While trying to get my machine(s) reconfigured for proper usage on my


network, as well as the server and routing for the common services that I


provide, the most spectacular hardware crash that I've ever seen has befallen


me.


A few days prior to the really amazing one, my primary desktop machine (the


only one that I have with more than 3GB of memory, which also was my gaming and


crunching machine {with a jalape~o for SHA encryption [bitcoin mining] and


a low-range video card that made it pretty nice for videogames in 'doze and


crunching out BTC & LTC (after BTC was no longer profitable on that


generation of a GPU)} completely perished a la mobo-power issues or straight up


power supply issues. I still haven't been able to track down the issue and/or


order a new >580W power supply for it. Unfortunately this hasn't just taken


down my fastest and most expensive hardware, it's also taken down my ~2TB of


archival and library data. Made me a little unhappy, but at least I could


still browse in X11 and web browser applications on my son's machine, which had


Debian installed like the former.


Well yeah, just a couple of days after this, the next catastrophic hardware


failure occurred. This one actually got my adrenaline running for a little


bit. I was in the middle of a dead sleep; I think it was a work night, so I


had gone to bed before 11pm. It was around 2am, and I was sleeping here with


Val, and all of a sudden the sound of loud, rapid fire popping woke me up


immediately a la basic training dead sleep to full wake in under 2


seconds. I popped my head up, immediately, and looked toward the source of the


noise. There was no delay, and I started seeing the 'magnesium burning


white' and electrical blue of arcs coming from the front 'grill' where


the internal speaker, front USB jacks, and headphone/mix jacks are on my son's


computer. I couldn't locate the exact spot, because I didn't have my glasses


on yet, and pungent ozone-smoke was pouring out of that area, obscuring it from


clear sight.


Within the span of a few seconds, there were somewhere between a half a


dozen and two dozen loud pops and flashes like these. The room started


filling with the foul smoke, and once it was done for a second or two, I began


laying and trying to 'sniff out' how bad the damage was. It was pitch black in


the place; no lights on at all, and I didn't want to stumble around looking for


the lights without knowing what exactly had arced out, in case it was still


live. If it wasn't, I figured there had been breakers, fuses, and (of course)


the surge protection and failsafes on my Uninteruptable Power Supply that would


have kicked out and made sure that everything was okay. Foolishly, I dozed


back off after a few minutes and the ozone started to clear, once I realized


that there was no acrid plastic or component burning odor replacing it.


I have no idea how long it took, but the sparking repeated after a bit,


this time spaced out. The lights were back, and the smoke was as well. This


time it woke Val up. She wouldn't let me go back to sleep this time, and I


wanted to see how bad it was in order to know if I should get her out of there


or not. This time, you see, it crossed my mind that somehow one of the


failsafes on the UPS could've had a fault. After all, that kind of a high


voltage series of arcs from components that far isolated from the original


circuit of the apartment, beyond several surge protectors and fuses within


the system beyond that, should've been just as impossible as that. The size of


the power cell bothered me. I tried to get Val out once I made sure the


pathway out of the room was clear of live wires, arcs, and caustic chemicals.


She wouldn't get out of the room to close it off until morning, though. She


was exhausted as she had work coming up, as well, and she doesn't awaken from


sleep nearly as fast as I do.


Turning the light on, I started pulling things out, and there was


absolutely no apparent source of these mini-lightning bolts.


Eventually I settled for making things safer by not providing continuous


service from any of the associated hardware. I just ended up shutting down the


entire UPS, which hadn't had any safeties triggered and was still providing


power, although 2 of the 3 systems was now down.


The next day I got things back up with the server; my son's computer was,


of course, now fried. I ended up taking both systems down to the motherboard


in order to try to find faults and identify the burn patterns and components


that they had come from in order to figure out what the hell had happened. I


wasn't able to identify singe marks anywhere. Kind of odd, when you consider


that it filled up a full room with some pretty thick ozone & smoke for several


minutes, not to mention the amount of intensity from those damn arcs.


My biomom, who is no idiot, came by a few days later. I described to her


everything that had happened. She, deadpan, said it 'might be a poltergeist'.


She's getting published soon with her first supernatural horror novel (follow-


up is in the works already). So she's got an active imagination. She's


rational as hell when it comes to logic and the circuitry and failsafes of


these kinds of devices, though.


Beats my leading tinfoil hat theory; that I really pissed off a guy with


access to the black vaults at the NSA by mocking his visage (Chris Zimman I


love you), and earned his wrath with a highly precise directed energy weapon.


*grin*


Seriously, though. Anybody ever heard of anything even remotely close to


this?

-- guh up the effbomb down wif yr bad self


---
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