Over at Mountaineer Musings, Sarahk is ready to tear her hair out because her power company must
to reset their meter every month.
Holy crap - I've never heard of such a thing. I've never had a meter reset by the power company. Maybe this is a Florida thing - I don't know.
However, when I started to comment I realized it would be a long one, so I decided to create a post on it instead.
Computer equipment is touchy stuff. It doesn't like sudden power outages and it doesn't like fluctuations. Power cycles like that tend to make these things either cranky or just kill them altogether.
Everyone, including people who use laptops, should invest in some sort of surge protector(s). You may need one or two, depending on what you have in the way of "stuff", but every piece should be plugged into a surge protector first. (they make tiny portable ones for laptops and travel - you can get them at Radio Shack for about $12 or so. Get the best you can afford - even a cheap one is better than nothing.
Now if you have intermittent, surprise power outages, then it would be worthwhile to invest in a UPS (Uninteruptible Power Supply). Basically a big battery. Most of the smaller ones will give you about 10 minutes worth of power allowing you to gracefully shut things down if the power stays off, they are also a type of surge protector. So, if you use one of these along with another surge protector, you have double the chance of catching outrageous fluctuations.
In our other house, we had wild power swings that would sometimes mess up our electronic ceiling fan, to the point it had to be reset. Yet in all that time, I never had a piece of computer equipment fail on me - because I had everything double protected and sometimes triple protected. In 9 years there, I never had to buy something because the electronics failed on me. I had other things go wrong - but never a blow-out because of electricity.
If you think of the cost of a computer or a printer, or anything else you might have to buy over and over again. If you think about internet time lost because your modem has been fried. Surge protectors and UPS's turn into a good investment rather than end up as a useless expense.
Everyone has power fluctuations. And good electronic equipment does not like that. Poke around online, find places that sell them and look at prices. Most people don't need top of the line - they need bottom of the line with enough outlets to plug in everything they want to run through it. For instance - I have a Tripp-Lite UPS like this one which cost me about $60. I have all my networking stuff plugged into surge protectors and then into this. I also have one of these fancy surge protectors with the extra wide slots for those honkin' big plugs so many electronics have. Plus the straight sets with 8 outlets.
Check Circuit City, Best Buy, computer stores for one you can carry home with you, or get online and have one delivered - stay out of the stores during the holiday rush. But don't let your electronics sit flapping in the electronic storm. Protect them and they will last you for a very long time.
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You are correct, it's a Florida thing. Only it's worse in some areas of the state. On the west coast, there were times in the summer that it happened every single day. Lost a darn good bread machine because of it. In Orlando it was a once a month thing.
And good advice. Very good advice.
Posted by: Tammi at December 14, 2006 11:44 AM (Bitcf)
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true, i do need to do that. we have one in the livingroom for the tv, dvd, etc. all of that equipment still goes off, but it's surge protected and doesn't fry at least.
thank goodness, i did get the printer to work. i let it sleep overnight.
Posted by: sarahk at December 14, 2006 12:13 PM (ND1d/)
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Thank goodness for UPSs! They [yes, plural!] are lifesavers... just don't try to run your coffeemaker off one unless you know exactly what you are doing...
Posted by: pam at December 14, 2006 12:40 PM (l6NIn)
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T, something you alluded to should be made clear to folks in rural areas as well as small towns. Many such areas have "dirty" power" due to long line runs, old infrastructure etc. This means the nice smooth wave pattern the electricity is supposed to have is jagged and spiky instead.
This kind of power is HELL on electronics as you mention and REQUIRES a UPS to clean up. An easy way to tell if this applies to you is to assess whether you seem to burn out light bulbs frequently. Their filaments are easily damaged by the dirty power too so are a good bellwether. The damage this does is cumulative too, so just because equipment doesn't break down all at once doesn't mean it's not being harmed.
In my small mountain town, we have extremely dirty power and I do a lot of service calls for damaged Ram memory, toasted motherboards etc.
