Something very scary just happened.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skybuck Flying
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Skybuck Flying

Hello,

I was trying to find some source codes, I could have sworn I made them
somewhere.

I was starting vmware to see if it was maybe in a virtual environment.

Then I wondered, hmmm: maybe it's on my old pentium III.

I tried to power up the pentium III but the cable wasn't plugged in, so it
was probably now on on, but no power.

I plugged in the power cable and then it happened:

1. Zaap, BAM.... all lights went out, my dreampc 2006 went out.... total
darkness... I sweared... I thought I just blew up all my computers.

I smelled a burning smoke.

Then I went to bed and took a few minutes to relax because it was quite
scaring.

I suspected the circuit breaker or something like went off... and so I did.

I just re-enabled it (after unplugging all cables)... and then went back
into apperement and flipped switches and all lights came back on again.

Then I went to my dreampc 2006 to see if it was dead or alive.

Fortunately it seems to be still alive, since I am writing this message on
it.

So I had quite a scare... now the question is what happened ?!?

I have two possible explanations:

1. The watt/power load on the rails became to big and it exceeded 3600 watts
and the power blew... though this seems somewhat unlikely since dreampc2006
is 700 watts... the receiver is 700 watts, so that's only 1400 watts, plus
some lightbulb at 60 watts is about 1500 watts or so...

But maybe the rail needs to be divided by 2 so maybe only 1800 watts allowed
or so ?!? Still this number does not seem to reach.

So second possible explanation:

2. I once fixed the power supply of the old pentium III, it's fan was making
a shitty noise, so I had to clean the fan, I had to cut cables... because it
was unpluggable.

Later I attached the cables again by "cross the wires" "crossing streams"
never cross the streams ! LOL....

No seriously... I had to tie the copper-wires together again... but leaving
them exposed to each other in the power supply.

I wrapped some plastic sticker tape around the copper wires to prevent them
from short circuiting.

I kinda new because of all the dust it would be a matter of time before it
would let loose...

I wondered about that not so long ago like a year ago... the fix was done
like 12 years ago or so...

So my second explanation is: somehow a short circuit existed in the old
pentium III, perhaps it could have even electrocuted it me if it wasn;'t for
the circuit breakers or if was touching it at the same time of plugging in
or something... fortunately the power wall socket was a meter away.

Or something totally different happened. (I will have to check pentium iii
power supply)

Possible explanation 3:

3. Or something totally different happened... perhaps there was a power
differential/difference, potential difference... between pentium III and the
dreampc+receiver...

And suddenly this potential difference leaked into the ground and cause the
circuit breaker to flip.

I actually think explanation 2 is the less likely one, since I have
experienced other weird electrical problems... (wall sockets are still just
the 2 plug versions).

To an electrician explanation 2 might seem most likely, but not to me...

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something freaky and it was actually 3.

Explanantion 1 seems next likely...

Or perhaps it was something even more freaky:

4. Some kind of weird slow electrical/drain/hole/non-existing power in
cable, leading to some strange surge...

There is a point to the story:

Suppose it's explanantion 2: a short circuit in the power supply.

Then there is a lesson to be learned from that: never ever buy second hand
equipment...

If I sold my pentium III with that sloppy fix it might have killed somebody
! ;) =D

Another lesson:

Fans and dust suck and lead to these kinds of problems and issues.

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Hello,

I was trying to find some source codes, I could have sworn I made them
somewhere.

I was starting vmware to see if it was maybe in a virtual environment.

Then I wondered, hmmm: maybe it's on my old pentium III.

I tried to power up the pentium III but the cable wasn't plugged in, so
it was probably now on on, but no power.

I plugged in the power cable and then it happened:

1. Zaap, BAM.... all lights went out, my dreampc 2006 went out.... total
darkness... I sweared... I thought I just blew up all my computers.

I smelled a burning smoke.

Then I went to bed and took a few minutes to relax because it was quite
scaring.

