OT: Unplug that computer!

blink3times wrote on 7/30/2009, 5:16 AM

Had a neighborhood power failure sometime during the night. The computer was OFF, but none the less I had a hell of a time booting this morning. I thought I was somewhat protected with the machine off in times of power failures.... but not so.

Had to go into BIOS this morning and adjust all the memory/cpu voltages.... very strange.

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Comments

rmack350 wrote on 8/1/2009, 5:25 PM

JJK,

Mark Twain wrote a story about succumbing to every lightning rod salesman that came to his door. In the end he claimed that he had so many "points" on his house that they were sucking lightning down every few minutes out a clear blue sky.

Rob

JJKizak wrote on 8/2/2009, 5:21 AM

We did have lightning rods on our old farmhouse. And they were hit many times. The grounding cables were about 3/4" thick. One time lightning hit and a blue ball came down the wire, jumped through the window without harming it, then into the electric clothes dryer frying same, then down into the basement never to be seen again. A person was standing about 15 ft away from the dryer at the time.
JJK

ushere wrote on 8/2/2009, 5:46 AM

we used to live in a remote farmhouse in the middle of bodmin moor in cornwall england. terrific storm overhead and the whole family were watching it through the window when a bolt hit the telegraph pole about 20 meters away right in front of us. it literally lit up like an arc light, then glowed with an eerie, acid flash back like st elmo's fire.

so, the kids jumped around whooping it up, and about 20 seconds AFTER the strike when the pole started losing it's glow, and the kids were just settling down, our telephone (wall mount) literally blew apart, and i mean APART. taking a fair amount of plaster with it off the wall as well.

the gpo (telecom) came the next day to repair it, and took what was left away with them to put in their museum..... there wasn't much, other than a melted mass of metal.

lynn1102 wrote on 8/2/2009, 4:28 PM

In a former life a few years ago, the company I worked for installed tv antennas. We installed one in a development using a chimney mount. It was done properly and grounded properly. Many summer storms and no problems. One of his neighbors convinced him to install a lightning rod. He called a company to do it. They installed in on the chimney, ran it down the outside of the chimney and had it properly grounded. Next lightning storm, his lightning rod got hit, and it took the whole chimney off the side of the house.

Lynn