T-bird is working now

[Snag]

Earlier version , 60.6.1 , I did a cold restart after uninstalling

68.9.1 and started from scratch . Looks like it'll auto-update unless I change some settings though .

[T]

Welcome to the Dark Side!

[T]

Hi Bob,

Get one of these:

The cheaper ones suck.

-T

[Ed Pawlowski]

Get a cheap UPS unit and avoid potential problems. I have them on the cable boxes since they take forever to reboot after a few second outage.

Cable company owns the box so no cost to me if they get cooked but the PITA is worth it.

[Frank]

I have no problems with the cheap ones and have survived many power failures with them. They keep you on long enough to have a safe shut down.

[Frank]

I never got the complete install of T-bird that I wanted on a second computer even copying over the whole profile. I have mentioned in the Mozilla newsgroup that it would be nice of they had a sync like in Firefox where you can duplicate on a second system.

[philo]

I am locked in at 60.9

The newer versions really sucked on Windows.

Seems ok on Linux though

[rbowman]

Everything fails sooner or later but the cheap ones tend to fail sooner. I haven't done a nose count but we must have at least 50 computers in my department alone so it's a larger sample.

The annoying thing is when they fail it's worse than no UPS. during those brief flashes where everyone screams 'Oh shit!' it's the boxes with faulty UPSes that go down when even those just plugged into the wall survive.

[Frank]

You have a lot more experience than me. I figure you only need a minute or two of reserve power to enact a safe shutdown.

Years ago I had a Gateway computer go down in a power failure and had all kinds of problems. Hard drives cannot take a hard shut down.

Now I even plug the UPS into surge protector. One day while on line a branch down the street came down shorting the high tension to the low tension wire. Every surge protector in the house got fried including the one to the UPS but computer survived. I did lose a microwave.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I live just a few miles from Lightning Alley, Tampa to Orlando. I have a whole house surge protector.

Its not always a bad thing though. A few years back in CT I wanted to get a nice flat screen TV but could not justify getting rid of a perfectly good 3 year old CRT 16:9 screen. God answered my prayers with a lightning bolt. Took out everything on that circuit including the breaker.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Last summer we had a series of brownouts, where the power voltage went from 150V down to about 60V several times. The only damage was to one computer. It was the computer power supply, so no software reinstallation required.

[Jim Joyce]

150V? Is that a typo or did your power company turn it up to 11?

Cheap Spinal Tap reference.

[T]

Hi Frank,

It is my experience with my numberous customer usign these tings, that the cheap ones

1) don't provide enough power 2) are terrible at surge suppression 3) do not mechanically step up / step down under / over voltages 4) crap out a lot 5) don't have a feedback mechanism to tell your computer when they are browning out

You pay for what you get.

-T

[Clare Snyder]

I've got no use for the over-hyped APC units - an associate told me years ago it means "A Piece of Crap"and I fully concur. I've been selling Powerware and it's predecessors for about 30 years (Best Power and Eaton) Their line interactive unit is as low as I'll go even with their products unless a customer insists - I've sold a fair amount of their "dual conversion" or "online" systems. A "standby" system is just a false sense of security, IMNSHO. An APC online unit IS available but they are overpriced - they spend too much money on retail advertising.

[Clare Snyder]

Someone drove into an above-ground trandformer vault just fown the road from my Dad's place a number of years back and it sent a few thousand volts onto the one sife of the split 240 volt distribution line. Took out a bunch of light bulbs and the TV. All it took to fix the TV was a fuse at something like 37 cents.

I installed one with my new service entrance panel as well. Central Ontario's Thunder Alley.

I've got a brand new surplus Cutler Hammer CHSPBRSRB "Clipper" complete with cable and phone protection if anybody up here in Canada needs one. Price negatiable in Waterloo Ontario (I ended up installing the fedicated Square D unit in my panel)

[Frank]

Have not had any problems and it is plugged into a surge protector but I will consider getting better when this one fails.

[Clare Snyder]

Overshoot isn't totally unheard of with brownouts

[rbowman]

Most of ours have PowerChute monitors that will initiate a shutdown when the reserve capacity hits a certain point. My home Linux box has a similar monitor setup. You don't want every flicker to cause a shutdown.

I think the problem with the bad UPSs is the batteries are completely dead so when the device fails over there's nothing. For those millisecond flickers that's worse than being connected to the lines.

[rbowman]

I'm using an APC at home and have no complaints. iirc I replace one about 10 years ago.

The company is getting better. For a while it was like IT was spending their own money so they'd send a gopher over to Best Buy for the cheapest UPS on the shelf.

[Jim Joyce]

That seemed like a lot of overshoot, but if you say it's within limits I'll go along.