I spent 4 hours chasing a ghost in the network closet

Last Tuesday I was troubleshooting a PC that kept losing connection every 15 minutes on the dot. I swapped cables, tested the switch port, even replaced the NIC. After 4 hours of this I was ready to pull my hair out. Turned out it was a bad power strip in the closet that was tripping the UPS every time the AC compressor kicked on. The UPS would surge protect for a second and kill the switch port. I felt like such a dummy. Has anyone else spent way too long on a simple fix like this?

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the_karen3mo ago

That power strip pulled a real classic move there. My personal record for a dumb fix was a server that kept dropping off the network every 90 minutes on the dot during winter. Three days of logs, pings, and screaming into the void later, I found out the building's thermostat was right next to the server rack and the heater vent was blasting hot air directly onto the switch during its warmup cycle. Chip would overheat, shut down the port, then cool off and come back online. Felt like a genius.

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diana_king3mo ago

Whoa hard disagree there, @the_karen. That power strip story is totally different from a HVAC zone issue.

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