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Lightning And Your Computer & Electronics

Although lightning may be fascinating to sit and watch from a distance like the picture at the top, it is also very dangerous and can reek havoc on your computer and electronic equipment. Lightning season has started and without some proper equipment to help protect your computer from strikes, you are at risk. One of the best options is to purchase a UPS from us for your equipment. They are very affordable now and come in different shapes and sizes. Even if there is no lightning, you are still at risk of a brownout or a surge. A UPS will help keep your PC from restarting because of brownouts or outages. Please call one of our techs for more information on how to choose a UPS that will best suit your needs.

Surge Protector vs. UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies)

Surge Protectors will only stop surges but not lightning. If you get a lightning strike, it will go straight through your surge protecter and damage your equipment. If a lightning strike hits a UPS system, most of the time it will stop there but your equipment that is plugged into the UPS will be saved. Your chances of saving your equipment from lightning, brownouts and surges are better if you are plugged into a UPS.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) are electronic based power backup systems, capable of providing short term supply of high quality and stabilized electrical power, without interruption to operations. There are various types of UPS available, the vast majority of which use a battery string to feed an inverter which takes the DC voltage, inverts the voltage to AC, and then manufactures and regulates an output voltage, independent from the input mains. UPS equipment is very economic for relatively short periods of time which generally allow for sufficient time to ride our any short term disturbances or interruptions, and where required, allow for a proper and orderly shutdown of the connected critical connected equipment. Where extended backup times are required, this can be provided through over sizing the UPS, adding additional battery packs, or engineering appropriately rated battery strings of sufficient ampere hour capacity, although to support equipment for longer autonomy periods, it can often be more economical to provide a generator, to be used in conjunction with the UPS.

UPS provide 2 main advantages:

• They filter many unwanted electrical disturbances from the mains power supply
• They supply an uninterrupted power to the connected loads in the event that the mains power supply fails.

Home Owners Insurance

Did you know that if your computer and electronic equipment is hit and damaged by lightning, it may be covered by your home owners insurance? If you feel that you've had lightning damage to your computer equipment, please contact your insurance company immediately to see if your home owners insurance will cover your damage. At Pham Computers, we can check out the damage to your computer equipment and type up an insurance letter for you to submit to your insurance company.

If Your Computer Has Been Damaged By Lightning

Call your Insurance company immediately and check to see if your home owners insurance will cover lightning damage. If it does, then bring it to Pham Computers. We can check out the damage to your computer equipment and type up an insurance letter for you to submit to your insurance company. We have been doing this for years for insurance companies. The biggest problem with lightning damaged computers are long term damage. For instance, some parts may immediately fail from the strike, while other parts will fail shortly in the future. We will check everything out as best as possible and make a final summary for your insurance company.