I suspected the circuit breaker or something like went off... and so I did.

I just re-enabled it (after unplugging all cables)... and then went back
into apperement and flipped switches and all lights came back on again.

Then I went to my dreampc 2006 to see if it was dead or alive.

Fortunately it seems to be still alive, since I am writing this message
on it.

So I had quite a scare... now the question is what happened ?!?

I have two possible explanations:

1. The watt/power load on the rails became to big and it exceeded 3600
watts and the power blew... though this seems somewhat unlikely since
dreampc2006 is 700 watts... the receiver is 700 watts, so that's only
1400 watts, plus some lightbulb at 60 watts is about 1500 watts or so...

But maybe the rail needs to be divided by 2 so maybe only 1800 watts
allowed or so ?!? Still this number does not seem to reach.

So second possible explanation:

2. I once fixed the power supply of the old pentium III, it's fan was
making a shitty noise, so I had to clean the fan, I had to cut cables...
because it was unpluggable.

Later I attached the cables again by "cross the wires" "crossing
streams" never cross the streams ! LOL....

No seriously... I had to tie the copper-wires together again... but
leaving them exposed to each other in the power supply.

I wrapped some plastic sticker tape around the copper wires to prevent
them from short circuiting.

I kinda new because of all the dust it would be a matter of time before
it would let loose...

I wondered about that not so long ago like a year ago... the fix was
done like 12 years ago or so...

So my second explanation is: somehow a short circuit existed in the old
pentium III, perhaps it could have even electrocuted it me if it wasn;'t
for the circuit breakers or if was touching it at the same time of
plugging in or something... fortunately the power wall socket was a
meter away.

Or something totally different happened. (I will have to check pentium
iii power supply)

Possible explanation 3:

3. Or something totally different happened... perhaps there was a power
differential/difference, potential difference... between pentium III and
the dreampc+receiver...

And suddenly this potential difference leaked into the ground and cause
the circuit breaker to flip.

I actually think explanation 2 is the less likely one, since I have
experienced other weird electrical problems... (wall sockets are still
just the 2 plug versions).

To an electrician explanation 2 might seem most likely, but not to me...

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something freaky and it was actually 3.

Explanantion 1 seems next likely...

Or perhaps it was something even more freaky:

4. Some kind of weird slow electrical/drain/hole/non-existing power in
cable, leading to some strange surge...

There is a point to the story:

Suppose it's explanantion 2: a short circuit in the power supply.

Then there is a lesson to be learned from that: never ever buy second
hand equipment...

If I sold my pentium III with that sloppy fix it might have killed
somebody ! ;) =D

Another lesson:

Fans and dust suck and lead to these kinds of problems and issues.

Bye,
Skybuck.
Click to expand...


5. You hallucinated or dreamed it.
 
Another question which could literally point to the smoking gun:

1. Where did the smoke/smell come from ? (didn't see no smoke, but smelled
it)

2. Why was there smoke/smell ? What caused it ?

A. Perhaps the smoke/smell was caused by the pentium III power supply
"exploding".

Then question is still why:

3. Perhaps it was simply because of old age ?

4. Perhaps there was a spider web inside of it or a bug, perhaps a fly ?
Causing some freaky short circuit ?

5. Perhaps fan cables finally short circuited ?

6. Perhaps plastic-tape touched something and short circuited it ?

B. Or perhaps the smoke/smell came from wall socket itself because of too
high load ?

C. Or perhaps the smoke/smell came from DreamPC 2006 power supply ?!?

Hmmmmm.....

I think the most likely explanation is the smoke came from the Pentium III
450 mhz...

Other explanation:

D. Perhaps something fell into the power extension box. It has two power
holes left uncovered.

Perhaps dust accumilated into it and it blew... causing the smell/smoke.

Perhaps even some metal fell into it like little screws or so but that's
unlikely.

