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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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Dirty power...surging power...no power and your computer
by Steve Bertrand
Last week 50 million of us were reminded how much we actually rely on
hydro throughout our day. In the last decade, our industrial world has
become far more reliant on computers to perform many of the tasks that
were once done manually.
Our computers are very sensitive to even the smallest fluctuations in hydro-electricity, and as many people found out, hydro glitches can seriously damage ones computer equipment.
Every year we investigate and have to replace computer hardware due to hydro-electrical damage. There are cost effective ways to protect against such damage.
Electrical surges (or spikes) can occur when there is a sudden increase in electricity demand, and or a lightning strike on a hydro pole close to your location. Such events can quickly send thousands of volts of electricity directly into your computer over the power lines. To protect against such damage, all of your sensitive computer equipment (including monitors, printers, network routers) should be plugged into 'surge protectors'. Surge protectors will drown out the voltage spikes, maintaining the integrity of your expensive hardware. Surprisingly, there are other avenues that these electrical surges can find your equipment that many people overlook...telephone lines. Any copper cabling entering into your residence or business is susceptible to surges. When considering surge protection or surge suppression equipment, you should look at purchasing one with adequate protection for all types of cabling medium that come from outside into your computer. Surge suppressors sell for under $60. This is a very cost effective method to protect your investment.
Another power nasty are 'brownouts'. Brownouts occur when there is a lack of hydro to meet existing demands. When hydro coming into your computer is reduced below a dangerous threshold, the computer has no way of 'topping up' to meet it's own demand, and internal computer hardware can quickly burn out running at below minimum levels of power. This type of problem is not as common as surges, but the level of damage can be more widespread. For businesses, it is critical to have protection against brownouts especially on mission critical file, web and email server computers. Protection against this type of nasty comes in the form of a battery powered UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). When the hydro dips, the UPS will replace the missing hydro directly from it's battery, ensuring that your computers maintain a normal level of hydro with accurate consistency.
The last hydro problem is complete blackout. When a blackout occurs, the computer powers off suddenly, not giving time for the Operating System (Windows) to properly shut down. All work that had not been previously saved is lost, and worse, there is a good chance that internal devices such as hard disk storage will crash, rendering the computer unable to reboot. Again, a UPS can help alleviate these problems. The UPS can communicate with the computer, and when hydro goes down, the computer will continue to run. If hydro is not restored in a reasonable amount of time, the UPS will inform the computer that the battery is low. The computer will then gracefully save all work and shut down normally. This prevents damage from a hard crash.
Most UPS's have surge protection built in, and costs range from $150 and up. A 500VA UPS system is adequate for most stand-alone computer systems. Note that laser printers should NEVER be plugged into a UPS for maximum battery life during a blackout.
Steve and Angie offer a variety of computer services for both business applications and home systems through their business Northumberland Network Services. You can reach them at 905-352-2688 or email here.
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