Fact or Fiction ??

[A Mum]

"Turn your computers off during an electrical storm???"

I was always told you should never be on the telephone and that you should shut down your computer.

But todays thunder and lightening has been going for about 4 hours !!!
And I'm not being very patient with it?

Does anyone actually know if you should turn off your computer?

Thankyou

[dedja]

Anything that is connected to the electrical or telephone grid has some risk during an electrical storm.

The other possible danger is anything connected to your TV aerial.

An electrical surge is possible if lightning hits overhead powerlines, telephone lines or your TV aerial.

So, strictly speaking you should unplug all electrical appliances and not use the phone.

A laptop or PC is a double whammy because of the power and phone connection if you're using the net.

To be honest, I wouldn't bother because the chance of it happening is 2 fifths of bugger all and there are protection systems on the grid.

[A Mum]

Okay, good, I'll trust you on "To be honest, I wouldn't bother because the chance of it happening is 2 fifths of bugger all"

I have a surge powerboard that my computer is plugged into,
But god knows how reliable that actually is.

Thanks for your reply

[dedja]

The surge powerboard is unlikely to cope with a few millions volts ...

I don't sell used cars but trust me, my last job was in the power industry.

[A Mum]

That'd be right...lol.

Is the surge powerboard good for anything,
Or did I just pay $20 more for a powerboard than I needed to

[Psyber]

I have a cheap "click" surge protector between the power outlet and the surge protected plug board my UPS is plugged into, providing a double layer of protection.
I plug the TV etc. in through the same set up too - surge protector plus protective plug board.
They are not total protection but they offer some hope one or both will melt down and break the circuit before a surge gets anything else.
Years ago lightning struck a tree close to our house and the field effect took out all sorts of things, that weren't even plugged in, by induction.
As Dedja said nothing will stop a big surge but they are fortunately rare.