Probably more on the insanity side, but back about 17 years ago, we had a couple of hot-swappable fans go out on a Compaq Proliant ML370 file server that handled file and print sharing at one of our school buildings. If the fans didn’t spin, the motherboard knew it, and refused to go past the BIOS self-check. As I didn’t have any hot-swap fans on hand, the workflow went something like this (pictured, in left-to-right, top-to-bottom order):
1) Command server to start back up by pointing at it and talking sternly to it. This was unsuccessful.
2) Take side cover off of server to verify that the two red lights were indeed “bad things”.
3) Borrow a carpet drying turbo fan to place on the floor in front of the server, which serves 2 purposes. One, to start the internal server fans spinning to turn the bad red lights to good green lights, and two, to serve as auxiliary cooling to the server while operating in this state.
4) Savor a 20 oz. carbonated beverage in triumph.
There are no bad solutions.
