sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Samsung Telephones & Systems Can a system reset physically damage Hardware on the system?

Hello Guys.

I have a really stupid question and I'm 99.9% sure the answer is NO but let me ask it anyway.

During the hurricane, my T1 lines went down because of power surges, etc...

The Tech support guy at the phone company suggested I need to reset my phone system so I did.

Then it would not boot up because the power supply died.

My question is CAN RESETTING YOUR SYSTEM DAMAGE YOUR POWER SUPPLY? I can't see how resetting a system would physically damage hardware but I need to know from you experts.

Please let me know.

Thanks for your help.

No, absolutley not. It's likely that your power supply was either failing or it got hit with a surge from storm-related power fluctuations but was still hanging on. It's an unfortunate coincidence, but it does happen.

Remember that these things are on-line 24/7 and your power may not go out for months or even years. A cooling off from being powered down then it being fired back up may be all it takes to do in a weak component in the power supply.

Resetting the power to your system is really no different than the power going out. As a matter of fact, it's actually better for it since it's a controlled true "on" and "off" cycle as opposed to a power outage where the voltage may jump around momentarily. Any phone system can sustain a controlled outage unless it's just old and tired.

Thank you ev607797 for your reply.

I could not believe it either but a simple reset of the system and the power supply was down for the count as well as all the processors/cards in the cabinet. The entire bottom power supply was completely dead. I was wondering how resetting the system could kill it.

Let me ask you something, phone system generally speaking is extremely reliable made to be on 24/7 forever. There are no moving parts, software that never crashes, etc...

Would I be correct in assuming that the 1 weak links in the chain for the power supply on the phone system?

Is the power supply the most unstable piece in a system compared to the other cards in the system?

And if so, maybe it would be a good idea to have a few spare power supplies on hand incase of an emergency? Is it possible that a power surge could affect something that is plugged into a UPS?


Please let me know what you think.

Thanks again for your reply!

I dont know if I would go so far as to say that the power supply is the weak link in the system. I have had MCP cards fry before a power supply does, even behind a UPS. So I dont think you are really covered no matter what you buy unless you have a spare system fully carded with what you have right now. That is the only fail safe. You can protect yourself all you can but at the end of the day lightning is so unpredictable that it can kill anything.

This is the part that really has me confused. My system was protected with a UPS power supply(a really big one), so I don't understand how its possible to get fried.

Phone system draws power from the UPS battery; the electric will charge the battery. So if there is a power surge, its not going to like supercharge the battery so quick that it hurts the phone system is it?

So you are saying there is somehow a way that a system protected with a UPS can still get damaged during a hurricane season in Florida via power spikes/outages which will case them to run fine for a little bit but die the next time they are reset?

Please let me know.

Thanks for your help.

As far as ups are concerned some are better than others at conditioning power.

I think that you need to look not only at power or ups but also line spikes due to overvoltage from telco lines being hit, this does crazy things and there is no telling what it would damage, just keep in mind power and lightning take the least path of resistance and that could be anything in the cabinet or even across station wiring blocks to new locations like dli cards or what ever you have connected via copper.

I actually have 2 Adtran CSU ACE units, which protect from power surges on both T1 lines I believe.

Is it possible for a power surge to travel past the UPS? I was under the impressing that the UPS protected you 100% from any power surges and minor outages however I had possible 2 powers supplies go bad after restarting the system. This is a real mystery that I need to figure out so I don't get killed again.

Can anyone have any possible ideas?

Thanks

Well, one thing to remember. Grounding if it's not done correctly can also be a contributor. I doubt that your having restarted the system did the damage. You probably had a weak power supply to begin with that could have been due to something done years ago. Restarting it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Power supplies generate a significant amount of heat and many times, hot printed circuit board components can either weaken or ruin solder joints. They do just go bad sometimes due to these factors or even inferior components.

No UPS is totally failsafe. While they usually do a fantastic job of conditioning the power, they are not perfect. That's why I eluded to a possible ground issue. Just being connected to a pipe of metal framing member doesn't guarantee that it's at the same potential as the building's electrical ground. The only sure-fire way to tell is to remove the ground wire from your system and measure the voltage (if any) between that wire and the ground terminal on the UPS. If you measure anything more than a volt or two, that might be the source of your problem.

Sure, in a perfect world, having a full set of spares is the best thing to do, but we also have to be realistic about it. That would be very expensive, but if it sets your mind at ease, then by all means, go for it. We do keep spares of key components on-site for our larger systems and power supplies are high on the list of basics.

Many times, T1 circuits are delivered to the premises via fiber optic cable. In the worst case, they come in via traditional copper, but still, they go through telephone company electronics and then your Adtran units, so the liklihood of a surge getting that far into your system isn't very high. Now if you had traditional lines, that might be a different story. Even still, those kinds of surges usually only affect the cards they are connected to. I can't say that I have ever seen a power supply or even a processor damaged due to surge activity on the phone lines.

Its not just the C.O lines I was worried about but the station wiring, and as Ed said no ups is fail safe but you probably had a weakened psu or psub which ever the case may be.

I have seen a surge come across the data line that connects to the lan/mcp and an mgi card got fried.

I have even seen a compact get destroyed by lightning across the translater they were using eg the big cable company here had a data feed into the mdf and at that point converted to partial dail tones and then to the phone system

The translator was cooked and some of the voltage actually jumped 13 pins to the dailtone pairs and traveled across to the phone systems 66 blocks, burn past the sneak protection down the crossconnect and into the 4 cop card. at that point it popped the caps. Mean while another wire was near the contact point of the lightning and it jumped on the wire and took out the tdm phone and the main board it was connected to.

All that said ..... You are not one hundred percent protected at all times. But you can at least have a few extra parts like power supplies on hand for just your kind of emergency