You *could* flip the switch on a power strip, as a very similar test case. Just sayin'. Probably not nice to the PC or disks, but, is exactly the same test case I believe.

You are right: it's similar (from IT view), but not the same (from electricity view). A surge in the electric power grid caused by lightning can result in much more trouble a couple of miliseconds *before* the emergency power switch (or a fuse) goes off; therefore you can't test it by simply switching the power off. However, if my method doesn't protect the data integrity from a simple dirty shutdown, it won't protect the system from the thunderstorms as well.

I've now turned off write caching on the BOINC drive on all the machines. Hopefully that will help.

It should help. You're the best test subject to tell if my theory is right. I'm really curious to know.

You *could* flip the switch on a power strip, as a very similar test case. Just sayin'. Probably not nice to the PC or disks, but, is exactly the same test case I believe.

Great idea, and wonderful of you to volunteer! Even better, I'd suggest cycling the main house breaker on and off while the family watches a movie or plays online games!

Surely you know that, if I had an expendable PC that was capable of running GPUGrid tasks, this (flipping power strip switch) would be one of my test cases for any proposed fixes that GPUGrid releases.

As it is right now, however, I don't have that setup of equipment, and GPUGrid isn't actively fixing their problem.

You *could* flip the switch on a power strip, as a very similar test case. Just sayin'. Probably not nice to the PC or disks, but, is exactly the same test case I believe.

You are right: it's similar (from IT view), but not the same (from electricity view). A surge in the electric power grid caused by lightning can result in much more trouble a couple of miliseconds *before* the emergency power switch (or a fuse) goes off; therefore you can't test it by simply switching the power off. However, if my method doesn't protect the data integrity from a simple dirty shutdown, it won't protect the system from the thunderstorms as well.

Which is why a proper business-grade UPS would, IMO, be a better solution to these local weather related problems. A lightning surge can take out a great deal more than the current GPUGrid task, up to and including a motherboard or CPU. You can't ask GPUGrid to take care of that eventuality too.

Used to have UPSes on all the machines but they're expensive, a pain to maintain and when there was an outage there'd be loud beeping from everywhere. Even the better ones seem to have a rather high failure rate and on those the batteries are expensive. When lightning hit the lightning rod on my house all the Intel based boxes died even though they had UPSes (all the APC sine wave type). As I've mentioned before all the AMD machines survived. Go figure. I switched to high grade surge protectors and haven't had ANY machine failures since. So there's pluses and minuses in my experience. When I was a network manager I had beefy UPSes on all the servers (mostly Novell) and that worked pretty well but mission critical business apps (and my butt) were at stake. ;-)

We've drifted OT from task size to build issues and tips, but here's my 2p's worth.

Unless you have really expensive kit, have space and can afford a good UPS (which are expensive to buy, increase running costs, produce heat and might require maintenance) all you can do is use a 6 gang surge strip (or similar) and a good PSU. However, these go a long way to protecting you, if you know what you're doing!
Disabling the disk write cache was a good suggestion and might help prevent OS issues too.
In my experience it's best to prevent systems from rebooting following a power failure, as further power issues are likely following an outage (they usually bunch together). You can set most systems to power down following a power failure in most Bios, rather than rebooting. If you find a system in the powered down state, disconnect the power for a minute to allow any components with static to fully discharge before reconnecting and starting up. It might also be good to restart the system after first booting. Obviously, if you know there is likely to be power issues (storms, maintenance, shortages) "turn IT off".

A surge strip can protect up to a certain amount of voltage, but wont protect you from a direct lightning strike (only a lightning rod can do that). It might however protect you from a close by strike - one that hits a local power line or other cable (telephone/fax, modem/coax/Ethernet/Christmas tree lights...); but only if these are plugged into a surge protected adapter/extender. No point having your printer straight into the wall but connected to the computer via a USB cable, or an unprotected modem cable going straight into a PCI port. Remember that small devices (modems/switches/external drives and so on) tend to have low design standards and many don't have an earth, yet they connect into an external power source and directly into the computer via another cable (USB/fire-wire/Ethernet/VGA/Display Port...). It's important to surge-protect the small devices too and if your power strip has a phone connection surge protector, use it.

Good PSU's can handle power fluctuations, which could otherwise wreck systems. An AX750 for example can run normally with the power anywhere between 94V and 264V. Many such PSU's are also capable of handling short spikes and dips (power blips) while standard PSU's cant. High end PSU's come at a premium but their build quality is self protecting and helps shut down systems more gracefully when there is a major dip/outage. The Titanium PSU's are the best and offer 96% power efficiency at 50% power usage. However, you don't invest in a Titanium PSU for the 96% (rather than 92%) as it would take years to recover in running costs (if at all) but rather in the build quality and life expectancy of the unit. Many self acclaimed 80%+ Gold certified PSU's fail after a year or two while most Platinum and Titanium PSU's come with long warranty's and are likely to be around for 6 to 10 years (24/7) and will have provided high end quality power delivery to your components and protection for that time.

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