When Servers Explode

1sockchuck writes "Have you ever lost your patience with a server? We're not sure who was the first person to intentionally blow up a server, but plenty of others have followed in their footsteps, and many seem to have captured the event on video. The Gallery of Exploding Servers documents the sometimes incendiary relationship between man and machine. Those who prefer a kinder, gentler disposition may prefer the guide to Flying and Crashing Servers."

Comments

It happened to me

[Toe, The]

I used to admin this rickety old voicemail system which had been set up (by someone else, mind you) on a generic ("white box") DOS PC with a million cards sticking out of it.

One day, I came in to the office to complaints that the voicemail was down. I found the machine unresponsive, so rebooted it. I suspected the drive wasn't spinning because I didn't hear much sound coming from it. Due to loud noise in the closet, I held my ear to the box to listen better.

As I set my head against the server, the true problem became painfully evident... the cooling fan had stopped spinning, the PC had completely overheated, and it chose that moment for the power supply to literally explode from the heat. A plume of pure white smoke came out with a loud popping sound... My ear was ringing for hours afterward.

OK, so it didn't actually tear apart into tiny pieces, but it did effectively blow up.

God did it.

[oahazmatt]

I used to work for a small ISP and we had several servers explode. And one melt. We took a direct lightning strike. This storm appeared out of nowhere, two of us were on the phone (because most customers did not have their PCs plugged in during this weather) and then BANG!

My co-worker's phone began to smoke and slowly warped over 10 minutes. My phone was unresponsive and I couldn't hear anything out of my left ear for three hours.

Oddly enough there was no structural damage to the building. It took out our mail and radius servers and a few other boxes.