Worst week of my career started with a single bad capacitor

Last Tuesday I got a call from a small dental office in Tulsa about their server acting weird. I figured it was just a hard drive going bad, swapped it out, and went home. Next morning they called back saying the whole network was down and all three workstations wouldn't boot. Turns out that first drive failure was just a symptom of a dying power supply that took out the motherboard and two backup drives during the night. I spent the next four days rebuilding their entire setup from scratch, working late every night, and the client was just standing there watching me the whole time. The boss called me asking why it was taking so long and I had to explain that one bad capacitor in a 10 year old server caused a domino effect. I still think about that week whenever someone wants to cheap out on a UPS... Has anyone else had a single little part ruin their whole schedule like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

anthony88310d ago

One tiny resistor took out my whole truck's alternator once, still mad about it.

viola_cooper6210d ago

A single capacitor took down an entire dental practice. That's brutal. I had a similar thing happen with a car stereo once, a tiny resistor blew and the whole system was fried. Makes you wonder how many other things are just one little part away from total failure.