Storm and lights dimming - pc still on

[lpio211]

Hello. I have an question. There was a storm in my country yesterday. Power was on . But there was random 1 second lights dimming in my house. Computer was still on, and laptop' was still on. So why both computers was on and wont turns off when lights was dimming? Thanks. And is this harmful to pc?
How can i check that nothing damage in my pc?
Ah i dont have UPS.

Psu is Corsair 750RM and MB: Asus Z170-P

 

[UsandThem]

Well, a quick dip generally won't shut down a PC because your capacitors hold a charge. Laptops run off of batteries.

If your PCs still work, you should be fine. Dips and spkikes can damage electronics (or shorten their lives). However, count yourself lucky and buy a UPS.

Also, why did you provide links to Ebay category listings?

 

[lpio211]

But my laptop is without battery. Its plugged to cord. So

How can i be sure that nothing wrong with my computer ? ( after light flicker during storm )

 

[UsandThem]

But my laptop is without battery. Its plugged to cord. So

How can i be sure that nothing wrong with my computer ? ( after light flicker during storm )

How can be sure there is something wrong with it?

If it still powers on and works, that's about all you can do at this point. If you start experiencing crashes that you didn't have before, then you will have test individual components until you find the problem(s).

 

[mindless1]

To be sure, run stability testing and try every port, but it's probably fine. "Rarely" a computer can suffer surge damage that doesn't cause a complete failure of the component until later, but that is uncommon. Low power flickering is not really a risk like an overvoltage power surge is.

 

[lpio211]

I run 3dmark stress test for 20 minutes and it passed. But should i test more or its enough?

 

[UsandThem]

I run 3dmark stress test for 20 minutes and it passed. But should i test more or its enough?

Just use them how you normally use them. If you don't have weird crashes or instability that wasn't there before, you will be fine. It sounds like you are overthinking this.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This is hard on the PC and is risky as it could cause a hard shut down but if it did not shut down hard then you're probably ok. I would put any PC you care about on a UPS to prevent this risk though. Hard drives (spinners) are especially susceptible to this as the head does not get a chance to park properly if it gets a hard shut down. Actually, SSDs are also susceptible as if the flash is mid write and power is cut it can corrupt (permanently) that block.

Laptops also use way less power than regular PCs so you probably got lucky that the capacitors in the plug pack were able to keep it running for the duration of the flicker.

 

[mindless1]

Get a 3 hour long 4K video, in H.264, re-encode to H.265 and back again to H.264. Time that, and repeat 10 times. If the deviation in encode times is less than 3.17% then you're good.






Just kidding. Kidding aside, you wrote "There was a storm in my country". What is the AC mains voltage in your country? A Corsair RM series is APFC, "full range" and good down to at least 90VAC (except at extreme loads), so it could easily be that even if your lights dimmed and anything else designed to run on 110VAC or higher had an issue too, let alone 220VAC, a full range PSU would still chug along fine at the lower voltage. The same goes for the typical laptop PSU.

 

[lpio211]

So it can harm pc if during storm my lights in house flickered for 1 seconds? How can i check if my pc is ok?
But like i said pc not shutdown during this day with storm. Only lights in house flickered few times for 1 seconds,thats all.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If PC is staying on I would not worry too much that it took damage. A slight flicker is probably not a huge deal, it's just that it's risking having your PC shut down hard or simply brown out if it's not on a UPS. Sometimes what happens is it does not really shut down, it will just lock up into a "off but still on" kinda state. Ex: screen will be black but fans and so on are still running. This will risk corrupting data and what not.

 

[lpio211]

Pc stays on during this day. Pc not shutdown during this day with storm. Only lights in house flickered few times for 1 seconds,thats all

 

[VirtualLarry]

Writing style of OP is very similar to a banned tech-support troll, the would constantly post asinine issues that are really non-issues, and then ignoring the responses and suggestions, just re-iterating the original claim.

Litwicki, is that you?

