02-21-2020, 11:40 PM
Think I've mentioned before that South Africa is going through some serious load shedding - meaning that the power is shut down for different zones at different times - usually 2.5 hours at a time a couple or more times a day depending on the Stage of load shedding - usually 2 or 3 times a day. Because of lack of maintenance of power generation equipment over a long period of time (decades), there isn't enough electricity in South Africa to meet the total demand. So now they've moved to scheduled load shedding that is not always well scheduled. Like there may be no load shedding for a few days, and all of a sudden out of the blue it will start again. And catch people unaware.
We were caught unaware again last night. At around 1:00 a.m. I was aware (while I was sleeping) that everything went dark. I didn't worry about it that much, but at 2:30 a.m. when the power came on, there must have been a surge or something as my computer started to make heavy sounds and the "on switch" was flashing like crazy. I turned the on switch off, waited a while, turned off the electricity at the wall, then turned everything back on again, but then the flashing continued again. I was almost sure my computer was in the process of dying. I tried again, and the same thing happened - a flashing switch and lots of whining by the computer - like three long whines and a short interval in between continuing without stopping. I then in desperation uncoupled all of the devices attached to the computer tower including the monitor, speakers, printer etc, took the computer tower to the kitchen, and then found an alternate power cord - just in case it was the cord that was the problem. And it turned out then that it was the cord as the computer worked OK with the alternate cord. The cord must have been fried when the power came on again.
You can't imagine the absolute relief when after I had re-attached all of the equipment such as speakers, printer etc again, the computer was working again - all of the attached devices as well. There was a slightly whining sound in the tower, but that worked itself out eventually by tonight - after the third time I'd turned off the computer during the day.
By the time everything was working at 4:00 a.m. my first step was to immediately create an emergency system disk. I have made regular backups before, but the "rescue disk" was dated to 2014 when I first got the computer, and I've never made a full "image backup" of the computer. I went for everything in the list of copies one could make in the Windows 7 Backup and Rescue Window. Fortunately everything was done by the next scheduled load shedding session at 9:00 a.m.
This was really scary. And I guess it is liable to happen to the best of us. I just wonder why it went for the computer cord and not for the printer or monitor cord as well. Like maybe there was already something that wasn't that good with the cord? I have a surge protector. All of the equipment attached to the computer also are on the surge protector - but only the computer cord was effected. I used to always leave my computer on, however now decided to have it as a habit to always turn off my computer at the end of a session. Hopefully that will help as the load shedding is going to be with us for a very long time.
We were caught unaware again last night. At around 1:00 a.m. I was aware (while I was sleeping) that everything went dark. I didn't worry about it that much, but at 2:30 a.m. when the power came on, there must have been a surge or something as my computer started to make heavy sounds and the "on switch" was flashing like crazy. I turned the on switch off, waited a while, turned off the electricity at the wall, then turned everything back on again, but then the flashing continued again. I was almost sure my computer was in the process of dying. I tried again, and the same thing happened - a flashing switch and lots of whining by the computer - like three long whines and a short interval in between continuing without stopping. I then in desperation uncoupled all of the devices attached to the computer tower including the monitor, speakers, printer etc, took the computer tower to the kitchen, and then found an alternate power cord - just in case it was the cord that was the problem. And it turned out then that it was the cord as the computer worked OK with the alternate cord. The cord must have been fried when the power came on again.
You can't imagine the absolute relief when after I had re-attached all of the equipment such as speakers, printer etc again, the computer was working again - all of the attached devices as well. There was a slightly whining sound in the tower, but that worked itself out eventually by tonight - after the third time I'd turned off the computer during the day.
By the time everything was working at 4:00 a.m. my first step was to immediately create an emergency system disk. I have made regular backups before, but the "rescue disk" was dated to 2014 when I first got the computer, and I've never made a full "image backup" of the computer. I went for everything in the list of copies one could make in the Windows 7 Backup and Rescue Window. Fortunately everything was done by the next scheduled load shedding session at 9:00 a.m.
This was really scary. And I guess it is liable to happen to the best of us. I just wonder why it went for the computer cord and not for the printer or monitor cord as well. Like maybe there was already something that wasn't that good with the cord? I have a surge protector. All of the equipment attached to the computer also are on the surge protector - but only the computer cord was effected. I used to always leave my computer on, however now decided to have it as a habit to always turn off my computer at the end of a session. Hopefully that will help as the load shedding is going to be with us for a very long time.