A Very Strange Week

Sometimes it seems nothing works... All within the last few days - the hot-water heater shut off (no idea what happened, had to reset the controller), the UnRAID server died after working trouble-free for more than a year straight, now it shuts down after 15-30 minutes after reboots. Urgh! At first, I could not access it via the network, which led me to think that the on-board ethernet port was busted, alas, it turned out that was not it at all.

Since one of the fans on the server was dying and made loud noises, I decided to get them replaced, first I ordered them on Taobao, from the model number Delta 1208, the search showed it was a type "8025" fan, so that was what I ordered. But of course, they turned out to be too small, the correct size is 9mm not 8mm, so lesson learned again, don't just trust the search, measure the damn thing to make sure.

Anyway, pissed off at the mistake, I then head off to the local computer mall hoping to "quickly" find the 9mm fans, since I remember a place specializes in case cooling and fans, I went there directly - but the damn place is gone. Walking around the mall did not turn up anything, so I went across the street to another mall, same thing - oh well, this place did have them but wanted RMB38 each for it, which I know is more than double the actual retail price online, so my whole morning was shot. I swear, I am never going to one of these frigging PC malls again, the service sucks, you get harassed, hustled and you may still not get the parts that you want, so fuck them!

Back to Taobao I went, they were delivered promptly the next morning, it just goes to show why go to the physical malls and put up with all that shit? So in went the new fans, they are nice and quiet, so one thing out of the way. But the server would boot up fine, worked for may be 30 minutes then shut off again, so the old fans might be noisy but they were not causing the problem after all, the chassis was still getting airflow, and there wasn't that much heat to dissipate anyway in the server.

After some more troubleshooting, I discovered that the power supply was definitely shot, this came as a surprise because the Corsair TX 750 was the most robust and costly one that I have! WTF... I submitted a RMA request with the company online, hopefully they will respond shortly, the unit is suppose to have a 5-Year warranty period. But even if they give me a new one, I would still be disappointed at the short-life span of the one that I bought...

I then swapped out the Corsair with a generic PS, which has only 3 SATA connectors, so I had to splice in two more for the server, hopefully it has enough juice to run the server in the interim while I get the Corsair repaired.

Here is the shot of the UnRAID array when it is fully operational, so it took me four frigging days just to get the server back online, what a pain.

In a way, the server went offline at a "good time" because Lao Hu took my OB speakers for some finishing work but after a whole damn week, I just found out that nothing has been done to them, why the hell did he take them in the first place then?!

In any case, I can't listen to any music in the study while I work, and the silence really stinks! Not only that, it has taken nearly a month since I ordered some speakers made by Lao Hu - one pair of OB with plywood (replacing the MDF prototype), and one 10" guitar cabinet based on AX84 design, yet I got nothing so far... Is it really that hard to put them together?! Sometimes I just want to get the damn table saws and tools so I can build them myself, but since I am really not that handy with power tools, I'd better stick with the electronic stuff... It is however very irritating to wait for something that never show up on time...

In any case, I just can't remember a week where so many things seem to go haywire all at the same time, let's hope next week will be an improvement...