Corroboration request-damaged electrical equipment power problems Keiss/Wick area

[emb123]

I am initiating a claim for damaged electrical equipment, at the moment against Scottish Hydro Electric who are swivelling to try to pass the buck to Highland Council.

Approx a month ago I had any number of problems occur on a perfectly healthy computer and a hard drive which was only about 7 months old failed. I considered it bad luck and whilst I was cheesed off, I thought nothing more of it.

Then another one went a few days later, and another one the following day, and over the course of the last few weeks others have been malfunctioning and within the last few hours another one to total five hard drives (lot of drives in this machine) either dead or starting to play up and the machine itself is freezing all the time. There are two more drives to go now - (seven drives in this machine - I have a beefy PSU and two SATA raid controllers and an IDE Raid controller).

It's obviously been fried by a dodgy electrical supply.

I have insurance which would probably pay for it but power problems are ongoing. Since my claim, the power has been a lot better and more reliable (surprise surprise! :rolleyes:) but I am looking to point a finger of blame and get the guilty party to cough up compensation. I believe that if anyone needs to pay for replacement equipment, I fail to see why it should be me, and really it's not my insurance company's fault either, plus I don't want to muck up my no claims bonus at this stage.


Has anyone else had computer equipment damaged or suddenly become problemmatic for no obvious reason following an electrical problem in the last week or even the last month ?

There was a power failure roughly a week ago which caused a head crash on another hard drive and because the power failure affected a wide area I wouldn't be surprised if other people have had head crashes and computer problems too.

Hydro Electric are trying to rattle off the old chesnut about 'nobody else reported any problems' which proves nothing.

So far, I know of two other people who are pulling their hair out trying to get their computers to work properly when they keep freezing for no reason and generally malfunctioning. One is a neighbours, another belongs a friend in Wick - his computer is a top spec machine and only a few months old. Always worked perfectly until recently and he has had to re-install Windows about twenty times in the last few weeks and it still keeps playing up.

You would be looking for general 'weird behaviour' and freezes, and hard disk problems such as bad sectors or killed hard disks.

It would helpful to have a record of anyone else who has had these kind of problems recently however even if there is no corroboration it is relevant that the affected area is sparsely populated in the first place, and it's quite likely that only a small number of people would have had computers on at the time of whatever initial surge must have done so much damage, even less are members of Caithness.org to notice this thread.

Nevertheless - any corroboration would be useful - then perhaps we can all put in a large, joint claim against Scottish Hydro Electric for computer equipment that has been fried due to power irregularities that they'll never want to own up to.

Thanks for reading!

[emb123]

one further thought - I now have a UPS (battery backed Uninterruptible Power Supply) and another UPS is on its way to me to try to protect more of my electrical equipment.

UPS equipment keeps a record of power irregularities.

Does anyone have a UPS which has recorded power surges, voltage spikes or power blackouts in this part of Caithness recently please ? - anything up to about a month ago which is when I believe a major voltage shock did most or perhaps all of the damage.


Thanks again. :)

[Sapphire2803]

We've lost a couple of hard drives in the last month (R.I.P hard drives :()

One is on a laptop and I can't see how power problems could affect it, the other was connected to a UPS, so again, I can't see how it would affect it.

I'll have a look at the UPS data, not sure if it'll help you though, we have a varied range of UPS devices and some of them tell ya nowt :D

[emb123]

Thanks Sapphire - you are in the right general location too. The picture is starting to look a bit clearer.

I have found that UPS's are better than nothing but they aren't as great as manufacturers claim, because they don't cut in quick enough.

Mine recorded a power outage within the first sixteen hours of me getting it on the 28th June at around 05:52 and the UPS intervened for 56 seconds, and I was woken by the noise of the alarm however the computer which was connected and was on had still crashed.

A power failure is often followed by a power surge when the power comes back on again.

A power failure can and often will cause a head crash on a hard drive, depending on how lucky you are.

If the drive head is moving to read or write data to a section of the hard drive as the power fails, then instead of parking itself in the landing zone where it is safe to do so, it will stop and land in the middle of the disk. This is the hard disk equivalent of a car crash - it's usually bad news, and quite often fatal.

I gather that the power failure around 6.30-7pm sort of time at the beginning of last week even affected parts of Thurso.

[Sapphire2803]

I'd be inclined to say that your problems are down to a dodgy PSU (beefy or not). It should absorb (if that's the right word) any problems with the mains supply apart from a blackout obviously and as far as I know, the onus is on you to install a UPS. I honestly can't see how you'll get anywhere with the leccy board, but good luck trying anyway :)

[Sapphire2803]

Thanks Sapphire - you are in the right general location too. The picture is starting to look a bit clearer.

