Saved By The Ups

[Pete_C]

Last night I was online when all of a sudden my OL bellowed

"Why are my lights and tv off."

I suddenly realized, that since I had everything here on UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies for thoe who are unfamiliar, battery backups) even a couple lights and the TV; that I had missed the fact that the lights had gone out in the rest of the house.

I quickly powered down and explained that she had a UPS on the computer and light beside it in the bedroom too.

I went outside and found the whole block and more were without power.

Next thing I knew there were firetrucks converging a block over so I went to investigate. It seems that the drought had caused a pole to shift and a line to sag a couple of feet. It was just low enought that a tractor trailer moving truck snagged it and pulled down a line of poles.

All I can say about that is at least it was not as bad as having no power in mid summer. The electric company also had a better response , since they did not have to figure out where the problem was and did not have half their force lent out to rebuild hurricane damage and no competing damage to deal with in town.

All is back to normal now, but I sure am lucky that the PC was on UPS or it would have suffered major damage.

[tictoc5150]

but I sure am lucky that the PC was on UPS or it would have suffered major damage.

Pete, shouldn't that read "could have" instead of "would have"?

Not that I have anything against a UPS but all I've ever used was a surge protector (false security as it may be) and have experienced more than a few outages now and have never had any PC problems from a hard shut down from such.

I'm probably just a lucky b@[email protected]

[handplane]

Pete,

I agree with having a UPS.

We occur power outages quite often.

It spared me many a hard shut downs.

[KeithLDick]

Ya know Pete when I read the Title of this thread I thought of you having a Major Computer Crash or Component Fry while doing important work and you had something shipped to you overnight via "UPS" i.e., United Parcel Service.....

hehehehehehehe

Edited January 18, 2006 by KeithLDick

[DarkestDream]

Yea Keith, what what i though too HAHAHAHA

[Dan72]

i lose power all the time when my computer is on

with xp on both the only thing you lose is data in a open document

[bozodog]

Not true Dan72. A hard shutdown can and will cause problems on your hard drive. When you shut down properly the HDD "parks" the head. If you just cut the power the head stops "wherever" and can cause damage to that sector of the plates.

[Dan72]

Not true Dan72. A hard shutdown can and will cause problems on your hard drive. When you shut down properly the HDD "parks" the head. If you just cut the power the head stops "wherever" and can cause damage to that sector of the plates.

thank you for the info

[martymas]

thanks pete

ive wanted to investigate that ups button

but havent had the guts to try it

now i know whats its for

marty

[JSKY]

Mmmmm! I have a small one, and about 6 years old.

Never left the putter running when it looks nasty enough to cause a power outage. I wonder if it will handle the equipment I run now?

I'll have to try it out.

[Shadow_Thomas]

I have two computers side bye side hooked up on my network. Anyhow I own two Belkin U.P.S. units that will run for 45 minutes without my house power. Last week I lost power for hours on count of a ice storm and high winds. I was able to surf the web for about 30 minutes before I decided to shut off both computers.

I wouldn't here of hooking up any comp I own unless I have it hooked up to a U.P.S. unit first.

[blim]

I'm like Tictoc, guess I have been lucky. Have a surge protector but the cost of the UPS just seemed ridiculous. Well, I now know a good gift to buy for kid's birthdays or Christmas. (You should have posted this before Christmas, Pete! Hubby and I give eachother "gifts for the house")

This did remind me of a funny story. When I bought the Possessed Gateway, I asked the salesman (there were Gateway stores then),

"what happens when the power goes out?"

He said, "Don't worry about it"

I asked my techy nephew and my geeky former neighbor who both said,

"Don't worry about it"

2 weeks later, the power went out. When it came back on, there was this flashing red, blue and green box on my monitor, saying, "your monitor is working, check this, check that". Well, I was a 2 week computer owner, I didn't know what to do....so I called Gateway tech support, hollering,

"Don't worry about it?!? What the h#ll is this blinking box and what the h#ll am I supposed to do??"

The tech said, "press the power button on the computer and tell me if it starts correctly"

He thanked me and told me that my call was the easiest call he's ever had and I imagine he was falling out of his chair laughing after we hung up.

No wonder I call myself a Noob. But I'm still mad at the folks who said, "don't worry about it"

Liz

Edited January 22, 2006 by blim