A mini-diversion from the fax/modem issue.....
Interested in Alan Cooper's concerns about switching off machines... the
perennial chesnut of "leave running" vs "switch off".
The fire risk is minimal, so long as your machinery hasn't been dropped
down the stairs or otherwise abused. Modern PSU's have overheat circuitry
to protect against unpleasant circumstances.
You have to weigh Mean Time Between Failure figures (MTBF) up against the
chances of being hit by lightning. Most techs will agree that MTBF is far
greater when machinery is left to run continously (or, of course, left off
continuously, too!) None of that nasty expand-contract-expand-contract
stuff to mess up the chips and hard drives.
Since we don't allow lightning in this part of south-west London, I decided
long ago to leave all my computer equipment running at all times. If it
really is a concern, there are a number of decent surge/spike protectors
around to take care of things. If the machine really is mission-critical,
you have no business running it without a decent UPS anyway.
My computer at home only goes off when I am swapping hard drives between
XENIX, NT, WFW, etc, etc, etc, unfortunately at least twice a day, so
there go my MTBFs, out of the window. Oh well...
I'll be trying to get my surgery colleagues to leave their computers running
too...
JB.
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