Ridiculous power supplies (was: Re: lots of panics in uPort V...)

[Larry Campbell]

In article <126 at hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det at hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes:
<>                             ...  I had just spent a not inconsiderable amount
<>of money on a '386 machine plus the uport software to run on it.  It installed
<>and then pretty much from day 2 started crashing from 1 to 5 times a day.
 ...

and then describes how plugging his stereo into the same outlet caused
the PC's power supply to send dirty power to the motherboard, generating
parity errors.  He "solved" the problem by plugging the stereo in elsewhere.

Excuse my bluntness, but this is stupid.  The power supply is defective.
If it were my PC, I would instantly demand a repair or refund from the
manufacturer.  There is no excuse for a power supply to behave this way.

A COMPUTER POWER SUPPLY SHOULD SUPPLY GOOD POWER, OR NONE AT ALL!!!
(Yes, I am shouting.)

As an example, I offer my humble and lowly (but still reliable) DEC Rainbow.
In my previous house, the fuse box developed a bad connection.  Lights in
the room where the Rainbow lived flickered almost constantly.  This went
on for months.  By the time I discovered the source of the problem, the fuse
box was arcing internally so much that it was quite warm to the touch.
(It's a miracle the house didn't burn down.)

The Rainbow never glitched.  Not once.  No trashed data, no parity errors,
nothing.  Note that the system was running (still runs) V7 UNIX, and it never
so much as hiccuped fsck.

Once a transformer down the street melted, and for about five seconds
the 110-volt outlet delivered 220 volts.  All the lights in the house
got real bright, the Rainbow fan got louder, then the power went out.
Of course, I was a bit disconcerted.  The next morning, power back on,
the Rainbow booted and came right up.

One last anecdote.  Another transformer melted down or blew up or something.
For several hours, our line voltage dropped to 75 volts (I measured).
Lights were dim;  my stereo wouldn't work.  The Rainbow kept right on
running.

Moral:  it is possible to build a decent computer power supply;  it just
seems that the clone companies don't bother.
-- 
Larry Campbell                                The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell at maynard.bsw.com          120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {husc6,mirror,think}!maynard!campbell         +1 617 367 6846