 

[UsandThem]

Writing style of OP is very similar to a banned tech-support troll, the would constantly post asinine issues that are really non-issues, and then ignoring the responses and suggestions, just re-iterating the original claim.

Litwicki, is that you?

I'm not familiar with that user, but I was curious. I looked at OP's post history, and I spotted another power related post I responded to:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/asus-anti-surge-question.2498902/#post-38729835

If the power is that bad/unstable in their location, and they still haven't bought a UPS after all that time, then it's on them if something gets damaged. I mean this exact issue has already been answered.

 

[FaaR]

Hard drives (spinners) are especially susceptible to this as the head does not get a chance to park properly if it gets a hard shut down.

Not actually true. The HDD will draw power from the spindle motor to retract the heads if power fails. This isn't the 1980s anymore; there's no need to explicitly park the heads.

Naturally, one should always try to avoid unexpectedly cutting power to any storage device, as that could damage file data, or even the filing system structure itself. NTFS specifically seems to be pretty robust tho, I've shut off my PC in anger and had nothing bad happen whatsoever. *touch wood*

YMMV, of course.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Not actually true. The HDD will draw power from the spindle motor to retract the heads if power fails. This isn't the 1980s anymore; there's no need to explicitly park the heads.

Naturally, one should always try to avoid unexpectedly cutting power to any storage device, as that could damage file data, or even the filing system structure itself. NTFS specifically seems to be pretty robust tho, I've shut off my PC in anger and had nothing bad happen whatsoever. *touch wood*

YMMV, of course.

Hmm really? Since I always figured that loud click when you pull power is the head smashing into the platters. But either way you do risk file system level damage where the PC may not be able to boot back up and you end up having to do a repair or reinstall depending how bad it is.

 

[FaaR]

I always figured that loud click when you pull power is the head smashing into the platters.

If you actually experienced a headcrash your drive would basically be toast immediately. The R/W heads today are so tiny and sensitive they'd probably be ruined by sliding all over the platters. You'd also grind up the surface of the platters, flaking off material that would greatly damage or totally ruin any data stored there, plus the debris would contaminate the rest of the drive.

No, the click you hear is the heads autoparking on the headramps and sucking down on the magnet that holds them in place when the power is off.

But either way you do risk file system level damage where the PC may not be able to boot back up and you end up having to do a repair or reinstall depending how bad it is.

It's very unlikely you'll suffer such catastrophic filesystem damage you'd have to reinstall. First, you'd have to be writing to the drive for anything to happen in the first place. Then to suffer reinstall level damage you'd have to have turned off windows' system restore point feature, or in the exact moment of writing to some truly critical piece of the file system. I don't actually know if you can completely wreck a NTFS drive by not allowing a drive to fully complete a write operation.

You could on the old Amiga FFS file system, if the root block got screwed up you lost absolutely everything on the drive, perhaps some of it irrevocably even with disk restoration tools. But I don't think they design such fragile filesystems anymore...

 

[NCIXGreg]

Computer was still on, and laptop' was still on. So why both computers was on and wont turns off when lights was dimming?

Modern computer power supplies are of a variety known as switching supplies. They automatically detect the incoming voltage from the wall and take in as much current as they need to feed the system, not matter what the voltage is (within reason of course). This is why if you look at your PSU, it may give you a voltage range from 80V-250V, even we're normally expecting it to be 120V here in North America.

Generally, a good surge suppressor is all you need to protect your PC and notebook. Dimming the power won't usually harm it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I had an incident recently where one of my servers went down after a very dirty brownout. Even with a UPS, most are standby so they take some time to switch over (about 16ms I think). One of my servers got the brunt of the brownout and I had to deal with network downtime and resetting/booting stuff back up. Not all servers took a hit despite being on the same UPS though.

So really the ability to survive a flicker probably varies alot between systems.

I'm now looking into a -48v dual conversion setup as I can't afford this to happen again - it's the second time. I even have one server that has been acting up since, it probably took damage. Had to do a force reboot today as it just hung.