Re(2): [SunRescue] Hi!

[Tim Hauber]

rescue at sunhelp.org writes:
>
>The problem on *SOME* Sun systems is that they somehow made the terrible
>mistake of connecting TERMPWR to ground instead of +5vdc on the
>motherboard (I'd love to have been privy to the discussions of their
>engineers before and after this mistake was made!).  In this scenario if
>you have your drive jumpered to supply TERMPWR with +5vdc (as you should
>if it's near the end of the chain in some cases), then it will be the
>source of the current sent back to the motherboard to ground -- i.e. the
>direct inverse of the scenario I described.  Along with zapping the
>ribbon cable you're likely to let the smoke out of a couple of traces on
>the drive's controller card too.
>

I doubt you'd more than get the cable warm before something on the drive
let go, unless, of course, you have a real monster drive, in which case
you could smoke the trace on the motherboard.  But this should be easy to
fix, just cut the trace on the motherboard, and tie it high, or power it
with the drive.  If you wanted to you could even solder in a microfuse to
protect things.  That is an ugly scenario, I hope some engineers feel bad
about that one. :-)

Tim