Power Surge Protection

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 04:25:17PM -0400, Peter Hiscocks wrote:
> A UPS or a Surge Protector will work if indeed it was a line surge that
> caused the failure. But I suspect that many so-called 'surge failures' are
> actually power supplies that fail in Frankenstein mode. The surge protector
> and UPS can't help with this at all. A properly designed computer power
> supply should have a crowbar circuit that clamps the output even when a
> catastrophic failure occurs internally.
> 
> I went through this a while ago with my wife's machine. The power supply
> failed spectacularly, taking out everything in the box. OTA claimed this was
> a line generated surge failure, but there were several computers on the same
> power line at the same time that were unaffected, so that didn't wash. Very,
> very reluctantly and after some hard bargaining, OTA gave us a new machine
> at 'cost'. 
> 
> I think one's best insurance is to have a high-quality power supply in the
> box. Competitive pressures to produce a high-power supply for a tiny cost
> result in marginal supplies that fail in this manner. The power supply is an
> unsung component in the computer, but it's critically important. (The
> invention of the switching power supply is one of the things that makes a
> modern computer cost and size feasible for consumers.) Spend some money on a
> good power supply, don't just take whatever comes in the enclosure.
> 
> My 2 cents worth.

Well I started using PC Power & Cooling after a power supply fried on me
in 96, and I have also used Antecs a couple of times in the last year.
I have even seen a PC where win98 (on a k6-2 450) would crash
frequently, corrupt filesystem, etc, and eventually the power supply was
replaced by one from PC Power & Cooling and all of a sudden the system
didn't crash, and it no longer corrupted files.  Cheap power supplies
can make a system crash a lot.

Lennart Sorensen
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