Bribie Island is very susceptible to power outages and surges which can permanently damage your computer and accessories. Using a junction board with built-in power surge protection will not protect you although it may slightly reduce the risk
What happens when the power drops out is that when it pops back on again, because everyone's equipment is still connected and waiting to start up again, a massive surge is created. When any electrical equipment starts up that is when the most current is drawn.
If anyone recalls the outage that occurred 2 Friday nights ago at about 8pm, you may also recall that the outage was for less than 1 minute. First thing on Monday morning we had lots of calls about printers no longer working, modems and faxes not working. Over the following week we have had calls about other computer failures, and upon inspection we found that graphics cards, ram chips, power supplies and monitors were damaged, some of them dying a couple of days after the surge because the damage had still been done.
Protecting from power surges
It's not only power surges that can cause damage, but also power dropouts especially if your computer is writing to disk at the time. The only sure way to protect your equipment is to power it via an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).
A UPS contains a transformer, circuits and a battery to provide a continuous filtered power to its power board. They are available in different sizes according to output. For example a 1500VA UPS costs about $220 and s 650VA UPS costs about $110. The larger one can provide 10-15 minutes of backup power in the event of a total blackout and includes monitoring to shut down your computer if power gets dangerously low.
We keep both models in stock at our computer shop and strongly recommend that all computers and equipment be properly protected. In our shop we have several computers and other equipment which we leave running all the time. As a result of the recent power surge/outage we lost a laser printer... the only piece of equipment in the shop that was not protected via UPS.
How much is your computer, monitor and printer worth?
Author: WilliamNetwork Admin
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Phone: 07 3410 7200 Fax: 07 3410 7675 Cnr. Eucalypt Street & Benabrow Avenue, Bribie Island QLD
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