main processor and the PHY chip negotiate with each other and a dead PHY should throw some errors. If everything appears to work but you're just not getting a link light, I'd suspect the transformer (or ethernet jack, if it integrates the transformer)

In any case, you're gonna have to order some electronic components and change them out. You're easily looking at $10-15 for the parts and shipping, assuming you can get them. Changing out the PHY will require a hot air rework station, and is probably best left to a shop that does cellphone repair or a contract electronics assembly shop. Likewise for an ethernet transformer if it's a separate, surface mount device. Changing out a through hole RJ45 jack should be doable by hand with a good soldering iron, lots of solder wick/flux, and lots of cursing and swearing.

Might be worth just seeing if you can buy a used mobo off ebay or something. Or just pitching it.
 
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gee said:
Most destroyed ICs display no outward signs of damage, at least nothing that's easy to see.

As far as I know those things have a hidden serial console you can get into. Here's an example, which might not correspond to the one you've got.
https://wrgms.com/recovering-a-failed-synology-diskstation-ds2xx-serial/

Find a suitable FTDI breakout board or cable, Bus Pirate or whatever you can get your hands on and try doing the same, and try and get into the console. Confirm the thing actually boots up and does stuff and runs a functioning OS before you go any further.

If it boots up fine, appears to do everything normal but the ethernet port just doesn't work, lightning blew something there. Either the ethernet transformer is bad (which could be integrated into the RJ45 connector, or in a separate package) or the ethernet PHY chip is dead.

Fuck around on the serial console. If the PHY itself is dead, chances are you'll get some kernel error messages from the ethernet driver, because the MAC in the main processor and the PHY chip negotiate with each other and a dead PHY should throw some errors. If everything appears to work but you're just not getting a link light, I'd suspect the transformer (or ethernet jack, if it integrates the transformer)

In any case, you're gonna have to order some electronic components and change them out. You're easily looking at $10-15 for the parts and shipping, assuming you can get them. Changing out the PHY will require a hot air rework station, and is probably best left to a shop that does cellphone repair or a contract electronics assembly shop. Likewise for an ethernet transformer if it's a separate, surface mount device. Changing out a through hole RJ45 jack should be doable by hand with a good soldering iron, lots of solder wick/flux, and lots of cursing and swearing.

Might be worth just seeing if you can buy a used mobo off ebay or something. Or just pitching it.
Click to expand...
Yeah it has a serial header on the board, and somewhere I have a TTL adapter. The ethernet chip is available on eBay for a few bucks, brand new. I don't have the soldering skills nor hot air station to fix this though. I have a friend who could probably do it, but he's too busy. I didn't know the jack may have a transformer in it. This board has the USB ports and the ethernet jack all in one package where it is then soldered onto the board. Was hoping this would be an easy fix.
 
Josh said:
Yeah it has a serial header on the board, and somewhere I have a TTL adapter. The ethernet chip is available on eBay for a few bucks, brand new. I don't have the soldering skills nor hot air station to fix this though. I have a friend who could probably do it, but he's too busy. I didn't know the jack may have a transformer in it. This board has the USB ports and the ethernet jack all in one package where it is then soldered onto the board. Was hoping this would be an easy fix.
Click to expand...

Did you try anything I suggested?
 
It has this wild new feature called Drop In. Drop In lets you give people permission to automatically connect with your device. Here’s how it works. Let’s say my father has activated Drop In for me on his Echo Show. All I have to do is say, “Alexa, drop in on Dad.” It then turns on the microphone and camera on my father’s device and starts broadcasting that to me. For the several seconds of the call, my father’s video screen would appear fogged over. But then there he’ll be. And to be clear: This happens even if he doesn’t answer. Unless he declines the call, audibly or by tapping on the screen, it goes through. It just starts. Hello, you look nice today.
Click to expand...


oh fuck that
 
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