I accidentally in your base

So as my main mood-lifter of the weekend was getting the three screen set-up working on my home PC, obviously the gods sent a power surge to fry my motherboard while I was out yesterday evening. At least, I'm assuming that's what's fried... the machine powers up as far as the 'Press DEL to enter setup' screen, identifies the CPU but doesn't get as far as mentioning the RAM or disks. Holding down the delete key as it boots will get you the 'Entering setup' message instead of the 'Press DEL' message, but other than that it doesn't make any difference. Argh.

Incidentally, the machine was plugged into a surge-protector extension lead - a Belkin SurgeMaster II - which I can't say that I'm currently inclined to recommend. It theoretically has a warranty on it which will pay for any equipment damaged due to failure of the surge protector, but I'm guessing it has sufficient weasel words to let them slide out of it one way or another*.

simont recently had a machine fried while it was attached to a surge protector as well - does anybody else have any reports of brands to avoid? Is there any way anyone can recommend a protector - it's pretty obvious when they fail, but how do you know when they're working?


* having read it, you need the receipt for the extension lead. Which obviously I threw away several years ago. Nice lifetime guarantee there.