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MTBF catches up to development.

Intent on finishing the implementation of the new permission token feature into the framework code I was fully engaged yesterday in getting it done hopefully by the middle of this week. That is until a strange occurrence yesterday. As I was at the computer the mouse became unresponsive, I have a periodically flaky KVM switch that some times does this so I switched to one of my other development pc's to see if the KVM was frozen, it was not. I switched back to the main development server and after a few silent expletives , hit the power button as I had no choice. The computer immediaetly began a reboot but at the point of reaching the BIOS screen simply went dead. I was curious but already had a feeling that my computers power supply was in trouble. I rebooted again after first unplugging the power cable from the pc for a few seconds, the machine indicated it was getting power by blinking the power and hdd light, but the hdd light was solid and the screen didn't receive a signal...uh oh I thought as I reached around to turn off the machine again. This time I noticed the faint smell of burnt circuit board that is a tell tale sign of failing or failed components. After another 10 minutes waiting with the power cable unplugged I came back, plugged it in and pressed power. The computer made a dull beeping sound and the power led blinked for a second and then went quiet. I did this 4 more times with the same result, it appears I experienced the slow death of my power supply. The main development server was rebuilt (mobo + memory + proc) around 2002, a year later the older PS that hadn't been replaced during the 2002 rebuild gave up the ghost just about at the time it reached the standard MTBF (mean time before failure) for power supplies of 5 years. While noticing the behavior I conjectured the Power supply had again reached MTBF and had finally given in, when I upgrade parts in my machines I tend to put a date on them to signal the age of the component. The powersupply was marked with 10-15-2003 as the installation date , which is just under 5 years ago. I turned off the pc, and switched to my other machine to quickly place an order for a new Power Supply from Newegg.com, hopefully the diagnosis is on the mark and after a fast 15 minute replacement I'll be back up and ready to finish the implementation. Murphy's law strikes again, but not so big a deal I'll enjoy a 3 day mini-cation while I wait for delivery of the PS. ;)
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