Electrical worries

AeroNook had its first ever outage because of a potential fire hazard

Australis normally sits in my room next to 3 power outlets and next to my workbench desk. So it’s easy to observe Australis by listening to any beeps or kicking back the chair and looking, however I did not expect a smell - especially ozone of all things. This was curious for me since I didn’t know what changed over the course of owning Australis that now I finally notice the smell. I wasn’t sure if this is normal so I Googled if an ozone smell was normal, the results were quite puzzling and a bit shocking to say the least.

Reading this and asking a few people about it, some were concerned and some shrugged it off as something else, however I took action. Out of desperation, I bought a new PSU to replace my main PC’s 350w unit and slap that inside the server, since it’s very unlikely I’d go over 350w anyway - however I didn’t need to. I later returned it. The issue lies in one (now decomissioned) device I had connected to my main PC and power strip - the 23“ TV. (aka my second 1080p monitor) I had noticed my TV would occasionally blank out, but I thought it was just my DisplayPort to HDMI adapter that was being problematic, however it wasn’t. This TV doesn’t have the best track record of reliability - I often had breakers flip wherever the TV was plugged into and would often times trip the main house breaker - this was fixed by dusting the TV’s PSU. However 1 year later when I’ve decided to test if it still flips breakers, it did not, so I kept using it up until this point, which now is a deal breaker since I can’t expect this TV to last any longer. I ended up unplugging the TV and switching it for my backup monitor to have a 2nd display - since then the smell has gone away.

AeroNook is now back to regular schedule and any further maintenance for Australis will be covered in a blog.