I just arrived back in Wellington today after a week away at linux.conf.au 2009 in Hobart, Tasmania. More on the conference in future postings, but I can summarise it as “awesome” meanwhile.

This particular posting is a tale of how my file server was cursed to lose it’s uptime:

Whilst I was away there was a large power outage in Wellington, across the entire city including the CBD and Suburbs for about 30mins.

My trusty home file/xen server kept on running without a problem on UPS, but it seems that it could not escape the fate of being taken offline due to power issues…

I arrived home this afternoon and noticed that the server was making more noise than normal, due to the intake dust filter being a bit clogged.

I took off the front panel, cleaned out the dust filter and began to put it back on, when I knocked the fan filter metal across the fan speed control circuit.

A spark later, I realised I had shorted the exposed fan control circuit at the front of the case which promptly caused the PSU to cut power to the server.

The server survives the Wellington power outage, then dies and loses my uptime when I simply clean out the dust… just typical…. :-(

(Fortunately after re-plugging the mains cable the server came back online successfully. Phew!)