On Oct 4, 2004, at 4:30 PM, MMB wrote:
After losing two motherboards/powerboards (in desktops) I now NEVER leave my machines plugged in. Surge protectors/UPS for home computers are more consolation than effective I was told by electrician, even the more expensive UPS.
That's pure hogwash. A good UPS, such as professional systems from APC, convert the incoming AC to stable DC then charge a lead-acid battery and convert the DC back to clean AC constantly. Your computer runs on what is essentially a full-time battery.
The cheapo consumer models do not do this, but pro grade UPSes certainly do.
We live in an area subject to lots of power surges, brownouts and lightning strikes, our office equipment is on 100% of the time, our servers are up 24/7. In the 10 years I've worked in this office we've lost 6 RAID drives, one standalone SCSI drive, and two ethernet cards. Only one motherboard (a consumer grade gateway being used as a server) has failed in that time, and it was two years out of warrantee. For reference we have, at last count, 40 systems in our server room. including 6 systems with RAIDs. Every one of our systems is on an APC UPS. I'm a BIG fan.
Surge protectors are no real help after a pretty short time. Consumer UPSes block surges better than the surge protectors, but if you want your system to live, spend the bucks on a real UPS.
<http://www.apcc.com>
Go for the Back-UPS pro series.
(btw, a Powerbook's AC adapter and battery make it essentially a UPS, so you don't need one for Powerbooks)
--
Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pha rmacy Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
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