MDM Trouble Report for 2011 Jan 4

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Shields (Ohio University)
Instrument: OSMOS

Problem(s) Encountered:
Problems with Hiltner crashing are now a consistent pattern.
At the start of the night the system went down 5 times in
rapid succession, after which I tried starting up every couple 
of hours through the night without success.  The symptoms are

1) the computer powers itself down abruply and without warning.  
There is no freeze-up or panic message from the system, it just 
dies.

2) the computer stayed up through the day when it was not being
used; it seems to require some kind of activity to make it fail.

3) the type of activity associated with failure is quite varied.
It has died in the middle of an exposure; while starting up
the xtcs or xmis windows; and at different stages of 
restarting OSMOS.  On two occasions after I powered up 
Hiltner it died while the system  was still in the process of
coming up.

4) the average length of time the computer has stayed on before
spontaneously powering down is approximately 10 minutes.

As should be evident from this summary, observing at the 2.4m
is at a standstill until we get this resolved.

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Submitted on 2011 Jan 5 [4:16:14]