Dear reader,
NATC has proven to be the one stop IT solution
center. We are continuing to deliver customers satisfaction like no one does
and through this means we are adding new clients based on customers’
recommendations. We recently provided tech support to the second largest rubber plantation in Liberia: The
Liberia Agriculture Company (LAC) in Grand Bass County.
On the 29th of September, our Head of
Operations received a call from the General Manager of LAC to report a failure
in powering on their data server HP ProLiant 360p Gen8, running Windows Server
2008 Data Center. The in-house IT officers assumed a power surge caused by a the lightning strike had damaged the server. A team of
two senior staff, Hardware Specialist Farman Elahi and myself Daniel Collins,
Software and Network Administrator, were dispatched with a new 460w power supply
unit and software for troubleshooting incase the problem could be power supply
replacement. We arrived the same day at around 5:00 O’clock PM due to the bumpy
road condition.
The LAC IT team welcomed us and we were introduced to
all the senior management staff. We provided an overview of our company and ourselves. They later took us to their staff canteen for snacks
and fresh air after a long day of driving. After lunch, we proceed to the server room and started our work. We checked the two power
supplies and they were all working well, but the server was still not powering
on. We carefully started a one-on-one check of all the ICs and MOPET ICs as
well then found out they were lot of damaged ones on the motherboard that
prevented power or current to flow from the power supply to these components to
power on the server. That took us up to 11:55PM. We could not work on repairs
on the motherboard on site so decided to inform the client to take the server
to our lab in Monrovia. The next morning we had a short meeting with the senior
management and the IT officers. As technical as the other
guys were, they agreed to our request and gave us a go-ahead. Before leaving we
inspected the electrical grounding system and lightning arrestor. We noticed
that lightning arrestor and grounding of the equipment was not properly done.
We arrived with the server late on a Saturday evening back to Monrovia along with the In-house IT Head. We could not do anything as it was close of
office hours. Early Monday morning we were able to thoroughly check the server's motherboard in our lab with our tools and equipment and concluded that it would
be difficult to do any professional or guaranteed repairs on the motherboard as
there was so much damage. These diagnostics were done in the midst of
their IT officer so he understood exactly our next step on replace the
motherboard.
The information was shared with LAC General Manager
and we were given the green light to order a new motherboard with same part number from
our USA partner and prepare material for the installation of the lightning
arrestor and grounding. The order was placed the same day and expected an
arrival over the weekend.
It arrived on the 6th of
October. I received a WhatsApp message from our Head of Operations about the
arriver of the said item. I got prepared for the next morning's trip to Grand
Bassa. I was picked up from my
Junction with the team including our Head of Operations that Saturday morning
and arrived at noon and immediately starting on replacing the motherboard. The
important parts such as Network Interface Card, Power Supplies, Heat Sink and
RAID Array Card were extracted from the old Motherboard and inserted on the new
Motherboard to secure the existing configurations and data files.
The Server
was powered on and came on initially with ‘’Power Supply Mismatch’’ error. I
was like gosh!!!!! Another problem again? But you know, there’s always a
solution especially when it comes to IT; either repair or replace in this
scenario. A critical thinking was done quickly and decided to remove the
redundant power supply unit and left the server one supply. It boots up
successfully with all configurations and data in place. We contacted their Home
office to login remotely from Switzerland to confirm it everything was ok from
their side, too. He then confirms ‘’Yes’’.
He suggested that we do a backup
immediately on a 4TB external hard drive. After completion of the Server, we
had a good lunch and proceeded back to site to continue the installation of the
new lightning arrestor.
 |
| Installation of the pipe. |
The Company provided us few men to help with digging of
5’ deep pit and prefabricated 30’galvanized pipe to weld the lightning arrestor
on top of the pipe securely and planted into the pit and filled with concrete
mixture. The tower was secured with 3 cable attached to the ground. 3 more pits were
dug and 3x5’ x 37.5mm thick copper rods were inserted into these pits and
connected the lightning arrestor with a 25mm on insulated cable. The resistance
test was 0.3 Ohm, this was a good value.
These pits were filled with fertile soil. The
old arrestor was reading 0.0 Ohm. They understood that the old one was not
working and should not be relied on. We also installed a 10000VA Voltage
Stabilizer and instructed their in-house electrician on how to connect the
server rack and other IT equipment due the time as we did not plan to sleep on
site. They have confirmed that it is connected and working well.
The customer was very excited with our quick
intervention and solution. Other vendors had advised that they should replace the
server and by replacing the server they would have lost all data because the
hard drives were configured with RAID protection. These drives cannot be read
in any servers or backup equipment.
NATC always provides the best solution for
its clients/customers that why that’s why we remain the one stop IT solution
company in Liberia running for years with experience management and staff.
Thanks for following our technical blogs and hope you
enjoy reading!
Prepared
By:
Daniel
Collins
Senior
IT Technician
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