It all depends on the magnitude of the dips, spikes, and brown-outs.
A 10% dip in the line voltage should not cause a serious problem for most computers.
However, your monitors and printers are another story. A 10% dip puts serious strain on the power supply section of most monitors.
Spikes: The spikes are likely the cause of your "weird" characters. A good surge protector on EACH PC should handle spikes of between 500 and 1000 volts without much problem.
If the spikes are any higher,the MOV's in the surge protectors will fail within a few weeks or months, and the spikes WILL get through and stress both the power supply and internal components on every electronic device.
Brown-outs: These can realy do a number on any electrical / electronic device. Again, most of the stress will be felt by the power supply, but, in a significant brown-out event, the power supply drops out of regulation, and will overstress components inside the devices.
What to do:
Depending on thesize of your facility, and how spread-out the PCs are, you have several choices.
You could install a large line issolation transformer with dedicated circuits for computer power.
(I would install a seperate line and transformer for your network server room.)
You can also get smaller units that will power individual PCs.
SOLA Electronics is one manufacture of these devices.
Next, I would add a UPS to ALL critical systems between the isolated power line, and the individual PCs.
Ata minimum, you need high quality surge supressors with at least a 1000 joule rating for each PC.
To prove to the skeptics, install an issolation transformer (also called line conditioners) and UPS on a system with a history of problems.
When theproblems "magically" stop, everyone will be clammoring for their own line conditioner.
Chas
