Lightning would have to be, without a doubt, the prime killer of electronics, followed by mains spikes from welders, pool pumps, air conditioners and home appliances without question.

We at Unitech were stuck by lightning in 1994, where we had our "Brand New" entire 11 extension phone system and PABX fried , the eftpos and modem was cooked, our A4000 computer serial port and modem was " fried " as well as our fax machine and several small calculators not to mention our Canon 50 Sheets per minute Photo copier, which was fried and unable to be repaired. They were all replaced, we now have M.O.V's on all four incoming phone lines, the best protection .

That little "exercise" cost us 185 hours of lost productivity, due to the lack of working equipment, not to mention the the loss of business potential from the phone system and the inconvenience of a non-working EFTPOS terminal for Credit Card sales , back to time wasting hand written vouchers andnot to mention the time taken in filling out lengthy insurance questionaires and claims.

Thankfully, we were insured, but just imagine, you have been on your computer for 5 hours straight. doing important Business or even a University assignment, you have typed in 150 pages and are about to save it all, when "ZAPPO " you get a surge on your mains from a guy welding next door, air conditioner has a "suspected faulty thermal switch", think that it can't happen ?....don't think too long, it will happen, it is only a matter of when ! Spikes or surges can happen several times a day , a simple thing like someone blowing the fuse on the circuit your computer is on any one, can often take out your computer, Ram is usually the first to be effected as it is more voltage sensitive, followed by dearer components such as CPU's the is the type of scenario that would send a peaceful sane person into absolute instant rage..."OH NO !..."I have lost my computer"..."what blew up ?...and what's that burning smell ?.. Oh No.. Where's all my Data gone to..?"...... Please,....do Consider the alternatives....the lost time, the lost productivity and lost valuable data.

If the user was smart, they would have been using a hi-quality mains surge protector device which would have "cut in" and absorb the spikes , the exact microsecond in time it took to disrupt the mains supply to that computer.

Consider an even worse case, you are saving data to your IDE drive and there is a major surge, your hard drive is now an expensive paper weight !

If you will have damaged the rigid disk block file on your IDE hard drive you may go through hours of re-installing your files just to make it work, Even worse if you never backed it all up prior to the crash !.