Down In Flames.

I've never liked Acer computers, we have about 200 Acer workstations that were bought back in 2004. They're coming to the end of their working life with us, but they've always had hardware problems.

I sort of took it to a new level today though. Had an Acer workstation which wouldn't power on, we have a bank of spare power supplies, so I swapped them over and turned the PC on. Next thing I know one of the resistors on the mainboard (motherboard) melts, and lights up the plastic casing, which then lights up the plastic and silicon wires around it. It looked like a gigantic candle - which gave me the idea to pull the power and simply blow the flame out (lucky I've had 25 years to practise blowing candles out).

It created enough smoke to make the fire alarms beep, thankfully though there was not enough to set off a full evacuation. However everyone in my section learnt that burning computer components don't smell so good.

Sort of made the day a little more entertaining though.