Does sudden power failure effects computer

John699

Reputable
Jan 29, 2016
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So today out of the blue the power had been cut off from the provider for like about an hour when I was outside but my computer is on 24x7 so definitely it might have shut down abruptly cuz no power

So should I be worried or its just normal cuz in many countries where the power fluctuations are in large they don't report any problems also is computer designed to work in fluctuating power or is it okay if it suffers a sudden abrupt power shut down?
 
Solution
Well it may have corrupted the download and you may have to download it again but the actual HDD will be fine.
The power supply of your PC is on all the time it is connected, it supplies low voltage power to the button on the front so unless it is turned off by the switch on the back of the PSU then it is at risk as will be the monitor,however the risk is quite low and if the monitor and PC work ok when you turn them on then you do not need to worry.
The best thing to do in future if you have a power cut is to unplug your computer equipment from the wall until the power comes back on.
The next best thing is to plug everything into a surge protection power strip.

makkem

Distinguished
Hi
The loss of power would only be a problem if something was writing data to the HDD at the time of the loss of power as it could lead to data loss or corruption.
On the hardware side loss of power is not a problem,but the power coming back on can be as it is often accompanied by a large surge,so best practice would be to unplug the computer after the loss of power then plug it back in when the power comes back on.
 

John699

Reputable
Jan 29, 2016
129
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4,690


But my torrent was on and it means it was writing on my hdd as I was downloading so what you say now?

Should I be worried about the hdd now?

Also even when the power comes back the computer wouldn't on itself on as there's a power button to it but the monitor will turn on the moment the power comes back so should I be worried about monitor now?

 

makkem

Distinguished
Well it may have corrupted the download and you may have to download it again but the actual HDD will be fine.
The power supply of your PC is on all the time it is connected, it supplies low voltage power to the button on the front so unless it is turned off by the switch on the back of the PSU then it is at risk as will be the monitor,however the risk is quite low and if the monitor and PC work ok when you turn them on then you do not need to worry.
The best thing to do in future if you have a power cut is to unplug your computer equipment from the wall until the power comes back on.
The next best thing is to plug everything into a surge protection power strip.
 
Solution
Only system files being used and written to can cause system problems. Torrent programs like uTorent cache the files and have auto resume so when you start download again it checks how far it got to and resumes at last good part, Files are split in packets so no harm to them can happen until parts are connected at the end of download. Most DL helpers work same way.