Toofast, I'm over to the other side of London,Ontario, so not so far from you and our winters are much the same. I don't run the main pumps over winter, I'm wary of ice dams being created and water being diverted away from the pond. I shut the waterfall and statuary pumps off for the winter, but, because of where my bottom drain sump is located,I run a small 500 GPH pump all winter to circulate the pond water and create a vent opening in the ice. The 500 GPH pump is located in the 50 gallon bottom drain sump, and pumps water through a 1/2" hose to the pond, where it keeps the surface water moving and allows for gas exchange. I have a 1200 watt deicer as a stand by in case of pump failure. I also totally cover my ponds over, first with a leaf net for a month or so, then with a translucent tarpaulin supported on a frame, for the winter months. That keeps the cold winds from blowing across the water surface. Your plan to use an aerator and a small deicer, with your large wattage deicer as a stand-by sounds great to me. As far as keeping your pump in a bucket of water, there is no need to do that, as mag pumps,unlike oil filled pumps do not have seals that will crack, if they are allowed to dry up over winter. But that is up to you. March would be a tad too early for start up,I should think. I push the envelope a bit by getting going at the beginning of April. And that is dependent on weather conditions. The main clean out the pond, I do in the Fall, rather than in the Spring. That way I'm not stirring up the "nasties" from the bottom of the pond, when the fish are still very susceptible to disease after going through a hard winter. You mention a check valve "sticking out of the water". As long as it is not filled with water, that could freeze and cause the valve to split open, it should be okay. If you could remove it and take it apart for cleaning and then store it, that would be a safer solution. Check valves should be cleaned out at least once a year, as the are a real collector of gunk and that can cause them to stick open or closed. The same goes for your pump. Take the impeller cover off and clean it out before storing for winter, whether it is kept in water or not. The gunk inside the pump can [and will] set up like cement over winter and cause the pump to overheat and possibly burn out when you try to use it next Spring. Hope this helps. "Horton"

They'll all shut down if they get too hot. This is why ventilation is critical. There has to be enough space around the unit inside the cabinet for air to flow. Secondly, I believe the newer units act differently from the units of over 20 yrs ago. The pulsing of the old units was much slower and therefore noticable whereas today the pulsing is very fast. Which now sounds like a 'ticking' or 'clicking', or at higher power a 'whine'. And if your lights are dimming, it's because the service is too small. It is trying to pull more current than the circuit is set for and is dropping the house voltage as a result. The CB doesn't trip because the unit is pulsing and not pulling a steady overload current. That is, a 30-amp breaker doesn't 'break' at 31 amps. It requires an over-amperage for a certian amount of time before tripping.

The label says it has 512 MB of memory. I'm not sure which memory this is referring to, but if it is the RAM on the motherboard, it could use an upgrade. Windows XP likes to have 2 Gigabyte (2 GB) or more. You are using a wireless router on a DSL sevice. Make sure that your wireless router is secured so that someone else within range can't horn in and ride piggyback on your connection for free. The more computers using the connection, the slower it gets for any one computer. The next potential bottle neck is the DSL service. If this is over a phone line, it may not be a large jump in speed over a standard dial-up service. A good connection does have marked improvement in speed, but a troublesome connection looses much speed advantge. Consider taking the computer to a shop or friend and try on their lines. Another problem, if over a phone line, is a noisy line. Thw phone company can test your phone line for quality. Make sure that you tell the technicam that this line will be used for internet service. If over a phone line, another bottleneck can be the phone company. It may not have installed equipemnt capable of high speed data transfer. If you have a friend who has a high speed cable connection with a wireless router, you may want to try your computer on his connection. Have the computer checked out at a computer shop to discover if it is the computer or the DSL service to your house.

Please do the steps below that will enable you to read the EXACT blue screen error next time the pc blue screens, post the error here, a blue screen error can be related to many things this will only be the start of finding the exact cause. 1.Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 2.Click the Advanced tab. 3.Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box. 4.Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times. 5.Restart your computer for the settings to take effect. Now when you go to shut down and a fatal error occurs, you'll at least see it and it won't cause an automatic reboot. then we can sort out what's causing the problem.