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 happens sometimes

[greg_barton]

Servers just explode. Natural causes.

Re:It happens sometimes

[jetsci]

Servers just explode. Natural causes.

Psst....you're doing it wrong...

Yeah, I guess we all stole something today.

[oodaloop]

No. I stole something else.

Re:Snow crashes?

[atomicthumbs]

It was real. Sometimes programs would lose their minds and write all over the video memory.

A Little Late to the Game

[damn_registrars]

I was tossing decommissioned servers off the roof of my work back in 2000 and 2001. We just didn't have a Youtube to show off on.

There aren't many things (you can do at work) that are as satisfying as throwing an NT box off a roof...

Re:A Little Late to the Game

[ElmoGonzo]

The J Geils Band perfected this concept long ago and were so detail-oriented that when throwing TV's out of hotel room windows they made sure the extension cord was long enough to reach the ground because it was important that the TV be ON when it hit so that it could experience the terror all the way down.

Never blown up a server...

[AmazingRuss]

...but I've taken two printers out in the driveway and smashed the living crap out of them.

My new neighbor saw the second one...I was swinging it over my head by the power cord screaming "DIE YOU PIECE OF SHIT" when she came up with a mis-delivered package, and got to watch it shatter into a million pieces when I slammed it into the retaining wall.

She's still scared of me.

Re:Fight fire with fire?

[Spatial]

It's slashdotted already, so it looks like we've ironically exploded one hosting a gallery of exploding servers. Or maybe it just got depressed and offed itself.

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.

I guess it qualifies as a server

[JesseL]

This was a single board computer that I determined was unrepairable:

Before

During

After

I love Tannerite.

When Servers Explode: Two Words

[adh72]

Woot Off

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.