3 years ago I dropped a screwdriver into a running server fan...

Back in July 2021 at a small office in Austin, I was swapping out a failed power supply on their Dell PowerEdge. Somehow my #2 Phillips slipped right through the top grill and got chewed up by the rear exhaust fan. It made this horrible grinding sound for two seconds before the whole thing shut down. Anyone else ever drop something into a live machine and have to explain it to the client?

2 comments

2 Comments

harperp312d ago

Honestly, I'm not sure why people act like this is the end of the world. It's a server fan, not a nuclear reactor control rod. Yeah the grinding noise is brutal and you'll probably need a new fan, but the machine likely just shut down on its own to protect itself. Ngl I've seen way worse screwups that actually fried boards and killed drives. A chewed up fan is basically a $20 part and a few minutes of work. Tbh the whole "explaining it to the client" part is the real problem, not the technical side. Just own up to it, say you dropped a tool, and move on.

patricia422d ago

And that part about owning up to it is key. Honestly I've been in that spot where you try to explain away the noise as "normal" and it just makes everything worse. Ngl, you're better off saying "hey I dropped my screwdriver and it caught the fan blade" because clients usually respect honesty more than a story about thermal throttling or whatever. Tbh I've had a machine run fine for months with a slightly bent fan blade as long as it wasn't hitting the housing. You just zip tie it back, watch the temps for a bit, and then swap it out at the next maintenance window. The real headache is when the fan seizes up and takes the controller with it, that's when you're looking at a whole motherboard swap. So yeah, a chewed fan is pretty much nothing to stress about.