The power went out in part of town last night. Before 10am this morning I had already received two calls from people who were having problems as a result.
This seems to happen every time we have a power outage or severe lightning storm. In most cases the computers were on a surge protector when the power went out. I have even seem a few on expensive battery backup systems.
The only way to protect your computer is to unplug it from the wall. No one can predict when the power will go out or spike but lightning is a different story.
A nice surge protector won’t hurt, but it only adds a little more protection.
If you are leaving home for a day or more, unplug your computer just in case. Don’t just turn it off. In many cases that I have seen, the computer has been turned off when the lightning hit and it still caused major problems.
It may be a good idea to check with your computer manufacturer and home insurance to see whether they cover such failures. Many surge protectors carry a guarantee, but cashing in on that guarantee sometimes requires you to jump through some hoops.
You can’t live in fear of a power surge that may never happen, but you should always keep your data backed up. I am constantly reminded that the value of a computer system is not in the parts it is made up of but the data that is stored on it,
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