Reply to post: Re: Bad power setups

Phased out: IT architect plugs hole in clean-freak admin's wiring design

dubious

Re: Bad power setups

We once had just moved to a temporary site using a particular building for the main servers because that was where the previous occupants had their server room, and it had a genset.

Shortly after moving, one evening I get a call from my guy covering the late shift that there was a power outage, and although miraculously the vintage generator managed to start itself, both UPSes were screaming about not getting a feed. He'd done all he could reasonably do, including manually switching over to the generator feed, but no joy.

When I get on site I'm met by my guy looking a little sheepish and a strong smell of burning. Turns out that whatever the previous inhabitants had considered valuable enough to provide generator power to, the server room wasn't one of them. The single plug at the photocopier station just up the hall, though...

Bless his heart, but he'd strung together 4 or so extension cables and evicted the Xerox.

Red hot cables, an exciting scorch mark all along and up over the hall walls, and a smoking and now eternally dead socket, plus the knowledge that perhaps the fire alarm should be re-tested but by someone competent this time.

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