Brownouts, shorts, explosions and the unix pc.

[Gil Kloepfer Jr.]

In article <1991Jan5.045917.7018 at shibaya.lonestar.org> afc at shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) writes:
[good luck in faring through a nasty brownout activity]
>No damage occurred in either instance, possibly thanks to the very old
>surge suppressor I have protecting the computer...

The surge suppressor would not help protect you against brownouts, although
it might help against any kind of surges resulting from power being
restored in an indeterminent manner.  Those surge suppressors are generally
MOVs, which clamp high voltage spikes to ground, so that they don't
ever get to your power supply, and possibly further.  There are some
more elaborate power supply strips which contain some power-line filters
which help prevent RF from entering/leaving the machine through the
power lines (the former can sometimes tell some chips to do funny dances).

Both forms of protection are useful in many cases...  A general word of
caution though-- spike protectors are NOT lightning arrestors.  The
best protection from lightning is unplugging your machine from the power
**AND** phone lines.  There's an ongoing discussion in the 386 group
about lightning damage through the phone lines.  Most modems are terribly
unprotected against such surges....
-- 
Gil Kloepfer, Jr.              gil at limbic.ssdl.com   ...!ames!limbic!gil 
Southwest Systems Development Labs (Div of ICUS)   Houston, Texas
"There are beautiful people I wish would have never opened their mouths,
because such ugliness oozes out."  Philosophy Prof. at NYIT