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Computer protection - hardware & software
How do your protect your computer (and other electrical stuff) from bad juju? Here's my general situation, and I welcome all additions and suggestions:
Ground circuit is mandatory
First, you must have a decent ground. No surge protector can operate in a vacuum and it needs a good solid ground to bleed off spikes and other crud. If you live in an older house you may need to have a new 3-wire feed installed from the main breaker box, and grounded properly there. Newer homes may or may not have adequate ground. Just because there's a 3-wire outlet doesn't ensure there's a good ground behind it. Shabby contractors often "upgrade" an older place my installing 3-wire outlets but not grounding them, leaving the old 2-wire in place. This isn't only poor workmanship but also dangerous. Old 2-wire circuits still provide a neutral for ground but if re-wired into a new 3-prong receptacle, the neutral may be shunted off illegally and create a hazardous situation.
What to do? If you're an electrician or know what's up (as I do), you can either install a good solid ground yourself or have it done by a registered electrician. Renters need to encourage (or pay) the landlord to get this done. I was lucky in my new apartment. I removed the receptacle panels, tightened the screws, and got a good solid ground plus low current between ground and neutral. So the apartment was already wired okay. Whew.
Newbies can either buy a simple 3-wire circuit checker (plug it in and LEDs show the diagnosis) or use a "joltmeter" (voltmeter). In a standard 115vac 3-wire outlet, the round pin is ground (green wire, duh), the wider slot is neutral (white wire), and the narrow slot is phase (red or black wire). Between both slots you get 115vac, thereabouts. Between phase and ground, the same 115vac. Between neutral and ground, about 1-3 vac. This is normal for a genuine 3-wire circuit. If you get zero volts between ground and neutral, it may indicate that the neutral is tied directly to the ground lug inside the receptacle. This is illegal in most jurisdictions.
Anyway, regardless of whether you know your own stuff or get it done for you, you gotta have a solid ground first.
Power surge protection
I've relied on APC (American Power Conversions) for 20-30 years in commercial installations and they make the best, from simple surge protection strips to big units for huge installations. There are other good brands but I trust APC, and they're about the same price.
If you're getting a surge protector strip, don't just buy some dollar store off-brand for $4.95. You'll just be getting an outlet strip with a fancy label. Be sure the surge protector strip is certified for IEEE let-through of 300v or less, and that the unit is UL 1449 certified. Otherwise you're not getting protection.
Use these surge strips for your TV, stereo, any pricey appliances. Believe me, they work. I've had next door apartment neighbors whose TVs were fried during a big electrical hit on a nearby transformer. We all lost power but when it came back, my TV and stereo were fine, thank you. Only get IEEE 300v or less rating and UL 1449.
Now, if you simply need more outlets, but a couple of sturdy regular UL-approved 3-wire strips and plug those into your APC surge strips. Once it goes thru the surge protector, the power is fine to share.
Uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
Your regular computer should be connected to a top quality UPS box, preferable APC brand. Most of the top units have all sorts of fancy features, like auto-shutdown (which connect to your newer model PC and will automatically close it down in a bad situation). Mine has this feature but I don't use it.
Plug your laptop (or tower unit and monitor) into the UPS side of the system. Also plug any other small electrical accessories (modem, router, etc) into the UPS side. Use a 3-prong UL approved strip for extra outlets, but do NOT use a surge protector strip because this will interfere with your big UPS unit.
Plug your printers into the other side of the UPS box, the "surge protection" but not "battery protection" side. This is because printers (especially lasers) have a big startup surge and will usually cause a clamp-down on the UPS system.
What I do. I've got 2 APC UPS systems. The small one is in my living room and I plug my laptop into it, all the time. I don't carry my laptop around, I use it as a genuine "laptop" across my knees while I lounge in the recliner. Beneath is one of those little flat plastic "desks" with padding under. You've gotta put the laptop on a flat surface, not cloth, or it will overheat quickly. I keep my laptop plugged in. It's easier on the batteries and since I'm not carrying it around, the power cord isn't a drag.
I also have my wireless router plugged into the little APC UPS unit next to my living room work space. That, and my cellphone charger. So all my electronics are protected.
The TV and stereo are of course separately wired and use an APC surge strip for their power. That particular surge strip does, incidentally, have a coax in/out protector for my TV cable. Different surge protector models come with the appropriate cable TV in/out connections.