This could be an indication that "open power holes" on power extension boxes
are a bad thing, this is probably already known since newer version have
closed holes when nothing is attached...

^ So another explanantion of why dust can be dangerous... filling up power
holes... hmmm...

The smoke/smell probably was a typical "burning dust" smell or so...

So my best two explanation so far:

1. Dust in power extension box holes short-circuited and blew up.

2. Power supply of pentium III somehow blew.

It was quite a powerfull bang to cause a circuit breaker to flip out like
that...

So maybe it was 1...

But that doesn't seem to make much sense... power should be able to flow
from + to - just like that ?

Or maybe electrical equipment is to have some slower ampere or so... so slow
flow...

Or maybe some electricity leaked during the bang and was converted into
energy... but then it would not have gone to the circuit breaker ?!?

Unless it detects a 'missing current".... or "missing energy" from
returning...

Quite weird...

So maybe circuit breakers can work in two ways:

1. Either two much electricity being returned ? (no equipment using
electricity but something whacky ?)

2. Either two little electricity being returned ? (short circuit with
ground)

Never heard of 1.

Well now I am making up all kinds of crazy hypothesis... but it's also
pretty crazy things around here ! ;) :)

It would be interesting if "myth busters" can test this theory:

"What happens when a lot of dusts accumilates inside a power extension box"
will it blow up ?!?

Hopefully this is not what happened because that would be quite freaky...

Hopefully it was something more easily explainable... like short circuit or
overload...

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Also something else came to mind...

Maybe coffee was spilled at electronics shop when I bought receiver...

So maybe receiver has some electrical problem...

Which causes it to leak electricity into "ground wire" and accumilate
overtime which could explain the potential difference hypothesis...

Whacky !

Yup theory is all nice and clean but practice is messy ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
There is also a festival outside happening with big speakers...

Maybe that has something to do with it...

Probably not, but ya never know... must not rule out anything ! ;)

Sometimes it's a freak occurence of many freaky things all happening and
coming together ! ;)

Maybe they also plugged in their speakers at the same time as I was plugging
in my pentium III...

And it cause some kind of weird power surge or frequency change... ya never
know ! ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck =D
 
Some other thoughts that went through my mind:

1. How am I now going to sue my "landlore" for shitty electrical system... I
have no more computer can't find a lawyer ! ;)

2. Shit I have no more computer, maybe I should go buy an ipad2 ! ;)

At least it will work without an electrical shitty system.

(But it will probably go dead in less than 24 hours, so it does need
recharge, maybe it goes dead in just 2 or 3 hours, so also kinda shitty).

Now I am wondering:

What if it was actually overload because of my power-cable-plugging
theoretical system... "all power on one box" to make sure ground is
connected.

This does then have implications for the future:

1. I cannot buy additional computers AND run them at the same time...
because of power limitations.

I would then need to have electrical system updated/replaced so it can do
more power... but that might be risky at high ground levels... so I am not
sure what the hell I am doing and how it works... and many people seem
confused about that too.

+

Dangerous to modify electrical systems nowadays if you don't know what ya
doing... especially because the weather is changing... more rain and more
thunder storms.

The likelyhood of getting hit by thunder is increasing all the time...

+

Copper thieves making matters worse.

+

Higher load on electrical system in general because of more computers, and
in future perhaps even electrical cars.

A recipe for more power fluctuations.

I'll even go into a stretch:

The death of micheal jackson has shown the electrical system to become
unstable if massive ammounts of people turn on their TV's ! ;)

At least that's what I believe ! ;)

Bye,
Skybuck =D
 
Skybuck said:
Nope, wide a wake...

I just woke up and went... ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D
Click to expand...

Well, now that you're wide awake...

1) Unplug the Pentium III computer.

2) Remove the power supply.

3) Remove the four screws holding the top onto the power supply.

4) Examine the supply for visual damage, like a blown up
main capacitor. You'll likely find some signs of damage
in there.

