“Cap’n, the dilithium crystals can’na take much more of this…” We’ve been getting battered by thunderstorms for days on end, a pretty unusual weather pattern for northern New England. Normally, we’ll get a line of showers through after a hot spell as cold air blows in. But we’ve been deluged since Sunday with oppressive clouds, lots of lightning and thunder, occasional downpours, ominous mid-day darkness and several blackouts. That’s a good reminder to make sure all your precious electronics are on surge suppressors or UPSes. The UPS on the iMac died an ugly death after a close lightening strike and power blink: it went off, beeped, kicked backed on, worked for a few seconds, beeped, went off,… I powered off the iMac quickly and disconnected the unit. Powering it up the next day, the UPS appeared to be okay, but once I put it under load again, it started showing the same symptoms.
Be careful out there. Power down everything and disconnect it from the walls when you see a storm coming in. Lightening crosses miles of open air to short-circuit the clouds to the ground; leaping across your surge suppressor isn’t even a challenge. And even if the manufacturer offers some cash coverage, it’s likely that having your machine working today, with your data and your applications up and running, is worth a lot more than the depreciated value of the hardware you might get reimbursed.