[Soekris] net5501 Hardware Issues?

[Nick Webb]

Hello --

I had a net5501 that only powered up properly 25% of the time (other 
times all the lights stay on and never change).  Shorting the P9 pins 
seems to improve this to 50% boot success.  Whenever the failure is 
encountered, I just remove the power and try again, eventually it will work.

It seems a lot like this issue:  http://www.soekris.com/issue0005.htm, 
but re-soldering didn't help.  I actually sent this unit back to 
Soekris, but I got it back and the problem still exists.

I have a few other units that work just fine and I've tried swapping out 
the power supplies and removing all extras (CF, SATA, etc.), to no avail.

Anyone else experienced issues like these?  Any quick fix or way to 
convince Soekris to fix?  It's mostly just a nag, but we've deployed 
these as VPN endpoints and I don't want to support a device that won't 
come back online automatically after power loss.


Thanks!
Nick