surge protector did not protect s***

mud2005

mud2005

10 kW
Joined
Nov 18, 2008
Messages
706
Location
Eugene, OR
so I moved to "the country" recently and I have had numerous power outages and I've lived here less than a year. when I lived in town the power never went out.

so I got "the best" surge protector to protect my expensive desktop and LED screen.

BRAND "First Alert" says on the box "World's Sasfest Surge Strip" $25,000 equipment warranty. blah blah....

anyway, the power went out and when it came back on, no computer.

I had to replace my power supply, which cost $120 cause I need power...

conclusion, don't trust your surge protector, it won't do squat. I'm going to get a battery backup type system which gives you time to shut down in the event of a power failure.
 
I've found a battery backup to be best in all cases.. they take the heat before anything else will. I wonder what's in those surge protectors anyway that actually ends up doing something.
 
Most surge protectors simply have MOVs to absorb transients. Not good enough (clearly) for electronics.

The better UPSs have power conditioning and totally isolate the mains from the output to the equipment. Anything less is rolling the dice.
 
Yeah, invest in a good branded UPS if you often suffer blackouts.

I used to have problems with my home wiring and often suffered a blackout whenever there was a storm. My APC UPS kept my computer running for a good 10-15 mins, more than enough time for me to get the power back on.

I have since fixed the problem and have not had a blackout in a long time. I'm lucky that the power is very stable here in Singapore, blackouts are very rare, only a handful of minor ones in the last few decades I believe. :D
 
I have a ups on my main computer and modem/router. It does protect better than any surge protector. I would like to hear if you use the "equipment protection" warranty. I never bothered. My last damage was a nearby lightning strike. I used my homeowners ins. as I had about 1500.00 damage.
 
I haven’t purchased a surge protector in years, especially after one spike took out my subwoofer. Instead, I use a UPS.

In the PNW, brown-outs are the norm. Every sensitive piece of equipment I own is on a UPS. I use APC brand, consistently. Many years ago a specific team at Microsoft asked me to build them a fast high-speed “lab” of computers for building the next Windows platform; with a budget of ¼ Mil USD, I fleshed out this once-upon-a-time fastest bank of computers. To top it off, I requested a 16 KVA APC UPS. The managers balked at the price (I seem to think it was about $12k plus installation costs), so it was not ordered. Then one day shortly after the lab was up and running we had this wind storm. The lights flickered and nearly every PC rebooted.

The damage to my lab took three days to repair, defrag, rebuild, resync, etc. plus down-time where we couldn’t build. After I got it back up and running I resubmitted the request for the UPS and it was approved the same day. It arrived in about a week but we had to wait for a convenient time to Facilities install it: This was the first time in 3 years that the entire room was powered down, and they did it to install my UPS. The APC unit took nearly 2/3’s of a rack, and actively monitored the power poles – it was truly an amazing piece of hardware! Now installed and powered up, all we needed was a flicker… Keep in mind that no one in the building had a UPS this large and none could justify the cost; I was alone.

A few weeks later a dark storm moved in and the lights flickered: You could hear the entire floor do a collective “AWE SHIT!” as their PCs rebooted. But then for me, it was a moment of excitation and I bolted out of my meeting, ran down the halls and into my lab to check the racks… They were humming away, no faults, all good, all fine! The unit paid for itself on the first brown-out. The guys managing a much larger server farm at the other end of the building were screwed. Sometimes it pays to be the pariah :twisted:

Recently I replaced the two units managing my Entertainment Center: APC 1500 Back-up Pro UPS, running about $185 USD on Amazon right now. The unit is sufficient for either computer or E/C, and I like to spread the load between units to get some good running time out of them if the lights really do go out. It would take an army of batteries to save a true blackout, but having 5-10 minutes is enough for me to run around and shut down devices, especially if I’m in the midst of coding. :)

Cheers, KF
 
First I keep my eye out for "roadkill" UPS going out in the trash. Never had a bad one that new batteries wouldn't fix.

If I run low I have bought 3 of the "big" APC units from these guys: http://www.upsforless.com/ They typically come with new batteries. I am 4 1/2 years in on the first two 1000 VA APC units and they are both running strong.

I too live out in the 'country' and have a lot of lightning strikes and power sags, surges and interruptions. I have put UPS's on all the desktops, NAS's, servers, and the DSL modems/routers/switches. Knock on wood, we have run solidly for the last 4 to 5 years.
 
Note that most UPS's don't have as much surge protection as an ISOBAR strip, I typically use both on important gear.

Also note that the power out of a UPS is generally not as reliable as the input power on average, by the time you factor in all the failure modes of the UPS and battery issues. When they work it is great, but the best setup is to use dual-power computers with one power line on the UPS and one on the wall power, suitably surge protected. Then when the UPS fails the servers still stay up. :)
 
A computer power supply can die simply from being under load and having power cut, with no input spikes needed at all.

In other words, it's at least possible that no spike passed through the surge protector, it simply lost power (no surge protector can supply power that the utility stops providing).

UPS makes a lot more sense, but even a UPS battery dies at some point, and if the power supply is still under high load when it's inverter eventually shuts down, a power supply can still die.

You make a surge protector by putting a couple of $0.10 TVSS (Transorbs) diodes across the input lines. Fancy ones put a $1 inductor in series first, then a couple $0.10 TVSS diodes. It honestly works really well to clamp spikes in a timely manor.
 
Lessss said:
So mud2005 did you contact the surge suppressor company to collect on that covered upt to $$$$ warranty?
Click to expand...

nope, too lazy.

liveforphysics said:
A computer power supply can die simply from being under load and having power cut, with no input spikes needed at all.
Click to expand...

very interesting, Ive always wondered if that was the case as I've seen many a computer fail to turn on after power is lost.

so here's a question, what do I do with the old PS?? it was > $100 when new. is it fixable? if not does anyone want it for parts? I hate to just chuck it in the trash...
 
Take it apart and take a look at what went bang in there. Sometimes it will be obvious, and just needs a $0.50 part. Sometimes it's a popped trace on the board and just costs a bit of time to fix. Sometimes it's some switching controller chip that is cooked and you're not going to fix it.
 
Be very careful. High voltages are present on many things in a PC power supply including internal heatsinks, and the capacitors hold a charge for a long time after power is off. When they fail usually a cascade of things fail so repair is often multiple parts, and if you don't get them all it will instantly fail again.
 
I have some pretty dirty power where I live. Things flash or dim regularly. I have had zero problems since I bought my UPS so another vote for them from me.
 
liveforphysics said:
Take it apart and take a look at what went bang in there. Sometimes it will be obvious, and just needs a $0.50 part. Sometimes it's a popped trace on the board and just costs a bit of time to fix. Sometimes it's some switching controller chip that is cooked and you're not going to fix it.
Click to expand...

I'm not even close to that level of electronic skill. I can solder, but I know very little about electrical components.

I opened it up and salvaged the fan. can't see visibly where anything went wrong. it's going in the huge box of old computer crap I need to take to the dump. luckily (not) when I moved in here I found the previous residents have never thrown any broken computer crap away they just stored it all in the shed :roll:
 
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