HELP. RN Pro Pioneer Edition) Not turning on, but...

winger13 wrote:
1. What specific symptom(s) I am experiencing makes you believe it is a power supply issue?

The ten-minute power-up delay is a common symptom of bad electrolytic capacitors in the power supply.

winger13 wrote:
2. Wouldn't a power supply issue mean that power supplied to the unit would be erratic or not working at all?

Not necessarily. When it's first switched on, the power supply waits for its internal voltages to stabilize before turning on its outputs. If a component in the circuit responsible for that delay is faulty, you could have the symptom you've described but still have perfectly good power when the outputs eventually do turn on.

However... You have a relatively benign issue now, but if more capacitors fail in other areas of the power supply circuitry, the power supply might stop working altogether. If that happens while the NAS is running, it could cause corruption of the data on your disks. And even the best UPS wouldn't protect you at that point, of course, since the problem would be between the UPS and the drives.

You should consider yourself lucky that you saw this symptom, as it is a warning of impending failure -- perhaps more serious failure -- elsewhere in the supply.

I can certainly understand that you might be reluctant to purchase another power supply without more evidence that your supply is failing. Fortunately, failing electrolytic caps usually show visual indications of the failure, so if you're mechanically inclined, you could remove your power supply from the NAS, take it apart, and inspect the capacitors to see whether any have burst or are bulging or leaking.

Power supplies can hold dangerously high voltages for some time even after they are turned off and removed from the mains power, so to be safe you should unplug the AC cord from the power supply and let it sit for a while -- overnight would be great -- before opening it up to look for failing capacitors. Searching the web for "capacitor plague" or "bulging cap" should bring up plenty of images so you know what to look for.

Or you could just buy a new power supply -- it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have a spare anyway -- and pop it in to see whether that fixes the problem.