I have found that UPS's are better than nothing but they aren't as great as manufacturers claim, because they don't cut in quick enough.

Mine recorded a power outage within the first sixteen hours of me getting it on the 28th June at around 05:52 and the UPS intervened for 56 seconds, and I was woken by the noise of the alarm however the computer which was connected and was on had still crashed.

A power failure is often followed by a power surge when the power comes back on again.

A power failure can and often will cause a head crash on a hard drive, depending on how lucky you are.

If the drive head is moving to read or write data to a section of the hard drive as the power fails, then instead of parking itself in the landing zone where it is safe to do so, it will stop and land in the middle of the disk. This is the hard disk equivalent of a car crash - it's usually bad news, and quite often fatal.

I gather that the power failure around 6.30-7pm sort of time at the beginning of last week even affected parts of Thurso.

If the UPS isn't quick enough for you, then chances are you are overloading your power supply, there's a big bank of capacitors in there which should hold it for the time it takes for the UPS to take over, also, there are two kinds of UPS one switches to an inverter when the power fails (through a relay), the other sort runs the inverter constantly and the power just keeps the battery topped up, the second sort will provide seamless power supply. I think they're called Network grade.

[Sapphire2803]

P.S. You're hurting my brain :lol::lol:

[emb123]

I'd be inclined to say that your problems are down to a dodgy PSU (beefy or not). It should absorb (if that's the right word) any problems with the mains supply apart from a blackout obviously and as far as I know, the onus is on you to install a UPS. I honestly can't see how you'll get anywhere with the leccy board, but good luck trying anyway :)

Scottish Hydro are trying to say much the same thing, but I'm inclined to believe that the problem was an exceptional overvoltage and even an UPS cannot protect in every situation.

certainly the PC was not just plugged into the wall. For a few years now I've used an MK RFI filtered socket feeding a £90 Bowthorpe anti-surge multiway specifically designed to computer use.

Blackouts are potentially major bad news for hard drives, and brownouts (exceedingly brief voltage drops) can lead to peculiar behaviour for PCs. Typically brownouts can cause applications to crash and the PC to need to be restarted, but also VCR's, DVD recorders, answerphones, heating controllers and clocks can also be affected.

I know that they are going to do their best to avoid shelling out, but if, as I suspect they are responsible and especially if I am not the only person affected then I think they should pay for damage caused.

Just noticed your comment re the UPS type. Currently I'm using a more basic APC Back UPS CS 650 and I'm only using 196 watts (about half of its rated capacity) however I have a big brother a 1500VA APC BR1500I on its way to me which I believe is classed as Network Grade.

[emb123]

P.S. You're hurting my brain :lol::lol:

Big grins :)

[Sapphire2803]

It'd be worth your while holding on to the APC when the other one arrives. Then you can plug your ADSL modem/router and your phone into it... Just a thought.

[emb123]

It'd be worth your while holding on to the APC when the other one arrives. Then you can plug your ADSL modem/router and your phone into it... Just a thought.Yes I'll hang onto both of them - I'm planning on making up a suitable extension to let me plug the router in (as it has a wall-rodent type of mains adaptor). This one will get relegated to protecting the supply to the dvd-recorder and the TV.

Sorry about that delay - chap here from council to check out my supply hit the wrong circuit breaker. A good test for the UPS. Mind you computer did lock up as a result.

[theone]

certainly the PC was not just plugged into the wall. For a few years now I've used an MK RFI filtered socket feeding a £90 Bowthorpe anti-surge multiway specifically designed to computer use.
.

Does you multiway surge protector not have some kind of guarantee against damage to connected equipment? I think even the cheapo argos ones have up to £5000 warranties.

[George Brims]

I was going to point that out. We bought one here that had a 1 million dollar warranty. We plugged into it - a scientific instrument that cost just under a million to build! It's now living at a mountain-top observatory that gets nasty lightning strikes from time to time, and it has survived when other equipment has gone down. In fact it has outlived several host PCs.

As a professional problem-solver, I don't think you're going to get anywhere with the electricity company. Things to be considered (I'm not saying they're the cause, but they are all things the power people could point to as alternatives):
1) Every one of your hard drives that died have been powered from the same PC power supply, which could be bad.
2) Every one of them has been running off the same controller (I've seen a faulty controller kill hard drives).
3) They are all in the same case - is your cooing adequate?
4) If you bought them at the same time, they could all have come from the same batch (check serial numbers, and think about a claim on the HD manufacturer).
5) Did anything else in your house die?

