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System board MTBF statistics? My R910 is getting it's 5th motherboard today.
Hi Guys,
Does Dell keep statistics on Mean Time Between Failures for their system boards? I purchased this $30K machine back int 2012, and the system board has failed 4 times. Most recently yesterday. I cannot tell you now frustrating this is to have my most expensive server be also my most unreliable. This machine was meant to be my rock-solid workhorse, and run almost the entire company. It's embarrassing to say that rather than run critical processes on this R910 with ESXi 6.0 u2, I am using SuperMicro Pizza boxes running CENTOS with KVM.
Why do I have to do this? In order to protect myself from making the same embarrassing decision in the future please tell me that there are failure statistics that I can have access to regarding the system boards.
In the meantime I will be running my SuperMicros and avoiding any new expensive Dell machines, even though my company officers still think Dell is a better product.
theflash1932
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September 15th, 2016 13:00
I'm sure they have such statistics, but I'm also sure that they are only available internally to their quality team. Besides, these types of statistics are only valuable to the consumer once the window to purchase one is passed. For example, there wouldn't be enough data on an R730 on which to base a purchasing decision right now, but ask me in 5 years and I can give you some great hindsight advice.
That isn't normal. Do you have a good UPS system (power is probably the leading culprit for frequent failures)? Good environmental conditions (heat, humidity, even extreme cold, or varying temps can cause hardware failures)? Radiation from heavy machinery, etc.? Are you using non-validated expansion cards? If you can rule out everything about your specific implementation/configuration as a potential cause, then I would ask Dell for a system exchange, as it could be an issue with the power distribution system, a short in the chassis or some other component, etc.
Jack_the_coiner
131 Posts
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September 15th, 2016 14:00
This machine has been in colo since it was born. Conditioned constant power for 4 years. And the replacement board is bad. Who is making these boards? Did Dell outsource to N. Korea for these things? The saga continues.
Which model of Dell currently has the most reliable system board. I am testing R630 an R430 with the intent of buying many of these (and deploying on customer prem) over the next 12 months. Are there any preliminary statistics on these machine models? Is there a way to see the results? Maybe I can talk to my Dell OEM partner and get some of the data I seek.
bcavnaugh
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September 17th, 2016 19:00
At what altitude in Colorado?
I am about 6500 feet and have a PE 2800 1900 2900 and 840 and not had any issues other than a hard drive failure. Soon to have a new PE T630