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Things you never want to see your computer do.

I used to think that smoke was the worst possible thing you could see coming from your computer. When I entered the room today I thought I smelled something burning. At first I figured it was just the heating system, but that's not right for this time of year. I followed my nose and quickly ended up at the power supply of a Vimm's Lair server. Oddly enough, the server was chugging along just fine. Well, a computer smelling like smoke is never a good thing but it was still running, so I hit the power button. It didn't want to shut down gracefully so I held it in to force it. And that's when the fireworks started. The back of the system started shooting out blue sparks like it was the fourth of July and the whole room flickered along. I yanked the cord from the wall, even though it's connected to a battery backup and can still run fine unplugged. Fortunately I think the battery died a few months ago so it's not much more than a heavy surge protector now, and the computer immediately stopped sparking. Yes, sparks are the last possible thing you want to see coming from your computer.