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I have a Dell PE 1850 that has recently been re-purposed as a non-essential TFTP server. It is currently running Centos 5.4 with no GUI. It has redundant PSUs, however I only need one connected (available outlets are scarce in the full rack). Obviously this sets off the blinking orange warning LED on the front of the server and pressing the indicator button on the front does turn the LED blue, but it continues to blink.

What I want to know is, how do I make the server think that it only has 1 PSU and is not in an error state, keeping the warning LED solid unless something else fails? I don't want to remove the extra PSU, but I also don't want the LED to blink in the event of another hardware failure.

MDMarra
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3 Answers3

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Why not use a split power cable (y-cable)? That will allow you to have both power supplies plugged in simultaneously. You can find them at CDW, etc.

joeqwerty
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  • While this is the best solution so far (i.e. the only one that will work), I'd rather not have the extra draw of the second power supply on the UPS. – MDMarra Jan 07 '10 at 01:25
  • It's a minimal draw as it will be in a passive state. The power supplies on an 1850 don't "share" the power load AFAIK. – joeqwerty Jan 07 '10 at 02:05
  • When plugging in both power supplies one of two things will occur, depending on how the machine is designed and/or configured. Either both power supplies will share the load, in which case each will reduce its input requirement to about half. The other possibility is that, as joeqwerty has indicated, one of the supplies will remain idle. In either case the total drain from your UPS will be only minimally higher than it would be with just a single power supply connected. – John Gardeniers Jan 07 '10 at 20:53
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Have you tried removing the power supply? If it's not going to be plugged into the mains it can just as easily be removed from the machine and put on a shelf or in a cupboard.

John Gardeniers
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You should be able to disable that warning in Open Manage. Have you checked out the BIOS as well?

Josh Budde
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