Ah, so you were caught in the local **ll meltdown? Bad luck, dude. Hope you came out okay.

I agree with everything you've said about desktop vs. laptop power supplies. It agrees with my own experience.

No reason a desktop can't be run off pure solar. My 120 watts of generation (growing all the time) does a lot of real work around here. Any info you can provide on DC-DC units would be welcome. I hate losing 15-20% of my juice to inverters.