Classic WTF: Server Room Fans and More Fun

https://thedailywtf.com/articles/classic-wtf-server-room-fans-and-more-fun

Comments

nickdothuttonJul 26, 2026, 9:58 PM
In the 90s I visited a datacentre in an a central London location. The providers charged for both power and space (and bandwidth). I had cause to lift one of the floor tiles to reposition a power cable slightly for the rack I was working in. What I saw stayed with me.

Stuffed under the floor of the adjacent rack were perhaps a dozen-or-so small servers, switches, the odd modem or 2, and perhaps a kvm box. The tenant had obviously exceeded his physical space but not his power allocation. He had simply "gone underground". Like a little farm of blinking LED mushrooms in the dark.

xvxvxJul 22, 2026, 12:33 PM
One building I worked at had their DMARC room/closet only accessible from the handicapped stall in the men’s restroom. Yup.
sillysaurusxJul 26, 2026, 9:25 PM
Theoretically, if a handicapped man had to use the restroom for 30 minutes at exactly the same time some sort of DMARC emergency happened, would the guy get priority, or the employees who really need access?
zdragnarJul 26, 2026, 10:34 PM
Pretty sure most? people would agree the person needing to use the bathroom gets priority. I wouldn't want to be the one to clean up after him otherwise.
toast0Jul 26, 2026, 9:34 PM
Just turn off smtp for 30 minutes and fix your spf/dkim after the air clears?
comrade1234Jul 26, 2026, 11:09 PM
I mounted a colo server backwards once. The fan intakes were on the warm side and the output on the cool side. I was so embarrassed. It was like that for years and anyone that looked in our cage would see it. I was mortified.
skulloneJul 26, 2026, 10:35 PM
Goodness. I wish I had a cameraphone in the 90s. There were tons of data centers, IT rooms, telco, labs, meetme rooms, sewers, all done at the seat of your pants.
inigyouJul 26, 2026, 10:49 PM
and it worked. Something to keep in mind whenever your boss won't let you requisition a whatever.
dwdJul 26, 2026, 10:03 PM
Working in Malaysia in 2001, had to fireup some backup fans some weekends, as the building owner would switch off our floor aircon. Fortunately lived in the neighbouring residential tower so it wasn't far to walk to check on it. Eventually got a dedicated circuit for the server room.
jmclnxJul 26, 2026, 9:41 PM
When I was a operator at a computer room (early 80s) with 3 Wang VS Systems and a couple of 2200 systems and multiple large line printers. The company had the cheapest AC Systems installed and no raised floors, all wires would drop down from the ceiling instead.

So in the summer time, the room would sometimes be well above 90F (32C). When that happened we had to have multiple large fans brought in. To add to that, the room was on the top floor (3rd) and during heavy rain storms, the roof would leak. So out came clear plastic tarps to cover the units.

I wish I had taken pictures. But I will say something, we never had no hardware failures due to heat and water dripping. After a few years the company finally built a real computer room.

ButlerianJihadJul 26, 2026, 11:14 PM
And here we have first-hand testimony of early datacenters wasting perfectly good water!
mvdtnzJul 26, 2026, 9:48 PM
Man I forgot this website even existed. I'm so pleased to see it's still up and running. It was a regular fixture on my RSS feed back in my university days (20 years ago, yeesh). I might have to take some time this morning going through the past couple of decades of posts.