My printers are in the bedroom, connected to another small UPS box but just use the surge side (I already had the box). The LaserJet and DeskJet are both wrieless and operate off the wireless router.
Backup
I back up my working folders every day, sometimes more often, depending on whether I've just finished a big edit. I've got an "everyday" thumb drive and a "weekly" thumb drive, both 4Gb. At the end of a project I also burn a DVD.
But you gotta get used to grabbing that little thumb drive, sticking it in the USB slot, and performing a backup of your new stuff. Murphy's law says that the day you forget, that's the day your PC crashes.
Software
I use a Vista PC so Apple folks don't need apply... I've got a mid-size HP laptop with plenty of hard disk and RAM for my needs. I don't game and so I don't need a really fast system, just mid-speed and good quality. Regardless (a side note here), you'd be nuts to buy a laptop that does NOT have a separate Nvidia (or other brand) video board. If you buy a laptop that uses "shared" RAM for the video processor, you'll always regret its slowpoke behavior.
Okay, back to software... I have PC Tools AntiVirus, PC Tools Firewall, and ThreatFire Spyware protection. The Norton utilities are also good but the software I listed is free in their standard user form -- they have fancier software for sale, of course. Regardless of which brand, you MUST have an active, updated, and good quality antivirus AND firewall if you're gonna survive.
Another excellent package is the IOBit Advanced System Care package (the free version works great). You use it every few days to sweep your system for malware and junk files and it really speeds up things.
Okay, I've blown on long enough to irritate folks. But I wanted to share my experiences, backed up by oh, 30 years of computer experience. I have NEVER, NEVER had a virus attack or malware attack. I keep my defenses up and it helps to not surf weird porn sites about sheep or chickens (ha ha) or robot-like click on ANY attachment that some stranger posts. My email is set to NOT auto-activate links and to only display graphics if I click yes. That helps, believe me.
What is your setup? What protection, hardware and software, do you use? Good, bad war stories?
Ground circuit is mandatory
First, you must have a decent ground. No surge protector can operate in a vacuum and it needs a good solid ground to bleed off spikes and other crud. If you live in an older house you may need to have a new 3-wire feed installed from the main breaker box, and grounded properly there. Newer homes may or may not have adequate ground. Just because there's a 3-wire outlet doesn't ensure there's a good ground behind it. Shabby contractors often "upgrade" an older place my installing 3-wire outlets but not grounding them, leaving the old 2-wire in place. This isn't only poor workmanship but also dangerous. Old 2-wire circuits still provide a neutral for ground but if re-wired into a new 3-prong receptacle, the neutral may be shunted off illegally and create a hazardous situation.
What to do? If you're an electrician or know what's up (as I do), you can either install a good solid ground yourself or have it done by a registered electrician. Renters need to encourage (or pay) the landlord to get this done. I was lucky in my new apartment. I removed the receptacle panels, tightened the screws, and got a good solid ground plus low current between ground and neutral. So the apartment was already wired okay. Whew.
Newbies can either buy a simple 3-wire circuit checker (plug it in and LEDs show the diagnosis) or use a "joltmeter" (voltmeter). In a standard 115vac 3-wire outlet, the round pin is ground (green wire, duh), the wider slot is neutral (white wire), and the narrow slot is phase (red or black wire). Between both slots you get 115vac, thereabouts. Between phase and ground, the same 115vac. Between neutral and ground, about 1-3 vac. This is normal for a genuine 3-wire circuit. If you get zero volts between ground and neutral, it may indicate that the neutral is tied directly to the ground lug inside the receptacle. This is illegal in most jurisdictions.
Anyway, regardless of whether you know your own stuff or get it done for you, you gotta have a solid ground first.
Power surge protection
I've relied on APC (American Power Conversions) for 20-30 years in commercial installations and they make the best, from simple surge protection strips to big units for huge installations. There are other good brands but I trust APC, and they're about the same price.
If you're getting a surge protector strip, don't just buy some dollar store off-brand for $4.95. You'll just be getting an outlet strip with a fancy label. Be sure the surge protector strip is certified for IEEE let-through of 300v or less, and that the unit is UL 1449 certified. Otherwise you're not getting protection.
Use these surge strips for your TV, stereo, any pricey appliances. Believe me, they work. I've had next door apartment neighbors whose TVs were fried during a big electrical hit on a nearby transformer. We all lost power but when it came back, my TV and stereo were fine, thank you. Only get IEEE 300v or less rating and UL 1449.