Do *not* touch anything in there. Open it up, have a look,
conclude it is destroyed, and buy another power supply.

The Pentium III motherboard could be ruined, but you won't
know for sure, until you put the new power supply in it
and test the computer again. With a new power supply, it
should be safe to test.

Do *not* attempt to turn on the old supply again. You should
make no further attempt to run the old supply. And examining
it visually inside, should tell you all you need to know.

Paul
 
Skybuck said:
I plugged in the power cable and then it happened:
Click to expand...
1. Zaap, BAM.... all lights went out, my dreampc 2006 went out.... total
darkness... I sweared... I thought I just blew up all my computers.
Click to expand...
So I had quite a scare... now the question is what happened ?!?
Click to expand...

I had seen this happen at a place I used to work at some years back.

One of the guys (there were three in the end) come in to me to ask
about CDROM drivers in their config.sys (this was back in the DOS/Win95
days).

I offered to do it, it would only take several minutes.

They said they were happy to do it anyway, so I let them.

I shouldn't have.
Three guys, a large part of afternoon and some smoke later, they were
finally done.

I never did find out where the smoke came from, or why everything
still worked (still working some four years later when I left the
company) but I put it down to Idiots Incorporated playing with things
they probably shouldn't have.
 
Hello,

I was trying to find some source codes, I could have sworn I made them
somewhere.

I was starting vmware to see if it was maybe in a virtual environment.

Then I wondered, hmmm: maybe it's on my old pentium III.

I tried to power up the pentium III but the cable wasn't plugged in, so it
was probably now on on, but no power.

I plugged in the power cable and then it happened:

1. Zaap, BAM.... all lights went out, my dreampc 2006 went out.... total
darkness... I sweared... I thought I just blew up all my computers.

I smelled a burning smoke.

Then I went to bed and took a few minutes to relax because it was quite
scaring.

I suspected the circuit breaker or something like went off... and so I did.

I just re-enabled it (after unplugging all cables)... and then went back
into apperement and flipped switches and all lights came back on again.

Then I went to my dreampc 2006 to see if it was dead or alive.

Fortunately it seems to be still alive, since I am writing this message on
it.

So I had quite a scare... now the question is what happened ?!?

I have two possible explanations:

1. The watt/power load on the rails became to big and it exceeded 3600 watts
and the power blew... though this seems somewhat unlikely since dreampc2006
is 700 watts... the receiver is 700 watts, so that's only 1400 watts, plus
some lightbulb at 60 watts is about 1500 watts or so...

But maybe the rail needs to be divided by 2 so maybe only 1800 watts allowed
or so ?!? Still this number does not seem to reach.

So second possible explanation:

2. I once fixed the power supply of the old pentium III, it's fan was making
a shitty noise, so I had to clean the fan, I had to cut cables... because it
was unpluggable.

Later I attached the cables again by "cross the wires" "crossing streams"
never cross the streams ! LOL....
Click to expand...



3rd explanation:

GOD HATES YOU?
 
Ok,

I just took a risk and decided to plug in the power cable again of the
extension box which has the pentium III computer and monitor connected to
power.

I touched plastic part of power plug only, not the screws or anything and
plugged it in, then nothing happened.

So then I tried to turn on the pentium III and it remained dead.

So possible conclusions:

1. The pentium III power supply is now dead and blew up.

or

2. Some resistor in the power cable blew up and the power cable is now bad.

But first I will describe one more time what I saw happen during the
incident:

1. I saw a spark flying over the power cable metal points/plugs that go into
the power wall socket.

So possible explanations of what happened:

1. The flow of electricity was so powerfull that it jumped across the metal
pins and somehow caused damage to the power supply.

I have seen this happen before when I plugged in my dream pc fortunately it
didn't die... so that is somewhat inconsistent... but perhaps the dreampc
has a power supply of higher quality then the pentium iii.

