Shortest period to switch off electronic equipent for before switching on

The one I know of is where the fuel pump was on the non-maintained mains. All the tests were fine. But when the power went off for real so did the fuel pump...

BTW I use 30 seconds too. 30 odd years of computers here, quite often dealing directly with the HW designers so I could write the tests.

Andy

AIUI: A short press is one way of a normal shutdown - sometimes you have to press it a little longer...................

There's not exactly a shortage of those - but it does tend to be more older designs.

It does sometimes happen - pretending it doesn't won't save you.

IC designers tend to do a better job protecting against weird power cycles and a lot more system designers have been burned and learned.

Of course. There are morons designing stuff all the time. Worse, there are companies that don't care that they're making crap.

one opinion on electronics wear/degrade, is a function of thermal stress

Well - not really. What can you do with an app that is running and doesnt keep files in a "safe" state?

Even some working apps dont leave files in a consistent state while idle (although agreed that is bad design).

Less said about malware busy scribbling all over your drive to maximise the chance of coming back to life after a reboot the better...

The point is that an operating system cannot make assumptions about what programs are trying to do and having "well formed" behaviour - they need to try to be robust no matter what is mucking around, while a disk is full and a drive is trying to remap to sort out bad sectors.

But the only true test of a restore is to actually wipe and restore on the same hardware build - when it is too late to find out it didnt get recorded correctly if you only have 1 machine (or 2 with different builds)......

And keep the old one as a fallback....

Stephen Hope stephen snipped-for-privacy@xyzworld.com Replace xyz with ntl to reply

We had one where someone spoofed the guage and drained the tank.

Stephen Hope stephen snipped-for-privacy@xyzworld.com Replace xyz with ntl to reply

re companies that don't care that they're making crap."

Worse is that of companies, at least in consumer electronics WANT them to f ail. I have seen examples that are pretty sure. Like in the five volt power supply they have an extras AC feedback loop which can only make the line v ary. I beleive they did it corrupt the software. But then you could get the software "update" but wouldn't they just use better capacitors, or not do anything else ? I could find the reference to it under duress, but I am say ing that they spend extra copper on the board to put certain caps near the vertical IC.

Like people say the government does so many stupid things, For some of them , they have a reason.

I have also seen alot of shit in audio like that. And this did not start ye sterday either. I think they want(ed) to keep their jobs, so some units mus t fail. Their paychecks come from the sale of new units. Same with manageme nt.

It really comes down to screwing the People.

And keep the old one as a fallback."

Guilty. I bought a bunch of laptops and one stayed in the box past the warranty. I have had people try that so many times that I didn't even bother calling them, I just shelfed it. Luckily later, I got to use some of the parts.