Freshly Fried Computer

[Anonymous user]

My computer fried. Here are the circumstances:

I have Two Back-UPS XS 1000s for two computers. Florida Power and Light had a statewide power outage. The computers powered down as the battery died.

When the power came back on I turned on the first computer. It powered up for a half-second then died. Their was a distinct odor. By swapping different parts, I was able to deduce that the CPU was dead. Two of three drives are dead. The motherboard and/or the video card are dead. The second computer, which draws less power, is completely fine.

My question is this... what circumstances, besides a defective UPS, might lead to an electrically fried computer?

For example, if the UPS battery was nearly dead and I turned on my computer during a brownout, how would the UPS respond?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Anonymous user]

Sound like you can check out APC protection plan and get some APC money. I just had over voltage problems here and the PPL rep said that under voltage is worse then over if that means anything in your case Good Luck.

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

What was your data cable configuration? Since the XS does not have Ethernet protection (which I assume you are using either DSL or Broadband), did you have backdoor protection on that? Based on what you described it seems everything shutdown properly, including the UPS. Therefore, nothing should have been harmed on the power supply side. However, if there was a surge, it is VERY common that it comes across the data line as most customers do not have any backdoor protection, or are under educated on that factor.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

just to elaborate on the above post... the design of the UPS's are to fail completely to protect the connected equipment when they're hit by a surge. If the both UPS's still function, and if it was a surge (which it sounds like), it didn't enter either computer on its power cord.