AussieJohn Posted January 25, 2006 Report Share Posted January 25, 2006 Jboy makes a good point about surges and spikes. The minimum recommendations nowdays suggests spike arresters be used. Unfortunately the products are almost promoted as accessories rather than essential if you really value your computer. But believe it or not most damage is caused by surges or brownouts. Cheap power supplies have less ability to handle this problem and thus allow the computer itself to be damaged besides being damaged itself. In electronic devices it is becoming much more common for the devices to be auto selective of the mains voltage i.e. no more mains voltage selector switches. They use cheap but sophisticated voltage regulators that ensure that the voltage outputs remain constant regardless of the input voltage. This is all AC of course. Voltage regulation for DC has been and still is a fact of life in all electronic equipment. But doing it for AC used to require heavy (not as in weight but often did) hardware. Now that seems to have been overcome to a large degree. Some very up market computer PSs are now being built this way. This will help to reduce the surge and brownout effects to a very great degree. Now I come to the most ignored, and in my opinion the MOST essential, piece of computer equipment of all. I have not and will not own and run a computer without one. UPS--Uninterrupted Power Supply. Mine has worked perfectly for the past 5yrs. Still uses the original floating charged battery. Originally cost A$250 but similar model today costs approx A$125. Written off over the past 5years means that it has cost me less than a dollar a week. Talk about cheap insurance. But most importantly I have not lost data or had to replace components because of Mains voltages problems. Remember I live in the tropics where we regularly have lightning strikes and downed power lines. If you truly value your computer no matter what it cost you, then make a determination to get one AASOP. They can be bought so cheaply nowdays that tight budgets are really no reason, they are only an excuse. In the US a UPS may cost less than a $100, but to replace damaged computer components will likely cost you up to 10 times as much each and every time over the next few years. Do yourself a favour. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 25, 2006 Report Share Posted January 25, 2006 I'd agree with John on that. In Poland, I have to disconnect from the mains, everything, including the phone socket just in case. Whilst I have a surge protector for the mains, I'm partially protected. But I cannot forget about the phone line. I've already lost one ADSL router, and think that it was due to this via the phone line. I'm sure a device can be bought to protect your equipment attached to the phone line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelcole Posted January 25, 2006 Report Share Posted January 25, 2006 Don't be Cheap.. Pay what is required and spend a little more if you can for the extra protection also for your expansion plans.. If you can get one with extra Plugs as well, Some have a Printer Socket for Protection with NO UPS.. Laser Printers will kill a UPS.. I am sure AussieJohn has upgraded pieces of his hardware in the Five years thus using more power, I have.. In the case of the phone line.. If you can get one to protect the Phone line for your house the better.. What is more important your life or a Modem.. Lightning does strike while it is sunny and for you people not living in the tropics.. Don't worry with the way the weather has been lately its coming to you also.. If you can get one with a Serial or USB connection then set it up to Auto Shutdown when needed.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 (edited) Small comments: - Dell has used (no, bought and sold on) quite a few power supplies with bad capacitors, and some motherboards with such. They last between 6 months and maybe a few years - on a graphics card, also check the fan, and check the temperatures - you could, if available, boot to another system and see if it hangs there too, to see if it's the hardware (this might be a ligitimate reason to boot to WinXP - gosh, hard to believe I'm saying this..) - on the total power requirements versus the power supply capabilities: be aware that not all power ratings on the boxes are 'equal' meaning that not all manufacturers use the same way of measuring. Read some tests on the web. Contrary to general belief, most pc's nowadays do NOT use over 250W, but in line with common recommendations, they DO NEED a PSU that is rated, according to the box it comes in, at over 350W. This also has to do with on which lines (voltages) the PSU can deliver how many amps. As for the UPS, I can see the point to that, although where I live I have no use for one - my server uptime is close to 250 days, and the previous server had an uptime of 450 days. Sums up nicely to close to 2 years. I can honestly only recall once that the power had been out in the last 5 years. Let's say that in my neighbourhood the energy delivery is dependable and consistent. If it isn't in yours, get a UPS. Lastly, MAKE BACKUPS! Harddrives fail, electronics fail. Even in a virus free environment, things can go wrong... Edited January 26, 2006 by aRTee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 As for the UPS, I can see the point to that, although where I live I have no use for one - my server uptime is close to 250 days, and the previous server had an uptime of 450 days. Sums up nicely to close to 2 years. I can honestly only recall once that the power had been out in the last 5 years. Let's say that in my neighbourhood the energy delivery is dependable and consistent.If it isn't in yours, get a UPS. I think it depends where you live... When I ws in Africa brown-outs were an everyday occurence and blackouts frequent .. In Norway they have no real earth and again lots of weird problems but living in Calgary, London, Paris I have never needed one. I have to say I think brown-outs do the worst damage... when I lived in Norway the lights were always dimming and flickering as in Africa and the problems with damaged boards was common. I once blew a graphics card by degaussing the monitor in Libya because I had no real earth and the pipe I had stuck in the ground was just in dry sand ... In the UK I don't think you need one at all since the elctricity is so over-specified .. I have noticed a huge difference for instance just on the life of lightbulbs between continental Europe and the weird British system... Lastly, MAKE BACKUPS!Harddrives fail, electronics fail. Even in a virus free environment, things can go wrong... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ahh..yes. 20/20 hindsite enables me to agree very strongly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 Antec NeoPower PSU's are awesome! Highly recommend them. Backups are always great, I have to 1TB servers at home one is for backing up the other, both are raid 5 with hotspares and have there own apc. Redundant Redundant Redundant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonEberger Posted January 26, 2006 Report Share Posted January 26, 2006 adding to the psu argument. about 4 years ago, a friend of the family had an compact form-factor desktop. you know the kinds....the only things not usb are the on-board graphics, sounds, and modem chips. well power ran in on it (rural western kentucky,usa) and fried the modem (no surge protection). it was onboard and the machine was not under warranty so it couldn't be replaced for free. i wouldn't modify the case or the modem to make it fit and so they bought a new dell and gave me the gateway. long story less long, it ended up in my office on campus as a not bad desktop under mandrake 9.0. it kept freezing/rebooting. turns out an intel celeron 700 with 128 MB RAM, 20 GB drive had a 90 watt power supply. i ended up pulling an old atx power supply off a packard bell just to power the hdd/cdrom. i turned it on manually and then booted the machine. i may have told this story here before, but i thought it applied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Antec NeoPower PSU's are awesome! Highly recommend them. Backups are always great, I have to 1TB servers at home one is for backing up the other, both are raid 5 with hotspares and have there own apc. Redundant Redundant Redundant <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Man, it's you!!! I was wondering who's network this was :P http://smorris.uber-geek.net/lab.htm I have no servers, just PC's with what I thought had a lot of disk space (180GB). Compared to yours, mine is like an old ATA PC with 20MB HDD :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted January 27, 2006 Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 Man, it's you!!! I was wondering who's network this was :P http://smorris.uber-geek.net/lab.htm I have no servers, just PC's with what I thought had a lot of disk space (180GB). Compared to yours, mine is like an old ATA PC with 20MB HDD :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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