For the person above who said that a power surge fried your boards and drives, if you live in your own house, you might consider an all-house surge suppressor. These install on the electrical service panel where the power enters your house. I had an electrician come over a few weeks ago to wire my new garage, and I was complaining to him about spikes and surges, and he told me about these things, so I had him install one on the service entrance to my house. The cost was $150, which is well worth it considering all the expensive electronic stuff in the house that it protects. It also stops lightning strikes, taking them straight to ground. It's just a little square gadget that looks sort of like an oversize power brick, that goes between the incoming power wire to the house and the circuit-breaker panel. Once it's installed, all power surges and lightning strikes are stopped right there, before they enter the house.
On top of that, I have an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) on each of the three computers in the house, so if power goes off completely, the batteries in these UPSs keep things going until you can do a proper shutdown (they beep to warn you when the battery power is in use). It all sounds expensive, but it's only a few hundred bucks all told, and against that, just tote up the cost of replacing your fried electronics, or worse, all your priceless irreplaceable data. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