Now, if you simply need more outlets, but a couple of sturdy regular UL-approved 3-wire strips and plug those into your APC surge strips. Once it goes thru the surge protector, the power is fine to share.
Uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
Your regular computer should be connected to a top quality UPS box, preferable APC brand. Most of the top units have all sorts of fancy features, like auto-shutdown (which connect to your newer model PC and will automatically close it down in a bad situation). Mine has this feature but I don't use it.
Plug your laptop (or tower unit and monitor) into the UPS side of the system. Also plug any other small electrical accessories (modem, router, etc) into the UPS side. Use a 3-prong UL approved strip for extra outlets, but do NOT use a surge protector strip because this will interfere with your big UPS unit.
Plug your printers into the other side of the UPS box, the "surge protection" but not "battery protection" side. This is because printers (especially lasers) have a big startup surge and will usually cause a clamp-down on the UPS system.
What I do. I've got 2 APC UPS systems. The small one is in my living room and I plug my laptop into it, all the time. I don't carry my laptop around, I use it as a genuine "laptop" across my knees while I lounge in the recliner. Beneath is one of those little flat plastic "desks" with padding under. You've gotta put the laptop on a flat surface, not cloth, or it will overheat quickly. I keep my laptop plugged in. It's easier on the batteries and since I'm not carrying it around, the power cord isn't a drag.
I also have my wireless router plugged into the little APC UPS unit next to my living room work space. That, and my cellphone charger. So all my electronics are protected.
The TV and stereo are of course separately wired and use an APC surge strip for their power. That particular surge strip does, incidentally, have a coax in/out protector for my TV cable. Different surge protector models come with the appropriate cable TV in/out connections.
My printers are in the bedroom, connected to another small UPS box but just use the surge side (I already had the box). The LaserJet and DeskJet are both wrieless and operate off the wireless router.
Backup
I back up my working folders every day, sometimes more often, depending on whether I've just finished a big edit. I've got an "everyday" thumb drive and a "weekly" thumb drive, both 4Gb. At the end of a project I also burn a DVD.
But you gotta get used to grabbing that little thumb drive, sticking it in the USB slot, and performing a backup of your new stuff. Murphy's law says that the day you forget, that's the day your PC crashes.
Software
I use a Vista PC so Apple folks don't need apply... I've got a mid-size HP laptop with plenty of hard disk and RAM for my needs. I don't game and so I don't need a really fast system, just mid-speed and good quality. Regardless (a side note here), you'd be nuts to buy a laptop that does NOT have a separate Nvidia (or other brand) video board. If you buy a laptop that uses "shared" RAM for the video processor, you'll always regret its slowpoke behavior.
Okay, back to software... I have PC Tools AntiVirus, PC Tools Firewall, and ThreatFire Spyware protection. The Norton utilities are also good but the software I listed is free in their standard user form -- they have fancier software for sale, of course. Regardless of which brand, you MUST have an active, updated, and good quality antivirus AND firewall if you're gonna survive.
Another excellent package is the IOBit Advanced System Care package (the free version works great). You use it every few days to sweep your system for malware and junk files and it really speeds up things.
Okay, I've blown on long enough to irritate folks. But I wanted to share my experiences, backed up by oh, 30 years of computer experience. I have NEVER, NEVER had a virus attack or malware attack. I keep my defenses up and it helps to not surf weird porn sites about sheep or chickens (ha ha) or robot-like click on ANY attachment that some stranger posts. My email is set to NOT auto-activate links and to only display graphics if I click yes. That helps, believe me.
What is your setup? What protection, hardware and software, do you use? Good, bad war stories?
Replies
- Don Burt
Lightning protectors on the cable line.
Free Norton package with Comcast.
You guys all seem to realize the value of having a decent antivirus and firewall software defense. But all of us have heard friends who had such a setup and "turned it off because it was too slow" and then gripe because some virus chewed up their files. Duh.
When we wired some large installations we set up "single point grounding" for protecting the computers, worked well when a huge electrical storm hit the area and be building we were in got fried by a massive lightning hit on the main transformer for the complex. Our fusible links on the primary 208v-3ph input line burst open as designed, bled themselves "to death" letting all the massive surge go to ground. Our contractor came by (free) the next day, checked the circuits after power was restored to the area by the light company, and he replaced the fusible breakers, and we were up and running, zero damage. All our neighbors had their electronics fried, because the storm fed the strike right into the ground circuits of the mains.
