Weird stories from CSA

Cross-over Ghosts

CSA was contracted to do installation of a local area network and also installation of PCs for NEC. The project comprises of 5 buildings which were cabled before the computers were brought in. In each building the LAN cables were placed in certain places throughout the whole building. The cabling was done using straights using dedicated instruments to verify it.

The day after the cabling was done, the PCs came in and it seems as though all the network cables were not working. A further examination showed that the cables were crossed. This happened for 2 out of the 5 buildings. The thing is, if the same person did the installation of the cables, all of the buildings would have been crossed, but it only happened to 2 buildings. The placing of LAN cables were only exclusively known to the technician installing it.

This anomaly no matter it how it has been scrutinized, it still has no solution and still baffles those that were on the project till today.

Haunted servers

There were a few cases of this. Common ones are servers that are unable to boot up. Please take note that the integration department actually does the installation and trouble shoots before the unit leaves CSA. Therefore the unit leaving would be a running unit.

There were 2 accounts from field engineers. One server refused to boot up and despite all efforts to change the RAM and other components, it still refused. So just for the sake of trying the engineer then put a “fat Buddha”( you know the kind found in Chinese homes) and weird enough, it does boot up.

Another variation of that is that the engineer took a piece of yellow paper (those similar color to those from Buddhist temples) and scribbled some nonsense on it. This paper was then stuck on to the server and miraculously enough, it actually boots up.

(This techniques may come in handy when it comes down to the last resort)

Self resetting server

There was a project to install a server in the new securities commissions building in Bukit Kiara. There were 2 engineers on location that were doing the software installation and setting up. The dou spent almost the whole day setting up the server and after it was done it was locked up in the server room which at that time were exclusive only to the engineers. They left about 11 at night.

They returned the day after to suddenly find out that the server was somehow reset to the factory settings with an empty hard disc. Since then one of them have left CSA.

Mistaken hauntings
Case 1
Again, a server was requested by customer and when it arrived it refuses to start. The engineer went to the extreme until he brought replacement network cards, cpu, mother board, array controller, until the whole server was practically replaced with totally new internals. It still refused to boot. The server unit was brought back to the office and the original components were inserted back into the chassis and it could boot.

The engineer then brought the unit back to the customer place, and the engineer was stumped again. He just changed to another power outlet and it could work.

Apparently, due to the bad wiring the server would not get a stable supply of power, hence it refused to boot.

Case 2
A server was installed into a server room of a customer. After setting up, it would always hang at a certain time of the day. It usually came about 10 am. Other engineers were brought in to trouble shoot as well as analyze the log files. No matter what, it still failed about the same time, but this time an engineer was there to witness it. He was so frustrated that he just went to the pantry to refill some water. And it so happens that the pantry was situated next to the server room, he also noticed a tea lady making coffee and tea for the staff.

A close inspection of the premise showed that the server room was supplied form the same source as the pantry and the coffee making machine somehow caused the power to be unstable when used, this was deduced as the tea lady always came in around the same time. The problem was solved by using another power source for the coffee machine.

Thought of the day:
" Isn't life ironic? "