[emb123]

Thanks folks for your thoughts.

I have put in a claim with household insurers in the end. I have advised them that I am also investigating this through the electricity company and have issued a claim against them. Their lawyers are going to take up my case for me.

The chap from the council told me about a friend of his that has been having exactly the same problem (lockups and hard drive damage) occuring from around the same start date - just under a month ago. He recalls that there was some lightening hitting the power lines around that time. It was further down the line - no bad weather here, but it still caused power problems up here.

My surge protector did have a warranty but it's a few years old now and the warranty is only good for the first year.

The power supply could be dodgy but it would take some proving. The first drive to go was a Maxtor 400Gb Quickview IDE, and a few days later a Maxtor SATA drive (via VIA SATA onboard) stopped working properly. I have now had to disconnect it or the PC becomes almost unuseable through continuous lockups. Now the system drive Sata, through a PCI Silicon Image SATA controller is sometimes locking up. A second SATA drive off the VIA controller now keeps causing lockups which last several minutes, and now another IDE drive is starting to have problems. All the drives were bought at different times and were added when I needed them because I was getting low on space. Quicker and easier to fit an extra drive than sit forever burning stuff onto DVD. As far as cooling is concerned, I run Motherboard monitor software continuously and have 'shutdown now' installed. If the system reaches 58 celcisus it will shut itself down automatically, by force if required.

I've been programming, designing, building and supporting computer systems of all sorts since not long after the days when I used to program offline by punching paper tape on an ASR Teletype 33 and later uploading via acoustic coupler to one of the largest non-commercial systems in the country at the time - the Herts PDP 11/70 running RSTS V07/C (if I remember correctly....). I was the Systems Manager for the UK subsidiary of the France's third largest petrochemical company (Charbonnage de France Chimie) and was responsible for all the systems in house including the Honeywell Level 6 super-mini computer. Honeywell Bull hardware support used to phone me regularly for operating system help because they knew it was quicker to pick up the phone and ask me than it was to wade through three feet of user manuals. Although I'm a rather softly (if rapidly) spoken kind of fellow, I'm kind of blowing my own trumpet a wee bit here for a change I'm afraid, because I think sometimes it's necessary to be taken seriously.

I can't prove that Hydro Electric were to blame without corroborative evidence, but in my professional opinion, Scottish Hydro Electric are absolutely to blame. Unfortunately my opinion is biased for obvious reasons so I have to discount it.

I get the impression there has been a seriously hefty voltage spike that has done some serious but not quite immediately fatal damage, but like an only just lethal dose of radiation, it can take a while for the body to die completely, but die, it will.

I am very grateful indeed for your input folks, truly, if I'm snappish with anyone I don't mean to be. I'm a bit cross with all the buck pushing that I'm seeing. I do know what I'm talking about and I am obviously talking to other intelligent folks too, and I agree it is going to be tricky to prove.

I would like there to be an overwhelming weight of evidence such that Scottish Hydro will shell out, albeit reluctantly, for damaged equipment without admission of liability simply because it's easier and probably only fair under the circumstances.

Otherwise it'll be the insurer that will get the bill.

[emb123]

Sorry about previous reply being a bit grumpy - I have my moments now and again.

I have had my UPS since 27th June, and querying the log, in just these few days it has recorded 3 hours 49 minutes total time spent on battery power, all due to blackouts - power failures, and two power failures of longer duration. One of them was due to a brief period this afternoon when the council chap turned of the circuit breaker by mistake.

I think the electrical power to this place is extremely dodgy, and the UPS problems log seems to concur. I keep wondering what is going to pack up next!

[George Brims]

I've been programming, designing, building and supporting computer systems of all sorts since not long after the days when I used to program offline by punching paper tape on an ASR Teletype 33 and later uploading via acoustic coupler to one of the largest non-commercial systems in the country at the time - the Herts PDP 11/70 running RSTS V07/C (if I remember correctly....). I was the Systems Manager for the UK subsidiary of the France's third largest petrochemical company (Charbonnage de France Chimie) and was responsible for all the systems in house including the Honeywell Level 6 super-mini computer. Honeywell Bull hardware support used to phone me regularly for operating system help because they knew it was quicker to pick up the phone and ask me than it was to wade through three feet of user manuals. Although I'm a rather softly (if rapidly) spoken kind of fellow, I'm kind of blowing my own trumpet a wee bit here for a change I'm afraid, because I think sometimes it's necessary to be taken seriously.