Another explanation:

2. The pentium iii power extension cable has been lieing on the ground for a
long time now... I once unplugged it because of a thunder storm... perhaps
the power cable sucked up a lot of "ground electricity" into it's cables.
Then as I tried to plug it in it somehow cause an electrical spark... and
somehow damage power supply or power cable.

Last explanation which does start to make some sense:

3. A short circuit in the power supply of the pentium 3:

The plastic sticky tape came off and the electrical wires crossed and damage
it.

Another explanantion:

4. The little fly which I saw flying around enter the pentium III power
supply and caused it to short circuit.

Last explanations:

5. Dust build in pentium III power supply (or very maybe monitor but I dont
think so, monitor was probably off during the incident).

6. Simply old age of electrical components in power supply, maybe they
evaporated or so.

Or perhaps the power supply is not dead and a safety switch flipped it
off... but I don't think it has a safety switch but I could be wrong...
there is no switch on the back/outside that's for sure.

So my main backup system is now dead, this leaves the pentium 166 as a
backup system but it's probably to slow to surf webstores for new computer
supplies in case my dreampc also dies... which it should not because heat
issues pretty much solved, but could also have more dust build up... will
see how that goes.

I kinda way overspent money on dreampc so according to budget I should only
buy a new computer in the year 2016 or so... however I do plan on buying a
cheaper one then and low power and low heat.

I am currently not too happy with the main system but it's not hardware
wise, hardware wise it's ok, except that it has multiple harddisk, and one
harddisk has a bad sector, having multiple harddisks is a bit annoying
especially with the old crap which is great too, but ok.

It's mainly software wise that I am not very happy... Windows 7 is a mess,
and I now have my applications fragmented across old Windows XP
installation/harddisk and Windows 7/new harddisk... This kinda sucks... I
blame this partially on Microsoft and mostly on application developers
themselfes. They should not integrate applications with windows and if they
do they should make sure that it's easy to "de-integrate" and "re-integrate"
into windows so applications can easily be installed on filedisk images and
then re-integrated into windows.. unfortunately this idea will probably not
completely work because of microsoft and the changing of windows registry
entries, so that's why Microsoft is partly to blame as well... windows 7
would require a new "re-integrate.exe" executable for each application to
successfully reintegrate it.

So in the future applications should have:
1. Install.exe
2. Deintegrate.exe
3. Reintegrate.exe
4. UpdateIntegrationExecutables.exe

The 4th one is funny, this should contact application developers websites
and update the deintegrate and especially reintegrate executables so
applications can easily be moved to new windows installations and
reintegrated.

Another alternative is maybe updating windows to new versions but I don't
like doing that... it might also not work for applications.

Finally my old XP system did have some "bit rott" because of a corrupted
memory bit, probably because of heat, so also hardware and hardware
decisions are partially to blame for this mess and the requirement of having
to reinstall an operating system, also new hardware requires new windows
7/operating system or so... and also cuda support for windows 7 or so...
which kinda sux that it might not work on xp... but that might be because of
new windows driver system.

Hopefully the trouble of re-installing a new windows system will be worth
it... hopefully windows 8 will be better... hopefully my windows 8 computer
in the future will last longer...

The time to buy a new windows 8 computer is not yet... first more graphics
power for the same power/watt budget should come to market, preferably so
all games can be played at 1920x1200 again ;) :) Either better gpu or better
cpu+integrated gpu.

^ These are new chips, so it will take a while to see how that "plays out"
;) :) and what these chips can do... also nvidia might be working on
integrating an arm chip into their gpu's or perhaps something else, so time
will tell ;)

My DreamPC2006 will have to hold out and work for some time/years to come ;)
:)

If it does fail then a tablet might be a nice and easy replacement... no big
component decisions to make... just an integrated decision, but by that time
there will probably be some many versions, that choosing one might just be
as difficult as choosing pc components ;) though perhaps a bit less, since
less tablets on market ;) but maybe that will change...

