Well, after just over four years of sterling service, the clock signal flaw finally bit my trusty Synology DS1515+.
The unit kept hanging whilst carrying out tasks, then dropping off the network. No answer to the Assistant, Web Finder nor Pings. The only solution was a long press of the power button to force a shutdown. On restart, sometimes it would start right up, then quickly drop off again. Other times I'd get the "flashing blue power light of death".
These units can also have their power supplies fail but then you get a totally dead unit. No response at all.
A flashing blue power button led is symptomatic of a motherboard failure. Apparently you can prevent this, or even resurrect a defunct unit, by soldering a 100k resistor onto a couple of pins on a motherboard connector. There's various images and tutorials online showing the process.
I decided I'd put a support ticket into Synology explaining my situation and I'm glad I did. They answered straight away offering me an RMA. I had to send them my old unit at my expense but they sent me a brand new one at theirs! This new unit has the resistor fix applied.
I'm a happy bunny once again. I put my drives into the new unit, in the same order as in the old, and it was quickly up and running as before.
I'm pretty happy with Synology customer service all said and done. Their expanded RMA centre in Milton Keynes in the UK must have been made to store all these replacement units they've had to ship out!
The unit kept hanging whilst carrying out tasks, then dropping off the network. No answer to the Assistant, Web Finder nor Pings. The only solution was a long press of the power button to force a shutdown. On restart, sometimes it would start right up, then quickly drop off again. Other times I'd get the "flashing blue power light of death".
These units can also have their power supplies fail but then you get a totally dead unit. No response at all.
A flashing blue power button led is symptomatic of a motherboard failure. Apparently you can prevent this, or even resurrect a defunct unit, by soldering a 100k resistor onto a couple of pins on a motherboard connector. There's various images and tutorials online showing the process.
I decided I'd put a support ticket into Synology explaining my situation and I'm glad I did. They answered straight away offering me an RMA. I had to send them my old unit at my expense but they sent me a brand new one at theirs! This new unit has the resistor fix applied.
I'm a happy bunny once again. I put my drives into the new unit, in the same order as in the old, and it was quickly up and running as before.
I'm pretty happy with Synology customer service all said and done. Their expanded RMA centre in Milton Keynes in the UK must have been made to store all these replacement units they've had to ship out!