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[Raff.]

Hi Guys and Gals,

I recently bought a used DNS-320L to help automate my photo and video backups.

I'm getting quite the collection and after loosing some forever have become a little paranoid about loosing more.

it has 2 2Tb Seagate Barracuda drives installed in it that test fine.

It seemed to work ok at first but it seemed to be rather picky about starting up first time every time, often taking 4 or mores tries to get it to spin up the hard drives and continue to boot.

I decided to investigate and pulled the mainboard out for examination.

There are quite a few vacant pads on the PCB where electrolytic capacitors should go,  like across the main power input 12 volts, and across the each drive's power inputs as well. 5 spots all up.

Capacitors like these are used to "buffer" the power supply rail against droops in voltage due to sudden current spikes, like when a hard disk spins up for example.

I surprised they were left out, but I guess its some kind of cost cutting measure.

I looked in my junk box and found new old stock surface mount 220uF 16 volt caps and installed them in all 5 places.

I imagine anything from around 100uF to 470uf at 16 or more volts would do, pending that they physically fit.

Tantalums would work too I'd say .

Just make sue to install them the right way around, or they'll go pop!

So far so good, the box starts up from cold every time, more testing is needed of course but so far its looking good!

I hope it helps someone else out there,

Regards from Australia,
Raff.

[ivan]

Hi Raff,

It sounds as if you have a suspect power brick, one that can't supply the necessary start up inrush current (there is a big difference between start  and run current of most drives.

I think the reason the caps are not fitted to the board is because, under normal use with a good power brick, they are not needed.

BTW with a suspect power supply it would be a good idea to leave the unit on 24/7 connected to mains power via a UPS.  All my units are powered that way and were powered up about 3 years ago.

[AmiGaGa]

Hello,

thanks for suggest.
i have same problem for years now and i put the NAS on the freezer 10-15 mins to start it.

I Tried to change capacitors but when i tested old, there were OK
Never mind, i tried to load the 5 empty place with 220uF 16V and... nothing change.
Blue led of death dont want to quit my DNS320L.
It's a common problem as i've got 5 and all suffers from this problem (some are on 24h/24 and some only few hours for few months) and all are plugged via UPS.

I have 2 DNS320 (non L) and there works well despite there are older.