University e-mail accounts were inaccessible Wednesday night because of a hardware failure.

The problem started mid-afternoon Wednesday when the Center for Computing and Information Technology noticed a decline in the e-mail system's performance, said Mike Torregrossa, co-director of CCIT. By 4:30 p.m., CCIT traced the problem to a faulty processor.

The center had the processor replaced yesterday by 1:30 p.m., Torregrossa said.

The system uses two processors, so one can act as a backup if the other fails, he said.

"When we first configured the system about 1.5 years ago, one processor could withstand the load," he said.

But Torregrossa said students are using their e-mail accounts more, checking e-mail more often and sending a greater number of messages with attachments.

"Usage has increased dramatically over the past year," he said.

More than 1 million e-mails are delivered through the UA's WebMail system on a typical school day, which hosts about 45,000 accounts.

Torregrossa attributed the increase in usage to policies mandating that students use university e-mail accounts.

CCIT's budget request, which was submitted three weeks ago, asks for money to upgrade the e-mail system.

Torregrossa estimates CCIT needs about $500,000 per year to upgrade and maintain the e-mail system, which works out to approximately $10 per year per account.