electric blackout caused modem and memory problems

[spazzkid]

could a power blackout cause problems with my pc? i was playing the other day, at the height of my campaign against the allies, a blackout suddenly occured. and when i boot up my pc again... i ran norton diagnostics... then it reported "memory error on XXXXXXX" then it also reported "cannot find modem" ... could my modem and memory be dead?

[dugans]

Brownouts and blackouts both cause power spikes which are bad for electronics, so it is possible. It is also possible that the problems are due to corrupt data on the hdd.

I've been lucky so far: I don't have even one ups with any of my rigs:eek: and though I've had a couple of flickers and lost power a few times- no spike damage.

My fingers are crossed for you.

[Despotes]

I lost power for a couple seconds and it crippled my modem, even with a surge protector. I reinstalled the drivers and ran diagnostics, but it was still really funky. Replaced it and all is well:)
Merry CHRISTmas!!

[nil_esh]

I've had one or two modems due to lightning (power surges). I used surge protectors on the incoming phone wire ever since. I'm wondering if coax cable has that same danger. I have a TV tuner card w/ cable TV and a cable modem.

[spazzkid]

i checked both my memory modules (128x2). i put them one at a time then ran norton diagnostics and the 2 of them worked fine. but the only thing that bothers me is if stick them both norton diagnostics reported memory failure... am thinking maybe one of the memory slots have a problem... any ideas?

my modem is definitely dead. i just had a replacement. do surge protectors really help? am thinking of getting one.

[dugans]

I have cheapo surge protectors on all my equipment, and I found one with cable protection for the cable mode too.

I think they help, but for any serious power spikes they won't act fast enough. I plan on going with UPSes.............but I've been planning on doing that for about three years now!

[Silversinksam]

You know APC's these days are fairly inexpensive when you consider the amount of your hard work and money that they are protecting.

I live in the Sunshine State and we get spikes in the power all to often in combination with lots of Lightning.

I used to rent my cable modem from Comcast and lightning blew 2 of them up via close strikes. Comcast would not allow the user to plug the modem into an APC......Since I was renting the modem I didnt care.

But I bought my cable modem and now its plugged into the APC and is safe.

http://www.apcc.com/solutions/sections.cfm?type=Battery%20Back-Up&subtopic=Battery%20Back-Up&solutions=Home%2FHome%20Office


I think I paid like $99 for my APC and some Ive seen as low as $39

I got the one in the middle on sale


http://www.apcc.com/resource/images/family/back-ups_fam.jpg