__________Brown outs & short term power outages... What kinds of problems?__________

[Blain]

I'm curious as to what actual problems that members have encountered because of short term power outages and brown outs.

I inderstand most use some type of UPS, but what kind of issues have you experienced?

 

[Roguestar]

My power cuts out most weeks, I live in student digs and the electricity works on a pre-pay scheme and I only remember to put money on it when it runs out! I've had no problems with the power just cutting off randomly, and before I moved in here my mum's house had a pretty unreliable supply (poor substation) though nothing long-term or identifiably related seemed to occur. I've always had this one "surge protected" 4-gang bar plug that I plug my PC into, though, perhaps that has helped.

 

[HannibalX]

Originally posted by: Blain

I'm curious as to what actual problems that members have encountered because of short term power outages and brown outs.

I inderstand most use some type of UPS, but what kind of issues have you experienced?

I live in FL. Anyone who has been here for 24 hours know the power cycles FREQUENTLY.

It's better than it used to be, but not great. Lately we get a power cycle about once a day in my area - it's hardly a "click" but some devices will switch on/off while others will stay up.

I have had two TVs die because of power cycles. Now days all of my electronics are on UPS/SurgP. Even if it just runs for 1/10th of a second it's worth it not to lose thousands of dollars of eletronics.

 

[boomerang]

I just repaired a system that was in a brown-out situation. It took out the HD and later I discovered it took out the motherboard too.

Here at home, we experience a lot of power outages. I have a whole house surge supressor (on the breaker panel) and surge supressors on the computers and AV components. No problems yet.

 

[Blain]

Yikes! :shocked: Those are some big time issues.

Would short term (seconds) outages knock out a home LAN? It can be rebuilt, but for some reason it just cut out.

 

[MichaelD]

As we all know, electronics are fickle little creatures. Some of us have seen a PC that "you just can't kill." It's run for years, sometimes halfway submerged in water, the cat has lived inside it. The baby fed the powersupply a PB&J sandwich thru the fan grill etc. Some PCs run for decades; there's just no telling when "it will die."

Then again, we've seen TV's that "just die", radios that "played fine until yesterday" etc.

The best thing you can do for a PC/Server is feed it constant, regulated and filtered power. Even under those ideal conditions, individual components like capacitors, chokes and transistors can get out of tolerance/spec or just die. And they will die eventually, regardless!

Exposing a PC to brownouts and/or filthy, unfiltered power is akin to sprinkling water on a gingerbread house; sooner or later it's gonna melt and fall.

IOW, why speed up the inevitable?

But getting back the the original question...

In no particular order:

Unexplained data loss
Programs that just quit or hang
Formerly stable OC now not stable at all
Weird characters/tearing/dropouts on the screen
Any other of 1,000 examples of weird behavior
PC won't even boot anymore, no matter what you do

And to further confuse things, the above behavior is also indicative of a VIRUS.

HTH a little.