One thing often overlooked when setting up a system is the Surge Protection or UPS.

A UPS offers some protection against surges, but it’s still a good idea to plug the surge protector into the wall and the UPS into the surge protector. Worse case, you’re saving the surge protector a few surges.

A UPS offers a battery backup system. When setup properly, it will gracefully shut down your computer system after a pre-determined time period. This prevents your system from just turning off like it was unplugged during power failure. In order to get the best results from a UPS, you should plug in limited equipment into it. Perhaps only the PC and the Monitor. This way, the UPS will give you time to shut

When a computer just loses power (power failure, coming unplugged, etc) it’s hard on many of the components of the system. It can cause power supply failure over time, motherboard issues, hard drive problems, data loss, and more. It’s a great idea to spend a few bucks at your local electronics retailer or online for a good UPS.

Lightning Storms

In all honesty, the best thing to do if you are near the computers and you know a lightning storm is approaching, is to unplug the power, and any powered devices from your computer. This includes phone lines, network cables and printers. If you have ensured there is no power to any of these devices, they could remain plugged into the PC.

If lightning sends a surge into your home through phone lines, and your DSL modem is plugged into the phone line, it could fry the modem, send the surge on to your network switch/router and then to your computer. It’s important to protect your equipment. The only fool proof way is to make sure everything is unplugged from every source of power.

More Information on Surge Protection:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_protector

More Information on Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS)

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question28.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply