Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Beep of Death
I work in several different buildings around campus and I have little closets and purloined spaces where we store different things in these different buildings. In one of those buildings, we store all of the equipment we don't want anymore, and I was heading there in search of a USB keyboard. As I approached, I heard this beeping sound, and computers don't normally make this beeping sound unless something is VERY VERY wrong. This particular room also houses a server, and this server could be making this very bad sound.
I opened the door and was relieved to see the server still staring blankly at me. The sound was still going, and after turning off another computer and rooting around, I found the source of the horrible beeping. It was a long-abandoned uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
The point of a UPS is to keep a server running through a power outage, or keep it up long enough to gracefully shut down in the case of a long term outage. The beeping is intended to tell you, hey, I'm running on battery power here! Do something about this!
The problem with that? It wasn't connected to anything. The server in question wasn't using it. It was an abandoned (but still plugged in) UPS. I unplugged it. It still kept beeping, because of the battery. I pushed every button I could in every configuration that I could. The infernal beeping continued.
I looked around wildly. People were going to start to complain soon, if they hadn't already. I put it in a file cabinet. I could still hear the beeping, muffled but persistent. I couldn't leave it in the file cabinet.
I tucked it under my arm, and ran outside, away from any classrooms that might be disturbed. I briefly considered throwing it over the chain link fence into the building site next door, but then decided I should really talk to the guy who runs the server in that room to make sure he wasn't using it.* That meant putting it somewhere near both of our offices should we need to look at it.
The problem is that I work in one of the heavily "studentified" buildings on campus. There's 60 classrooms in that building, and the place where we do a lot of our work ("the shop"), is also surrounded by classrooms. It couldn't go there. I thought about other places to take it. My office was out of the question (too many classrooms/offices nearby) and while there are closets scattered here and there, they aren't out of hearing range from a classroom. One sits on a stairwell, and I briefly pondered the echo effect of the trilling noise in the cavernous stairwell.
Meanwhile, while pondering this, I was moving back to my building though class change traffic. I kept hearing this..."What's that noise?" "Is there a fire alarm?" "Dude, is that your phone?"
I kept my head down, UPS tucked under my arm like a football, and kept walking, trying to keep a low profile.
While moving, I thought of a solution. We have a few rather sound-proof studio/recording spaces attached to some parts of my department. I eventually headed up there, dropped it off, and shut the door, unable to hear the squealing any longer. Of course, no one can use that space while the beeping peters down and the battery dies, but it's a small price to pay for blessed silence. I let the appropriate people know this.
*The server guy wasn't using it. It was yet another piece of abandoned equipment, and it is destined for SWAP.
The point of a UPS is to keep a server running through a power outage, or keep it up long enough to gracefully shut down in the case of a long term outage. The beeping is intended to tell you, hey, I'm running on battery power here! Do something about this!
The problem with that? It wasn't connected to anything. The server in question wasn't using it. It was an abandoned (but still plugged in) UPS. I unplugged it. It still kept beeping, because of the battery. I pushed every button I could in every configuration that I could. The infernal beeping continued.
I looked around wildly. People were going to start to complain soon, if they hadn't already. I put it in a file cabinet. I could still hear the beeping, muffled but persistent. I couldn't leave it in the file cabinet.
I tucked it under my arm, and ran outside, away from any classrooms that might be disturbed. I briefly considered throwing it over the chain link fence into the building site next door, but then decided I should really talk to the guy who runs the server in that room to make sure he wasn't using it.* That meant putting it somewhere near both of our offices should we need to look at it.
The problem is that I work in one of the heavily "studentified" buildings on campus. There's 60 classrooms in that building, and the place where we do a lot of our work ("the shop"), is also surrounded by classrooms. It couldn't go there. I thought about other places to take it. My office was out of the question (too many classrooms/offices nearby) and while there are closets scattered here and there, they aren't out of hearing range from a classroom. One sits on a stairwell, and I briefly pondered the echo effect of the trilling noise in the cavernous stairwell.
Meanwhile, while pondering this, I was moving back to my building though class change traffic. I kept hearing this..."What's that noise?" "Is there a fire alarm?" "Dude, is that your phone?"
I kept my head down, UPS tucked under my arm like a football, and kept walking, trying to keep a low profile.
While moving, I thought of a solution. We have a few rather sound-proof studio/recording spaces attached to some parts of my department. I eventually headed up there, dropped it off, and shut the door, unable to hear the squealing any longer. Of course, no one can use that space while the beeping peters down and the battery dies, but it's a small price to pay for blessed silence. I let the appropriate people know this.
*The server guy wasn't using it. It was yet another piece of abandoned equipment, and it is destined for SWAP.
Labels: computer
¶ 6:32 PM