A little more on the buying end - the main thing that causes price differences in UPSs is how long they'll keep equipment running on battery. If you get one that has a USB port and the software to shut the computers down automatically, you only need one that'll give 5 or 10 minutes as Teresa says.
I've used really strong ones in restaurants so that the network will stay up long enough for the waitresses/waiters to finish off their current bills and get payment posted while the system runs on battery, but those are overkill for most folks. (Did I mention we have crappy power?)
Paul
Posted by: Light & Dark at December 14, 2006 01:13 PM (JrFi/)
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Tammi - yes I thought it was one of those weird Florida things :-)
Pam... coffeemaker... ROFLMAO!
Paul - great points. You're right about the dirty power. Unfortunately, you don't have to be rural for that to happen, but it is way more prevalent where the infrastructure is older. Where we live now is semi-rural. We have steep drops when the a/c kicks on or the heater (to a lesser extent) because of our distance from the transformer and the number of houses connected - three.
As for me I have 2 UPS's - the one I mentioned was a lower end - I have a pretty expensive higher end one for my computers - but they are my business... no computer... no work. So I take care of them.
Thanks for clarifying! And thanks for helping me spread the word about protecting systems. *grin*
Posted by: Teresa at December 14, 2006 01:31 PM (gsbs5)
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Gee whiz, am I behind the curve. This is all news to me.
I will certainly have to add those things to my list. When I saw the title I thought we were going to have a frank discussion of the relative cuteness of those guys in brown who bring me nice packages...
Posted by: Christina at December 14, 2006 06:21 PM (NUhQR)
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***Note to self - next UPS post should be about those guys who deliver packages - cute or not?... *grin*
Posted by: Teresa at December 14, 2006 06:57 PM (gsbs5)
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One other fun fact for UPSes, (and not the male, delivery kind) is that after 2 or 3 years, the battery needs to be replaced, as it will no longer hold a charge sufficent to provide power as needed.
(Well, OK... any similarity between the non-male UPS, and a male UPS delivery guy is unintentional) 8-)
Posted by: Allan at December 15, 2006 08:17 AM (YWsCw)
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Excellent advice, Teresa. As always... :-)
Posted by: Richmond at December 15, 2006 09:56 AM (e8QFP)
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In Arkansas, Carrol Electric tried to explain to me why I would lose power, in the middle of the day, in beautiful cloudless weather, with no breeze, for 5 and 5 hours.
Squirrels.
Having grown up in Georgia with the same varmints on powerline's and having never lost power I was dumbfounded that they would try to explain to me, after I demanded one, that Arkansas has *special* squirrels, larger than normal squirrels, located no where else the technician tried to tell me, and that their sheer size could cut off power for hours.
I moved to Missouri.
Posted by: BloodSpite at December 17, 2006 07:11 AM (ZTGJT)
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Oh, I hope I'm not too late to the party! (School Christmas programs * 4 kids) + (Wife and child in Community Theatre production) = Busy weekend = no bloggy!
One VERY IMPORTANT note about UPS's and printers... NEVER put a LASER printer on a UPS!!
Laser printers draw a lot of amps when they're heating-up the fusing rollers / elements and will shorten the life of (i.e., burn-up!) your UPS *AND* damage your laser printer.
I don't recommend *anything* non-essential being on battery-backup. This includes scanners, printers, cameras, etc. Every additional device that is powered by the battery is robbing your system of 'uptime' in the event of a power loss. That's valuable time that can be used to save and close files, finish backups or critical file transfers to the network, whatever. The ONLY things I plug-in are my CPU, Monitor and external hard drives, if I'm using them. Everything else needs a good 'gating' surge protector. APC and PanaMax are good.
Also: Most standard 'Joule'-rated surge suppressors are self-sacrificing and will, over time, become nothing more than an expensive outlet-strip. If it doesn't have an indicator light that lets you know if your equipment is 'protected' - scrap it (or save it for your Christmas tree decorations) and get a good one. Better yet, get a 'gated' surge protector.
Just my $0.02
Posted by: Bitterroot at December 18, 2006 07:40 PM (GValb)
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