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."

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.

my ISP once had servers exploded..

[gzipped_tar]

That was many years ago when we used dial-up connection over phone line. One day we just couldn't get connected and I asked around neighbors, who couldn't either. Later the in the local TV news it was revealed the ISP's server room exploded...

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.

Re:God did it.

[Skapare]

This happened where I worked a LONG time ago. It took out about 50 modems, 3 communications multiplexers, and 1 mainframe computer.

And in retail..

[dexotaku]

Several years ago while working in the service department of a local retailer, a farmer [this is on the Canadian prairies] brought in his entire system with the power bar it had been plugged into.
This was one of those power bars that we'd either shrug or laugh off the "$15,000 insurance" advertised on its packaging.
This guy's home was fed by an overhead power line that split from the mains line between his work sheds and house at a lamp post.
The lamp post got struck by lightning.
That was the ONLY time I've ever seen one of those insurance claims go through because the power bar exploded - shortly after the computer's motherboard, PSU, hard drive, and CRT did the same.
We didn't joke about the power bars' insurance coverage after that.