What happened was, and this only occurs if you're spread out over maybe an entire floor of an office, electrical installers will put in a breaker box at the near site where your, say, north wing is, another breaker where the south wing is, and will run a hard ground to building steel at each point.
Problem is, during a big lightning strike, the ground itself acts as a capacitor, and surges travel through the ground. Although the circuit in the building wiring travels at the speed of light (or near it through wire), the ground surge is a bit slower since the ground is being a big capacitor. So, from say, north side to south side of a large building, the ground potential will be different by sometimes 100 volts during a strike. And the difference in this will cause the "extra" voltage to travel up the building steel and feed straight into that nice tight ground wire in the breaker box, sending a big surge through the ground wires of the electronics, often frying them. Instead of the ground wire being a bleed-off, it becomes a feed source.
So with single point grounding, you run true 4-wire circuits to your equipment (phase, neutral, actual circuit ground wire, plus a 4th bare case ground for the boxes. Case ground doesn't contact circuit ground except at one single place, the main breaker, where you then establish only ONE hard ground to building steel. More expensive but your equipment doesn't fry, either. And I'm not just talking PCs, but high end Unix workstations and gas chromatographs, and maybe even a scanning electron microscope. Money money money.
UPS on every network device. Switches, routers, modems MUST be on UPS. Cat5e wiring at a minimum.
Every desktop and server ona UPS. In my home I have seven UPS's. Why? I worked for the power company for ten years in their technology department, and in Florida power is the worst, whether it's brown outs or spikes, power is bad bad bad.
Steady power to all devices is THE foundation for reliable service, along with good CAT5e cables and a decent switch.
Second I use AVG on home desktops but I am considering AVAST. ALL commercial dektops run Symantic. Why? they aren't the best or the cheapest, but they are the widest used and supported.
We utilize a wide variety of backups both local and remote. We prefer MOZY for network backups for small business.
I could go on and on, and with over 1000 installations the most important aspect of all installations is steady power, second good anti virus, and third CONFIRMED WORKING backup. I am willing to bet 50% of you THINK you are backing up your stuff but you haven't checked it in a long time and it actually is NOT working.
IMHO.
D
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
Perhaps there is some potential for lightning damage through the ground, but I feel the risk is tiny as must the folks at NEMA.
IMHO.
D
A big meh & woof, I have been a messin around computers since the daze of the pencil card readers, it all depends how important the work you are doing is to you, if the work is more than e-mail and web surfing, I am sure the user will use backup of the best ilk possible.
By far, the most valuable thing in every computer installation is the data. What would you do to restore 4 years of family photos? How about 10 years of customer data and information? Years worth of CAD drawings?
Today you can buy a smokin' hot PC for $700, or laptop. Yet people forget to value thier time and effort in creating the data.
I have an architect client, whose office was on the third story of a three story building. He took his backups offsite like I recommended. They were re-roofing his building when the tar pot caught on fire and so did the roof. It destroyed his office, but in two days time we had him fully up and running in a new location with no data loss. I have lots of stories, like the engineers at FPL in 1989 that spent two years working on drawings for a plant when their hard drive crapped out and they lost everything because they had no backups. ( those guys got fired ).
I agree that your casual data does not require a backup, but for most users they undervalue their data, significantly.
In my humble, but expert opinion (IMHBEO)
D
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
And yes I do check the data on the drives to ensure that the data is actually there.
One small point about surge protectors or UPS. Most folks think that is only effective when there's a visible lightning storm outside, or if the power goes out. But those of us who've worked with electrical systems, all you need to do is put a scope or other realtime monitor on ANY regular house current and you'll see spikes and glitches coming along all the time, stuff that regular circuit breakers never catch, designed as they are only for human safety. All those little spikes tunnel into your computer chips and age them, bit by bit. A TV or stereo or any other electronic item, not just your computer, needs to have a good quality surge protector. Its life will really be extended.
Damage occurs when a voltage spike is so high that damage is instantaneous not cumulative.
Edited to add: most semiconductor failure is due to contamination during manufacture, hence why Computers can run so many years without a failure in spite of the population of so many Large scale integrated circuits.