Path: utzoo!censor!becker!geac!yunexus!ists!mike
From: mike@ists.ists.ca (Mike Clarkson)
Newsgroups: ont.uucp
Subject: Re: Toronto Hydro (was re: sq down for the count)
Message-ID: <367@ists.ists.ca>
Date: 17 Mar 89 04:33:21 GMT
References: <1989Mar15.173203.23116@utzoo.uucp> <1989Mar16.024344.17471@tmsoft.uucp>
Lines: 53

In article <1989Mar16.024344.17471@tmsoft.uucp>, mason@tmsoft.uucp (Dave Mason) writes:
 > In article <1989Mar15.173203.23116@utzoo.uucp > ian@utzoo.uucp (Ian F. Darwin) writes:
 > >SQ (aka sq.com) lost its power supply yesterday morning; the replacement
 > >was DOA; the second replacement works but now the disk system is
 > >acting up. When it rains, it pours! Watch this space for future
 > >developments in the area of hardware bashing and delayed mail/news.
 > 
 > I think Toronto Hydro was putting out some nasty power over the
 > weekend.  There was a 15 minute power failure in the southeast of the
 > city on, I think, Saturday.  Fortunately tmsoft is on a UPS.
 > 
 > 2 computers at Ryerson (these don't have a UPS (although the mainframe
 > does)), where there WASN'T a power failure as far as I know, went
 > catatonic (at about the same time as the power failure).  Both
 > rebooted OK, but one seems to have had some disk controller logic
 > lightly toasted...it works fine except when it freezes up which it's
 > done twice this week.
 > 
 > I think that other parts of the power grid may have had spikes and
 > other uglies while they scrambled to get power back to the southeast.
 > Are the people who know what they're doing still on strike?  The
 > supervisory people may make messier power when they're bringing stuff
 > back online.  Any opinions?
 > 	../Dave


I have seen more power failures in the last 3 weeks that I would normally
see in 2-3 years.  Tuesday night we got hit with 10-20 dumps/glitches and
outages in a 3 hour period.  Last night we got hit in North York.

Hydro Quebec first attributed their massive outage last week to sun-spots.
At first I said "poppy-cock", but there may be something to it.  We are at
a sun-spot peak, and are seeing the highest levels in something like fourty
years (4 cycles).

Other possibilities include phase of moon, and the odd coincidence that
we are in the middle of a Hydro strike.

Whatever's going on, I'm spending a large amount of next week looking at
UPS's.  Does anyone have some good or bad experience on where to shop and
what to buy?  I'm looking at covering diskless Suns (300W), Suns with
shoeboxes (600W), and Sun racks with 1-2 disks (2000W).  Has anyone
found UPS's that do a graceful shutdown, or CPS's (Continuous Power Supplies -
they plug right into the DC side of the power supply)?

Many thanks in advance,

Mike.

Mike Clarkson					mike@ists.UUCP
Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science	mike@ists.ists.ca
York University, North York, Ontario,		uunet!mnetor!yunexus!ists!mike
CANADA M3J 1P3					+1 (416) 736-5611