Jesus Saves (a PC/surge-protector/electricity question)

Factual Questions
#1

There was a big storm last night. The weather people had been saying for some time that we needed rain badly, so I wasn’t complaining. Plus, I kind of like the sound of rain on the roof.

I’ve been remarkably lucky all my life to have suffered very little damage to electrical equipment as the result of power surges and the like. As a result, I’m sorry to say, I’m a little lackadaisical about going around and unplugging stuff like you’re supposed to. The PC and it’s related equipment are on surge protectors, as are all the TVs and VCRs in the house.

Anyway, after the worst of things had passed (and after half a dozen or so power failures of a second or two each), I tried to boot up the PC. No luck. Power switch. No little light. Power switch … power switch … no little light. Looked at the surge protector, it’s little light was on. The monitor was on. The cable modem was on. Power switch … no little light.

So I went to bed, wondering how I might possibly squeeze a new power supply, or worse a motherboard, or worst a whole PC, out of the already too-tight-for-groceries budget.

This morning, I got up, took the dog out, walked around the yard trying to see if there was any damage, came inside and read the paper, came upstairs, and said a little prayer, despite the fact that The Lord and I don’t see eye-to-eye lately.

Then I did exactly two things: (1) I reseated the power cord at the PC end, and (2) I moved the surge-protector end of the power cord to a different outlet on the same surge protector.

Power switch … here I am.

How?

#2

I think your surge protector was tripped, Knead, and moving it to another outlet reset it.

#3

I think the big guy upstairs had mercy on you and repaired that burnt out motherboard. (He’ll send you the bill…later)

#4

Ummmm… no surge supressors I’ve ever seen will “trip” and self reset just my moving to another outlet on the supressor itself… but anyway you may want to replace the surge supressor even if it is still working. If it actually “handled” a surge it’s future surge supression qualities are possibly compromised given the somewhat sacrifical nature of the components.

#5

Well, that sure beats having Hell to pay. :slight_smile:

I’m still utterly mystified by this.

To clarify things a little: there are 2 surge protectors. SP1 has my PC, monitor, scanner, cable modem, and a TV plugged into it, with one free outlet. All of the items but the PC were working fine (to tell the truth, I haven’t actually tested the scanner, but it booted up fine and its light is green). This would seem to go against the idea that the SP itself had “tripped,” if I understand your suggestion correctly, donkeyoatey. Also, from what I understand on this model SP, the power light on it goes out when it trips its internal breaker, forcing you to have to turn it off and back on again like a regular breaker.

Normally, I’m a painstakingly methodical trouble-shooter, so I realize that I shouldn’t have done two things before I tried turning the PC on again. At work, anyway, I would have reseated the PC’s power cable at the PC end, tried to turn it on, then if necessary, reseated the cable at the SP end, tried to turn it on, then tried moving to a different outlet on the SP. Hey, now that I look at that, I guess I even skipped a step in troubleshooting. Oh well, you know what they say about shoemakers’ kids… :slight_smile:

Oh, I just tested the surge-protector outlet the PC was originally plugged into (when it didn’t work), and it seems to work fine now. Don’t worry, though, astro, I will plan to replace this SP as soon as there’s room for it in the budget. Ironically, I bought the kind that I could pass my cable TV through to help protect my equipment only to find out when I had my cable modem installed that I can’t use it because it adds too much noise to the line. So at least the replacement SP will be cheaper than the original.

He works in mysterious ways …

#6

The same thing happened to me a couple of months ago, during a thunderstorm. I saw a huge flash of lightning outside the window and the power went off. About a minute later everything came back on, except the computer. I pushed the power button repeatedly to no avail. I unplugged the SP a the wall and plugged it back in again, same socket. And when I pressed the power button, presto! The computer came back to life with no problems.
(start x-files music)

#7

Should it worry me that a thread titled “Jesus Saves” brought an AgentofEvil out of the lurkosphere to visit me?

I’ll just hope not and say welcome to the Boards.

I wonder if it has to do with some buildup of static electricity at the point of connection between the plug and the outlet?

#8

Yeah, you’re right astro.
Can I get you to type slower, KneadToKnow, I can’t read very well. :slight_smile: I thought you had unplugged the supressor and plugged it back in (of course, that probably wouldn’t work either, but I’ll weasel out of that when someone else points it out).

#9

N o
p r o b l e m,
d o n k e y o a t e y.

:smiley: