totse.com— Because transient analysis is complex and not widely understood by computer users, a number of myths have grown up around the subject of surge protection over the years.
Jan 22, 2006View in Crawl 4
This article was written by someone who doesn't even have the most basic understanding of how surge suppression works. As pointed out by many others, the article contains many laughable errors in logic, and it shows she doesn't have even a rudimentary understanding of the basic laws of physics.""Written by Wendell H. Laidley, President, Zero Surge Inc."Ahh, that explains it. Her crappy website, which appears to be created by a third grader, contains several extremely overpriced surge suppressors. This article is nothing more than spam, trying to sell crappy, no name surge suppressors.
I replace my surge supressing power strips every 4 years or so. I do not get the cheap $3.00 once, but I do not get the $50.00 ones either. I get the $20.00 ones. The ones that used to be on my PC and TV gear get demoted to lamps, chargers, and other lesser electronic devices. I replace these when I replace my PC one's. I then hand off the leftovers to friends and family with the warning that they should not use it for anything important, like computers and TV/Video/Audio gear.
Can anyone explain a little bit about what the best surge protection technique would be? This isn't exactly my area of expertise and I was hoping this article would give me some answers, but it really didn't.
Can anyone explain a little bit about what the best surge protection technique would be? This isn't exactly my area of expertise and I was hoping this article would give me some answers, but it really didn't.--------------No because it depends on the application, but let's assume it's the typical home user with a wireless network. Metal Oxide varistors (MOVs) are the most cost effective but buy a model that can indicate when they fail. Since they can fail open you may never know it and you are then unprotected. Then you get into how much energy shuld the unit be able to absorb. Generally bigger is better but it may have a tendancy to let faster transients thru. Without details of the design you won't know this either. A UPS is often lower in energy surge rating than a surge supressor, but there are other things involved there which make it as good or better than a higher rated surge suppressor. howstuffworks.com is a good place to look and APC has numerous FAQ and white papers to read.Now, as for voltage spikes getting on the data lines there is an instance where this is a concern. Particularly vulnerable would be a wired network in a fairly large office. A voltage spike on one computer will raise the potential of that entire computer, including the data lines, relative to the others. So there is a chance in this case that there can be damage to one or more computers. Given that interfaces like Ethernet are designed to handle this circumstance the chance of this being an issue is pretty low.I hope this helps a little, is accurate, and clear.PS - this captcha thing is a pain. I won't be postinbg anymore because I can't seem to read it correctly.
An appliance tripped our breaker box last week, giving a violent electrical surge. With a bit of cunning I isolated the problem back to our Whirlpool washing machine (which is now dead - a new Miele on the way). It seems most of my appliances are ok, but the surge knocked my SpeedTouch wireless router in to a coma - taking hours for it to slowly recover... and even then I think it's damaged cause it fully resets and loses all it's WPA settings (ect) if you turn now it off at the power button. Now I'm seeking out a few extra decent Surge Protecter outlets for around the house.
flagg3Jan 23, 2006
This article was written by someone who doesn't even have the most basic understanding of how surge suppression works. As pointed out by many others, the article contains many laughable errors in logic, and it shows she doesn't have even a rudimentary understanding of the basic laws of physics.""Written by Wendell H. Laidley, President, Zero Surge Inc."Ahh, that explains it. Her crappy website, which appears to be created by a third grader, contains several extremely overpriced surge suppressors. This article is nothing more than spam, trying to sell crappy, no name surge suppressors.
tavisjohnJan 23, 2006
I replace my surge supressing power strips every 4 years or so. I do not get the cheap $3.00 once, but I do not get the $50.00 ones either. I get the $20.00 ones. The ones that used to be on my PC and TV gear get demoted to lamps, chargers, and other lesser electronic devices. I replace these when I replace my PC one's. I then hand off the leftovers to friends and family with the warning that they should not use it for anything important, like computers and TV/Video/Audio gear.
fclothJan 23, 2006
Can anyone explain a little bit about what the best surge protection technique would be? This isn't exactly my area of expertise and I was hoping this article would give me some answers, but it really didn't.
gordieJan 23, 2006
Can anyone explain a little bit about what the best surge protection technique would be? This isn't exactly my area of expertise and I was hoping this article would give me some answers, but it really didn't.--------------No because it depends on the application, but let's assume it's the typical home user with a wireless network. Metal Oxide varistors (MOVs) are the most cost effective but buy a model that can indicate when they fail. Since they can fail open you may never know it and you are then unprotected. Then you get into how much energy shuld the unit be able to absorb. Generally bigger is better but it may have a tendancy to let faster transients thru. Without details of the design you won't know this either. A UPS is often lower in energy surge rating than a surge supressor, but there are other things involved there which make it as good or better than a higher rated surge suppressor. howstuffworks.com is a good place to look and APC has numerous FAQ and white papers to read.Now, as for voltage spikes getting on the data lines there is an instance where this is a concern. Particularly vulnerable would be a wired network in a fairly large office. A voltage spike on one computer will raise the potential of that entire computer, including the data lines, relative to the others. So there is a chance in this case that there can be damage to one or more computers. Given that interfaces like Ethernet are designed to handle this circumstance the chance of this being an issue is pretty low.I hope this helps a little, is accurate, and clear.PS - this captcha thing is a pain. I won't be postinbg anymore because I can't seem to read it correctly.
stalinvladJan 24, 2006
Im in a state of fear uncertainty and lots of doubt
sheradNov 13, 2007
An appliance tripped our breaker box last week, giving a violent electrical surge. With a bit of cunning I isolated the problem back to our Whirlpool washing machine (which is now dead - a new Miele on the way). It seems most of my appliances are ok, but the surge knocked my SpeedTouch wireless router in to a coma - taking hours for it to slowly recover... and even then I think it's damaged cause it fully resets and loses all it's WPA settings (ect) if you turn now it off at the power button. Now I'm seeking out a few extra decent Surge Protecter outlets for around the house.