Re: Did low voltage cause the pc to fail?

From: ~Dude17~ (dude17_at_sacbeemail.com)
Date: 08/21/04 

Date: 21 Aug 2004 02:50:11 -0700

X-No-Archive: Yes

xvreddog@yahoo.com (Greg) wrote in message news:<a13b52dc.0408181738.5ebba273@posting.google.com>...
> G'day from a long way away....
>
> I am struggling with an argument about a couple of damaged home
> computers and I was wondering if anyone can help????
>
> The switchboard for a suburban house was replaced in November 2003.
> Since February 03 various appliances in the house have failed,
> including three pcs. The owners believe that lower than stat limits
> voltage into the residence caused the failure. Since the switchboard
> was replaced the problems have stopped.
>
> Their electrician said that the switchboard was a 30 year old
> porcelain-fused model and was burning out on the busbar and the
> circuits on the board were overloaded with too many appliances.
>
> My question to you, if you would be so kind...."What chance is there
> that the slightly under supply of grid voltage would severely damage
> pcs, or, is the pc damage more likely to be as a result of the arcing
> at the switchboard?"
>
> Greg,
> Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Do you have the detailed description of failure? Poor quality power
supplies have a disgustingly low hold up time and even the best power
have a limited hold up time.

Hold up time is the amount of time the power supply can sustain proper
outputs when input power is lost. Usually, when power goes out or
browns out severely briefly but longer than the hold up time, the
computer will reboot suddenly. If it happens at just the right time,
it can corrupt the HDD. I've heard of power supplies that's so crappy
that computer reboots when UPS tranfers to battery, because it it
couldn't hold up during a ~5mS transfer time.

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