I am not sure if tablets work well for "webstore surfing" but I would hope
so... and then there is mam's computer... but not really an option to go
there everyday that would kinda suck... I would need 30 days at least to
select new pc components, so I would need something that is easily available
for 30 days, though visitting mammie everyday would be kinda fun as well,
but she would probably get fed up with that real quick/soon as well ! ;) :)
=D and then I would no longer be welcome and get into a fight and that would
not be cool ! ;) =D Though she does also have an old computer which could
also be used but still...

Last possibility is fixing pentium III and replacing it's power supply, it's
kinda a good thing that I didn't order so many old components for the
pentium III because like I concluded in the end: it would have been wasted
money... and so it would... it would be literally dead money by now ! ;) :)

Perhaps that money is better spent on some tablet... though there is one
little danger with tablet "wifi" (I typed wife by accident lol) and
"electromagnetic radiation or something like that"... which has me worried !
;) and will probably be a reason for me never to buy one of them... so this
illiminates phones and tablets... though if there was a tablet without
wifi/bluetooth/gsm and instead use ethernet or usb for connection options I
might buy it ;) but then the thing might up in bed, and reduce my sleep so
maybe not a good idea... but it is tempting a bit... I also read laptops in
bed bad for "marriage" but I am not married lol ;) :) (Gje I wonder why ! ;)
:) =D) <- crazy people ! ;) =D

So PC stays best ! ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Skybuck,
You experienced a well-known, but little publicized, phenomena called a
"dry" dream. A "dry" dream is the opposite of a "wet" dream, in that
something bad happens and makes your member shrink.

Take two aspirin and forget it. Don't go to bed though.
 
Today I opened the pentium III 450 mhz for the first time and inspected it
and made some photo's.

There is no apperent damage to the power supply which I opened too. There
was some slight blackness on the metal casing on the inside though.

The plastic sticky tape around the wires for the power fan were still intact
so a short-circuit in the power wires for the power fan is most unlikely,
unless the sticky tape itself somehow became conductive, people say sticky
tape does not conduct but I know it does so it's still possible. However I
cannot imagine an entire power supply going dead just because the power
wires to power fan short-circuited this seems somewhat unlikely and I would
expect the conductence over the sticky tape to be very low.

There is also no apperent damage to the motherboard.

I did find a broken off washer which was probably used to lift the
motherboard of the metal case... I can vaguely remember losing a washer in
the case and never finding it or something... but this rememberance is
unsure.

So there are now a number of possible hypothese of what happened:

1. The washer broke off because of old age/heating/cool down, it's a
flexible tiny little washer and it's plastic cracked away... causing the
motherboard to short circuit with the case. This is a plausible theory
considering the potential difference which is on the ground wires. Therefore
the potential on the ground wire short circuited the motherboard.
Perhaps the motherboard of the pentium III 450 mhz is now dead too. I should
try and re-build the system with spare parts to see if the power supply is
dead or the motherboard.

If the motherboard is dead then I am pretty fed up with it... because that
would be the zillion-th motherboard that blew up like that... and then I am
going to immediatly call an electrician to replace those power wall sockets.

2. Other theory is a design-flaw in the entire computer system in relation
to the power supply and the power button. I could not tell if the power
button was on or off when I plugged it in. But I do know old systems do not
have a "software controlled power button". If the physical power button is
on on it will power on. Thus the theory is that the power surge went through
the entire system damaging the system. This could be a reason why newer
systems are always in a power off state. Thus design error could also be
cause of death.

Other less likely theories:

3. Age of power supply, stuff evaporated and died.

4. Dust made some sort of connection.

5. Spider which I killed a few days ago short circuited it... unlikely but
cannot be ruled out.

6. Spark during plug in, caused a weird power surge through ground wire of
plugs.

7. Cable electronics dead.

I am starting to suspect "ground wire" does more damage than it does good ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
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