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How power failures are harmful for PCs and Laptops ?

It has happened to me a lot of times. My PC turns off occasionally due to sudden electricity load shedding.

Is this harmful for computers ? hardware or software wise

5 Answers

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  • R T
    Lv 7
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Yes, it's harmful.

    Software routinely opens, locks and closes files to keep other computers / users / processes from working with the same files at the same time. A disorderly shutdown will not allow the application to restore the files to a usable condition. This can cause problems with accessing the files in the future.

    If the power failure comes while an application is writing data, the file can become corrupt. If it's writing to something important like the file allocation tables or the system registry, the whole computer may not work right. If the hard disk drive are writing or accessing files. the heads may come in contact with the spinning disk. This is referred to as a "crash".

    Appliations will also "cash" data in RAM. This gets written out to the disk when the application shuts down in an orderly manner. A power failure would prevent this from happening so a user could lose any changes they've made.

    A small UPS is good protection. The UPS will run the computer directly protecting it from surges, spikes and outages.

    Source(s): Engineer
  • alk99
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    With power failures come power surges... yes they can be very harmful. A good surge protecter is a must, an isolation transformmer is even better, all of my electronics are run from circuits from an isolation transformer... I have even had direct lightning strikes without damage (lucky). Hardware risks are quite self explainatory... software casualties usually occur due to power failure during a write function to the HDD or database/system files. This corrupts the files rendering them useless. From a software standpoint a good UPS Uniteruptable Power Supply is a good investment, it allows time to shut the computer down normally which is better for both hardware and software alike.

    Source(s): Me and many builds / repairs and 25+ years as an electrician.
  • 9 years ago

    Mainly hardware. Software has nothing to do with the electricity so it could care less if you just shut it off. The equivalent of a power outage to hardware is like if you force quit a program, it will shut it off but not break it. BUT if this happens during a boot up or a shutdown, THAT could get ugly. Hardware on the other hand can have some big problems no matter when this happen. I have seen blown capacitors as well as many things that make your computer die.

    I am talking about MAJOR problems. Obviously anytime your computer shuts off you run the chance of corrupt files or losing something you've been working on.

    If this happens a lot to you, you really need to get an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). This will keep a computer running during a power outage and thus not break. It is well worth the $50 that it could be as your, probably $300-$800, computer could break forever.

  • 9 years ago

    Yes, it's harmful.

    A rolling blackout, also referred to as load shedding, is an intentionally engineered electrical power shutdown where electricity delivery is stopped for non-overlapping periods of time over different parts of the distribution region. Rolling blackouts are a last-resort measure used by an electric utility company to avoid a total blackout of the power system. They are a type of Demand response for a situation where the demand for electricity exceeds the power supply capability of the network. Rolling blackouts may be localised to a specific part of the electricity network or may be more widespread and affect entire countries and continents. Rolling blackouts generally result from two causes: insufficient generation capacity or inadequate transmission infrastructure to deliver sufficient power to the area where it is needed.

    Rolling blackouts are a common or even a normal daily event in many developing countries where electricity generation capacity is underfunded or infrastructure is poorly managed. Rolling blackouts in developed countries are rare because demand is accurately forecasted, adequate infrastructure investment is scheduled and networks are well managed; such events are considered an unacceptable failure of planning and can cause significant political damage to responsible governments. In well managed under-capacity systems blackouts are scheduled in advance and advertised to allow people to work around them but in most cases they happen without warning, typically whenever the transmission frequency falls below the 'safe' limit.

    Source(s): Wikipedia
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  • 4 years ago

    regularly whilst a battery is going to finished cost the capacity grant often is the only one giving capacity to the pc. the charger has a swithching gadget that it senses the presence of ac capacity charging and it additionally detects whilst a battery is totally charged. there is not any longer something to rigidity. batteries incredibly have a lifespan for charging which you would be able to swap previous batteries in time.

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