Oh man, we're of the same vintage! I used to have to program in assembler on a GEC mini, cross-assemble for a Honeywell machine, and trot down the hall with a 9 inch diameter roll of punched tape and feed it in the Honeywell thing - which didn't have an OS at all, just a monitor/loader which you loaded first from a small piece of green Mylar punch tape. Those were the days (NOT!). But RSTS? Wimp! Real men programmed in FORTRAN IV on RT-11, with assembler for the speedy bits!

[emb123]

Computing was more fun back then! It was much more physically involved!

I rather liked RSTS, but yes I know what you mean, it was the easy route. I lucked in basically! I ended up working for DEC for a while on a huge bank of VAXes and VMS in Welwyn before moving to Honeywell kit.

I still think in terms of GCOS being the precursor to Unix (which it is) and I like Unix, I'm not 100% keen on Linux although it's ok.

I think that software was lovingly carved or crafted back then not strung together out of pre-packed subroutines as it is today, and I wonder how some of todays developers would cope with an assembler or binary programming! (Actually I can probably guess!)

I've had a bit more corroborating info arrive from a couple of places to suggest that something is amiss with the power to this place and it looks like hopefully soon it will get sorted out. It would be terrible to replace one lot of equipment only to have the next lot get fried too.

[Colin Manson]

The first drive to go was a Maxtor 400Gb Quickview IDE, and a few days later a Maxtor SATA drive (via VIA SATA onboard) stopped working properly.

I detect a trend here, I fixed a PC a few years ago that had gone through 5 hard drives in as many weeks. My solution was fairly simple, stop buying Maxtor and get a Western Digital instead.

I'm not suggesting that it wasn't a power supply issue, just that they seem to fall over very quickly when something isn't quite right.

[emb123]

I detect a trend here, I fixed a PC a few years ago that had gone through 5 hard drives in as many weeks. My solution was fairly simple, stop buying Maxtor and get a Western Digital instead.

I'm not suggesting that it wasn't a power supply issue, just that they seem to fall over very quickly when something isn't quite right.

Know what you mean, but one of the drives is WD (admittedly that one is still working!). I favoured Maxtor at the time of purchase because when I checked into it they were the only drive manufacturer that still provided warranty support from the UK, as opposed to needing to post to a Benelux country which is expensive.

I wouldn't touch IBM/Hitachi DeathStars and although Seagate stuff is usually not too bad, I've known of a few probs with them too. Equally I know folks who wouldn't touch a Western Digital drive with a ten foot pole. Probably comes down to which drives have been the most unrealiable in your personal experience. For me it would be IBM, what was Quantum, Connor (yes!), Seagate and WD + Maxtor were pretty much level pegging as not too bad. If anything I've dealt with more WD head crashes than Maxtor ones.

Now that they are part of Seagate however, Maxtor seem to have become the cheap alternative and I won't be buying any more of them.

Just out of curiosity I purchased a Samsung 750GB SATA the other day and connecting it up, it's DOA. Not at all unusual apparently. Will probably leave it a couple of years before I risk another Samsung drive. Hopefully they'll have had time to get their quality and quality control problems sorted out.

I can see the logic to having a selection of drives from different manufacturers.
Mind you, the system electronics seems to have taken an electrical jolt too which kind of redirects the pointing finger a bit in this case.

[jimbews]

I've been programming, designing, building and supporting computer systems of all sorts since not long after the days when I used to program offline by punching paper tape on an ASR Teletype 33 and later uploading via acoustic coupler to one of the largest non-commercial systems in the country at the time - the Herts PDP 11/70 running RSTS V07/C (if I remember correctly....).

Ah - the memories.
One of my first jobs on being moved from a chemistry technician to a computing officer in the chemistry department was to replace the teletype on our PDP 8 (which controlled our XRAY diffractometer) with a BBC micro.
Copied the contents of the 3 separate paper tapes needed to get the PDP8 running onto a BBC floppy disk. Then programmed in BBC Basic and 6502 assembler to push these files onto the PDP 8 and collect the XRAY data. Data was then Kermited down one of our 3 serial lines to the computing lab.

Even after we had replaced that instrument with a microVAX controlled system the old kit did probably another 10 years at Dundee Uni. And of course our microVAX has long gone as well.

Also cut my teeth for my MSc in computational chemistry using Fortran. Had to wait until a certain time of the day when they changed the batch queues on the (only) University computer to merge the memory partitions so I could get over 200K of core (NB - K not M) on the IBM 360.

Changed days now where we have several hundred devices connected to the network just in our department.

JimBews