Posted on 07/07/2005 1:55:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
................Here's one lesson I learned quickly: The devices that are supposed to protect your computer and other sensitive equipment against electronic damage might not be doing their job.
.... only three still sported lights showing that their protective circuitry was active.
This is particularly important in the summer, when thunderstorms, power outages and brownouts are all too common. All can result in power surges that can fry the insides of your electronic equipment.
.........Surge suppressors, most often found in power strips, deal with these surges using components known as metallic oxide varistors, or MOVs. ............
A really high voltage spike may melt everything inside the suppressor, leaving equipment on the downhill side unscathed, in which case the gadget has done its job. But it's more likely that a series of smaller surges will wear out the MOVs inside the power strip over time.
That's why all but the cheapest units have indicator lights that tell you whether surge protection is available. Don't confuse this with the light that tells you the power strip is switched on. It's easy to mistake one for the other - or just forget about the power strip entirely - as I did with far too many of mine.
......UPS units - which look like large, heavy bricks - typically have six or eight outlets. Half will usually be backed up by batteries, while the remainder will be protected against surges and spikes only.
Starting at $75 or so, battery backups are usually priced by how much juice they provide. The cheapest units may only keep a PC running for 5 to 10 minutes - long enough to perform a proper shutdown. More expensive units can keep a system running for an hour or more.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Bump!
-Eric
Good tip.
I work from home quite a bit... cannot afford to have my laptop zapped. Spent about $400 or so to have a surge protector installed by a qualified electrical contractor at the fuse box area. Protects the whole house, not like a "local" surge protector which protects just the equipment plugged into it. Oh, BTW, my understanding is those "surge protector strips" are essentially useless as a surge protector.
I'm not qualified to rate them.
They've worked so far but I see some need to be replaced. No light.
Why I use large UPS systems with dual batteries for all my really expensive electronics.
Yepper - phone lines are much more likely to get hit with a true spike than power lines. Down here in Mississippi, bad weather can cause power bumps which are usually drops in the power. What tears unprotected computers up is when the power drops and returns several times in rapid succession - the poor hard drives go nuts trying to save data and often beat themselves to death. Most UPS, even cheap ones, give good surge protection too, so the biggest thing is to remember to protect the phone line. Protection for any satelite connections is also a must - those dishes make great targets for lightening.
Even a cheap UPS can keep the PC running for 20 minutes or so if you don't have the monitor plugged in to it. I suggest setting your power options to shut the computer down when you hold the power button in - that way you don't need to see anything for a safe shutdown if you happen to be there when power dumps.
I wish I would have done that. An electrical storm took out my programmable thermostat. It is hard wired into the wall and I cant plug it into a surge protector. Cost me a fortune to fix. And I still can't plug the new one into a surge protector.
Even a cheap UPS can keep the PC running for 20 minutes or soReplace that UPS battery every three years or so for continued protection too; I found I had NO protection from my usually trusty (in past years!) 500 VA APC UPS owing to an 'old battery' (five years old!) this spring ...
Oh, BTW, my understanding is those "surge protector strips" are essentially useless as a surge protector.Depends on what caused the 'transient', like the wife switching on and off the vacuum plugged into the same circuit.
(For an idea of just how a 'transient' is created JUST pull the plug from the wall with the vacuum running sometime and be sure you don't have a natural gas leak in the home and observe the HUGE spark produced!)
Why I use large UPS systems with dual batteries for all my really expensive electronics.Have you looked into a combination UPS and auto-starting genset (generator set)?
More than a few minutes of loss of commercial AC will cause automatic mains switch-over to the AC generator, providing you with any level of 'backup' you desire, especially if you power the genset off a natural gas line or a large tank of clean-burning Propane (propane won't 'decompose' and settle out gum and tar like a tank of gasoline will do and can last years) ...
No true! Like anything, you get what you pay for. You should have at least 3 levels of surge protection. At the elect. service, install a lightning arrestor. In the breaker panel, install a whole house protector. At the local device, install a "good" surge strip with phone & coax protectors.
You can have a "whole house" protector that is just as usless as a $6.95 surge supressor strip.
Check out this link for info, especially the first 2 pages.
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