Power problems can and do occur every day. Lightning strikes against power lines and electrical substations can cause substantial damage to electrical equipment, even to domestic and commercial users tens to hundreds of kilometres away. However, many spikes, surges and noise occuring every day in homes and offices can have the same devastating effect on your computer hardware and software equipment as a lightning strike... Overview of Electrical Disturbances Spikes A Spike is a dramatic increase in voltage normally lasting only a few milliseconds. Cause: Car accidents resulting in fallen power lines and lightning during an electrical storm. Result: Data corruption during a hard disk read/write cycle as well as component break down due to over-specified voltage and/or out-of-range voltage. Blackout Total loss of mains power. Cause: Power grid overload, lightning, car accidents and earthworks. Result: Loss of unsaved current work and possible loss of entire hard drive contents due to a head crash or disruption of the file allocation table. Surge A short term increase in supply voltage. Cause: The switching off of large electrical loads eg. Commercial air conditioners, fridges and industrial motors. Result: Damage or premature failure of delicate electronic components due to excessive dissipation of heat. Brownout A long-term decrease in supply voltage lasting up to several hours. Cause: The switching on of large electrical loads eg. Commercial air conditioners, fridges and industrial motors. Other common causes are due to the over demand of utility power eg. increased use of domestic air conditioners during summer months. Result: Possible head crash or disruption to the file allocation table due to the equipment's power supply hovering between power-on and power-off states many times per second; also damage or premature failure of delicate electronic components due to excessive dissipation of heat. Sag A short-term decrease in supply voltage. Cause: As Brownout. Result: As Brownout Noise EMI (Electronic Magnetic Interference)and RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) more commonly referred to as noise is induced into the power supply. Cause: Radiation from high energy equipment such as welders, radio transmitters, fluorescent lights and electric switching equipment. These devices superimpose a distorted signal onto the sine wave. Result: Keyboard lock-up and data corruption through unsynchronised radical impulses being saved as legitimate data.

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