> You're *sure*? Very, very momentary voltage dips can be hell on electronics > after a while. AppleTV, the broadcast facility Apple used to have, was > seeing repeated equipment failures, despite the usual line conditioners and > such. Suspecting a power problem, they paid a tidy sum for a > high-performance line monitor, which showed very regular voltage drops. > Turned out that they came whenever the Kaiser Permanente facility a couple > of miles away started their big motors. PG&E, faced with the evidence, had > to pay for a some new equipment and install a new power line from another > grid. But none of this was anything you could really see. I don't know > where you are, but PG&E is noted for having unstable power and high rates. > It's in the 90th percentile in both, last I heard. > > > I've never seen a power supply screwed into a case, only rivited. Which > > sucks. > > Really? I've never had one that was riveted. I replaced mine with > ultra-quite ones (ball bearing fans and noise damping design) because I was > so tired of the humming. They were trivial to swap in. Now I can hear my > hard drives clearly... ;-) > > Nick
I'm fairly sure about the AC power. The one computer that had two failures wasn't in the same house, but it may have experienced physical shocks when it was moved. The other computers (well one failed and the second one was a replacement for it) was in the same place as one of MINE, which never failed. And I run 100% of the time. I can see 4 computers from right here and they are all rivited power supplies. And over the years I've worked on a lot of computers, never seen a screwed in supply. Honest. As far as safety, my first 'real' job ($5.80 an hour!) was fixing TVs and VCRs. The second week I was helping put a new CR tube in a tv, in the customer's house. We were pulling out the old CRT, and I stuck my finger in the hole where the flyback HV lead went. WOW! My elbow put a hole in the drywall and I hit a shelf that was full of nik-nacs. It shook very badly but nothing broke. The guy I was helping had been a friend for 7 years, he was laughing so hard he dropped the old CRT, obviously I wasn't holding it anymore, and broke the yoke off. When working in a supermarket, we had foot switches to make the belt move at the checkout. Some how someone had plugged the foot switch into the 220V outlet. (All I knew was the belt wasn't moving). I grabbed the plug to pull it out, WHAM. I fried the register. Another time a penny had fallen into a register, onto the circuit board (great design!) and I was working it when it shorted out. And finally I was adjusting the mounting of a 380V motor. The mounting screw pierced a wire. I got a nice shock but the machine kept on going. Kevin T. Running with scissors
