Impressively coordinated failure

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So, a little while back I noticed that one of the case-fans on the media server was in the process of failing. It was a shonky-ass glowing fan that I’d only connected a couple of years ago, because the server was running quite hot in the summer. I may have had it connected years ago when the machine was new, but I’ve not used it continuously…

Anyhow, despite its relatively low usage, it’d started making graunchy noises. I wasn’t too worried. It’d fallen in to the ‘replace when it starts getting really noisy’ category because it’s winter, and the machine runs pretty damn cold in there. That room’s only heated to around 15 degrees or so, just to keep the washing machine happy, so I wasn’t too stressed.

However, I got home today and eventually, having had my (nearly 3 hours) of sleep-deprivation prevention treatment (a nap after my night shift :) ) and sloped downstairs with the intention of, wait for it, painting my nails. Yes. Seriously. I know!?!*.

Anyhow, I sat down, fresh tea on the table, flicked on the TV and asked the XBMC machine to connect to the media server. Failure ensued.

I pulled up my laptop and said ‘Oh hey, laptop, what’s up with the server’ and my laptop replied ‘what server is that then?’. And so I sloped out to the server room and was met with the silence of a machine that is most definitely off.

This is worrying, I thought, and then recalled that the server is set to power-off on all fan-failures. I poked the power button.

*GRAAAAUNCH* went…several things. The known-sickly case fan appeared to sort-of spin up, then stalled, then started again. But while it was doing that there were other…nasty…failed fan noises.
*THWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE* went the self-test before I plunked it back to its happy-off-state.

I pulled the server into the house. A little research revealed that:

– The case fan is dead
– The power-supply duct fan is dying (and making some very sad noises)
– The power-supply’s own fan is dead.

This is very upsetting, because the power-supply is only just over a year old (September last year it was replaced) – and I didn’t get the very cheapest piece of crap supply. Fortunately, I thought, I’d fixed the power supply that’d failed with shiny new capacitors.

Throwing that in and whipping out the two sickly case fans, I thought, would produce a server that would at least work until the new fans arrived.

Only no.

Because turning it on with the shiny new supply led to the discovery that (I suspect) the somewhat rapid ‘FAN’S DEAD TURNING OFF NOW’ failure has done badness to the boot drive.

Turning the PC on leads to the ‘I’m going to boot now, oh’ failure. And so I’m waiting for the Ubuntu LiveCD to come down so I can break out the FSCK on the disk and pray that it’s just that that’s died.

So, my peaceful post nights reverie (watching Lost Girl and drinking nice things) has been destroyed. And. And. And my nail polish needs to come back off :(

* It’s my Xmas work do tomorrow, I thought I’d stun them with actually painted nails. Although in all honesty, my nail-painting-skills are not what they once were, and I think it’s probably time to buy some new nail polish, because the stuff I just applied has roughly the consistency of porridge. Unfortunately, I can’t be arsed to go down to the chemist and get some more. It’s a shame, because I really like the colour.

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.