Reminds me of some of the large 100-200 people LAN gaming events, where
backup power generators and the whole nine yards were used to keep
everyone's system running, and then some dummies would daisy chain 10
power strips together (many with the ground progs ripped out) ... then
someone would turn off their monitor, and all the extra juice goes
straight into the power supply of every other computer since they aren't
grounded, frying BIOS, dimms, cpu's (since eveyone had their machines
overclocked and over voltage), and monitor circuitry. 

bzzzzt!


"Robert N. Eaton" wrote:
> 
> Just got back on line this afternoon after a hectic week.  During the
> thunderstorm Sunday before last my townhouse suffered a near strike (no
> perceptible interval between the flash and the CRACK-BOOM).  Even though
> I had good (?)($36.95) surge protectors on both my home audio system and
> my computer, the stereo amp lit up like a Christmas tree and stopped
> working.  The computer was more subtle.  It just got flakey, froze up
> and wouldn't recognize any key-strokes.  I used the BBS (Big Black
> Switch) to turn it off.  When I tried to reboot the POST ran, but the
> BIOS didn't recognize either of its hard-drives. Even with floppy rescue
> disks I couldn't access the hard-drives.


-- 
Lowell Hamilton, Head of Network Operations 
Vista Voice and Data, Inc. - Phoenix, AZ
(602) 385-4901 - www.vistavdi.com