[Lancaster] Linux audio workshop - first thoughts

[Matt S Trout]

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 12:08:25AM +0100, Andy Baxter wrote:
> > > That could be handy as long as we can sort out the power / humidity (?)
> > > problem.
> >
> > As the inside of a working PC gets quite warm, I can't see how humidity
> > can be the problem (unless resulting from corrosion over some time when
> > the machines are cold). Most routes on modern/fast PC motherboards are
> > of fairly low impedance.
> 
> Agreed - we had a BBC micro at home which survived being drowned when a pipe 
> burst in the room above, as did the TV/monitor. Both were off at the time, 
> and water by itself doesn't seem to hurt electronics as long as there's no 
> power.
> 
> Probably the best thing is to get a surge/spike protector of some sort. What 
> would be nice is to find some way to monitor the supply beforehand (or after 
> fitting the protector) so we can actually see if that was the problem, but I 
> don't know how to do this (unless it's /really/ bad in which case an 
> oscilloscope with a voltage divider plugged into a socket would do it.)

Before you do that, how about lugging in an old UNIX workstation of some sort?

They usually survive power blips and if configured correctly will even syslog
the event - I've seen "temporary power failure" or something similar for
a brownout that made all the PC-class hardware in the building reboot.

Or put a surge protector in, stick a table lamp on the circuit to load it,
and wait to see if the surge protector trips. Worse you're going to get
is a blown bulb in the lamp, I'd've thought.

-- 
     Matt S Trout           Website: http://www.shadowcatsystems.co.uk
  Technical Director        E-mail:  mst (at) shadowcatsystems.co.uk
Shadowcat Systems Ltd.