One of my computer repair clients called a few Saturdays ago with the news that her UPS was beeping. An emergency service call was made and I replaced it with a loaner unit.
I used to stress to business networkers and my computer service clients how important it is to protect your equipment’s electrical power feed. Surges,sags, brown-outs and other electrical disturbances can damage hardware and scramble your data.
So what is a UPS? You can purchase a device to plug into the electrical outlet and plug your computer’s electrical cord into this device. It’s called a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) or battery back-ups. It goes beyond the protection of a surge-suppressor which only protects in case of spikes and surges. The UPS has two sides to the unit: a surge-only side and a battery/surge side.
I would also suggest you use a UPS even if you have a laptop computer because it’s power supply/AC Adapter can be damaged by electrical disturbances, too. But I want to caution you to not connect a printer to the battery/surge side of the UPS and especially a laser printer because they can damage the UPS. Plug your printers into the surge-only side.