A spike on the mains?

A couple of times I've had issues with brown-outs; overhead mains lines so we often have problems. Once the NDX completely crashed, the SN2 wouldn't show any inputs and, even worse, the media server went funny. Whole lot switch off and then on again and all okay except the media server. I had to connect a monitor and keyboard to that... crashed windows. Thankfully it didn't take long to fix.... breath sigh of relief! I now have a balanced transformer supply and that has a high, natural resistance (okay inductance) to short blips in the mains. Helped cut down on mains hum as well. If we go away for a night or longer I know pull all the mains plugs out of the wall. Better to do an orderly power up when I get back rather than it going doolally if the mains bounces a few times!

Probably a short power cut.  Do you have exposed overhead power lines?  We have them for about half a mile from the road and high wind or unfortunate adventurous squirrels tend to cause brief power outs and sometimes spikes.  

The only thing with a brownout is either have protection fitted or turn the power off ASAP. I’ve had a burglar alarm and a freezer compressor  fried by these in the past - caused by one phase staying connected after branches across the line - at least where we are. Interestingly LED bulbs glow normally but the old filament bulbs dim to an orange glow. 

We have overhead cables. Spikes and power cuts are not uncommon here. We have what appears to be a sensitive trip switch, which is good. I'd rather something went off and stayed off than got pushed and pulled until it fused. I've lost HDDs that way but have not done so since adopting a UPS. We have anti surge devices installed next to various components and a buffer which is supposed to protect the phone line - but that's more about storms. The audio equipment is on it's own spur, which seems to trip when required. So far so good.

I had one of what sounded the same a while back.   It was daytime so no room lights went out making a power cut obvious,  the Naim was playing quiet background stuff but there was no noise from the speakers that I heard but the Supernait button lights came on & stayed on & the microwave & cooker clocks went back to zero.  OK I did realise it was a power cut,  but to confirm it my UPS sent me an e-mail saying it went to battery power at whatever time & that it had gone back to mains power 10 seconds later.

Thanks for the input. No overhead cables close by. Plenty of squirrels in the garden though!

I was having a post lunch dose. Certainly woke me up literally with a bang.

Douglas.

Once had a brief power interruption with what must have been a very bumpy reinstatement, bad enough that the protection system on the 300PS failed. The only alert to that was the acrid smell from failed electronic components.  We were out at the time it happened and I am now always concerned, when leaving the house, that it might happen again