Sunday, August 05, 2007

RE: It's the Power Strip - Stupid!

While I was out of town last week, Alvis felt the need to give me constant updates throughout the day on a "beeping" noise all day long in the house.

Turns out it was the Belkin 8-outlet UPS unit the desktop system and router is plugged into.  I'm not sure if it was due to power-fluctuations in the lines with all the Gulf-Coast running their A/C's on the "ice-house" thermostat setting or if it is just crapping out.

This model doesn't support line-sensitivity adjustments like the big and brawny models we use at work.

So after listening to it Friday night when I came home for two more hours, I just unplugged the thing (after turning it off) and picked up a 12-outlet surge strip while we were buying pans at Target (to meet the needs of my iPod charger, cell-phone charger, and other "lighter" elements I was having to swap out with my 8-outlet one.

So it was with amusement and wonder that I read this post by Spat: (OT) Western Digital My Book experience.

It's a quick read, but to summarize...Spat picked up an external hard-drive for his system.  Only it wouldn't work. Either with XP or Vista.  He calls Western Digital and they quickly trace out the problem.

He made the tech-noobie mistake of plugging his hard-drive unit into a power-strip; silly rabbit!

Per WD's suggestion, he took it off the strip and plugged it directly into the wall socket and it worked perfectly.

How's about that?

I'll be adding that one into my troubleshooting technique bag-o-trix.

--Claus

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Then there was the guy who thought by connecting the coaxial cable to his TV he didn't need to plug his TV into an electrical outlet.