June 21st, 2009
Murphy’s law
So, this being the day we’re leaving for England – and a Sunday to boot – the fan in my server machine naturally figured today would be just about the perfect day to drop dead. And, of course, my server machine is a Shuttle ST62K, which uses a heatpipe / rear heatsink / fan / fan shroud arrangement. That can only accommodate a 80mm fan that’s 15mm thick.
You want to know how easy it is to buy a 80×80x15mm fan in Vancouver on a Sunday afternoon? I’ll tell you – not freaking easy.
After running around town like a headless chicken for an hour or two, I gave up, came home, stole an 80×80x25mm case fan from my partner’s PC, opened up the server, yanked the whole fan shroud arrangement, zip tied the ‘new’ fan to the heatsink and called it a day.
So far, it’s holding up. If it falls apart and cooks itself while I’m in England, this web site will be down until I get back. Nothing much I can do about that. So if you come here tomorrow and it ain’t working, at least you’ll know why!
