Regarding power outtage..

[MURFING]

About power outages, Is the power going out itself harmful to PC hardware, or is it only the power coming back on that can cause problems?  

This reply from the admin of PC masterrace is what had me paranoid

[Needfuldoer]

Sudden loss of power can lead to data loss if there are files being copied around and they're still "in flight" and haven't been written to non-volatile storage, or you've got unsaved documents open.

 

The sudden inrush of electricity when power comes back can sometimes cause problems too, because the entire grid is trying to power back up at the same time.

 

If you lose power for longer than a quick blip, unplug your PC or switch your power supply off. Once power comes back on and stays on, it's safe to power your PC back up.

 

A UPS will help your PC ride out those interruptions safely.

[MURFING]

33 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Sudden loss of power can lead to data loss if there are files being copied around and they're still "in flight" and haven't been written to non-volatile storage, or you've got unsaved documents open.

 

The sudden inrush of electricity when power comes back can sometimes cause problems too, because the entire grid is trying to power back up at the same time.

 

If you lose power for longer than a quick blip, unplug your PC or switch your power supply off. Once power comes back on and stays on, it's safe to power your PC back up.

 

A UPS will help your PC ride out those interruptions safely.

Thank u so much for the valuable info.. So basically no hardware harm? Such as cpu, gou, rams, ssds and etc? Just software? I also do have a surge protector power-strip and I usually unplug it, switch it off and even switch the psu off when a power outtage haopens.. Is this enough to prevent any hardware damage by 100%?

[manikyath]

A blackout type situation (power off, a while later power on) isnt harmful to your harware, but your pc getting turned off unexpectedly can ofcourse mean stuff isnt saved, or if it shuts down in the middle of an update cause software corruption. annoyance, not "dangerous".

 

A brownout type situation (power flickering, unstabile voltage/grid frequency) can cause all sorts of oddities, but realisticly your power supply should hard turn off when it cannot sutain propper voltage.

 

the most "dangerous for hardware" thing is when you have notable voltage spikes on the grid, like when there's a lightning strike. that's what decent surge protectors prevent.

[Skipple]

8 minutes ago, MURFING said:

I also do have a surge protector power-strip and I usually unplug it, switch it off and even switch the psu off when a power outtage haopens.. Is this enough to prevent any hardware damage by 100%?

Yes. A surge protector should absorb any voltage spike when power returns, but unplugging entirely is the safest move. 

 

@Needfuldoer did a great job summarizing power outages, but it should be noted that partial outages, or *brownouts* are arguably more dangerous for electronics. Voltage droops can cause serious issues if they happen frequent enough in your area. Most utility companies to a good job avoiding these now-a-days. 

[Omon_Ra]

At minimum you want a surge protector for your PC and peripherals. A UPS/battery backup is best. Power outages rarely will cause damage, but as others said, when the power comes back that's where you can see some surges/brown outs which are more harmful to your electronics. However, things like lightning strikes there's pretty much no amount of protection if you get a direct hit. I've seen entire building UPS systems still have stuff get zapped behind those. The other thing with lightning strikes is it may not come through your electrical; it could come in through coax (if you have coax/cable still) or even zap stuff in your network. I've seen TV's plugged straight into the wall get fried from the cable box through the HDMI connection on the TV. Powers on still, but the HDMI port is dead. There are all sorts of surge suppressors for ethernet and coax. Electricity is kinda wild and the results of a big power surge can have a wide range of symptoms after. Obviously, some things just die immediately; other times things just start acting weird after a few days, weeks, or even months.

[Potatoes__]

Speaking more from experience rather than knowledge since my power grid is being bombed by moron neighbors for years and I experience a lot of power issues.

 

Surge protectors, at least those of not-so-expensive variety won't do much for voltage fluctuations you might have in your grid. As far as I understand they can help out with very brief spikes and act as a fuse in case of something like a lightning strike but it won't help that much if a substation near you goes boom and you get 2x voltage in your sockets for a second or so. And keep in mind that lower voltage is not ok either - that may damage yo stuff too especially if it fluctuates between too low and too high.

 

Like others here said a nice UPS plus a good surge protector strip would be the best, but a good UPS might be expensive. Voltage stabilizers, something like APC Line-R might be an okay alternative but it may depend on how fast they can react to a spike/drop. Essentially these things react to voltage spikes/drops and smooth out the voltage to a set amount. My PC is plugged into one of these and so far it survived for ~8 years on the same PSU. May be a placebo, may be my PSU is just really high quality, but so far it pulled through multiple surges that left my neighbors with burned out electronics.

 

A voltage relay may also be a neat solution. Basically this thing instantly cuts off the electricity if it sees that the voltage in the grid is below or above some amount. Sudden power cut is not as dangerous as getting 500v of juice. These relays can be installed either for your entire place or as a single socket and are generally quite cheap.

 

And from my observations, the cheaper and simpler the PSU is the more likely it is to give up in case of fun stuff happening in the sockets. So far across my family we've lost one really cheap PC PSU, two laptop chargers and a few appliances. So don't skimp on your PSU if you want it to last! 

[MURFING]

1 hour ago, Skipple said:

Yes. A surge protector should absorb any voltage spike when power returns, but unplugging entirely is the safest move. 

 

@Needfuldoer did a great job summarizing power outages, but it should be noted that partial outages, or *brownouts* are arguably more dangerous for electronics. Voltage droops can cause serious issues if they happen frequent enough in your area. Most utility companies to a good job avoiding these now-a-days. 

I am still confused.. The power itself going out doesn't harm the hardware? Such gpu, cpu and etc? 

[MURFING]

24 minutes ago, Potatoes__ said:

Speaking more from experience rather than knowledge since my power grid is being bombed by moron neighbors for years and I experience a lot of power issues.

 

Surge protectors, at least those of not-so-expensive variety won't do much for voltage fluctuations you might have in your grid. As far as I understand they can help out with very brief spikes and act as a fuse in case of something like a lightning strike but it won't help that much if a substation near you goes boom and you get 2x voltage in your sockets for a second or so. And keep in mind that lower voltage is not ok either - that may damage yo stuff too especially if it fluctuates between too low and too high.

 

Like others here said a nice UPS plus a good surge protector strip would be the best, but a good UPS might be expensive. Voltage stabilizers, something like APC Line-R might be an okay alternative but it may depend on how fast they can react to a spike/drop. Essentially these things react to voltage spikes/drops and smooth out the voltage to a set amount. My PC is plugged into one of these and so far it survived for ~8 years on the same PSU. May be a placebo, may be my PSU is just really high quality, but so far it pulled through multiple surges that left my neighbors with burned out electronics.

 

A voltage relay may also be a neat solution. Basically this thing instantly cuts off the electricity if it sees that the voltage in the grid is below or above some amount. Sudden power cut is not as dangerous as getting 500v of juice. These relays can be installed either for your entire place or as a single socket and are generally quite cheap.

 

And from my observations, the cheaper and simpler the PSU is the more likely it is to give up in case of fun stuff happening in the sockets. So far across my family we've lost one really cheap PC PSU, two laptop chargers and a few appliances. So don't skimp on your PSU if you want it to last! 

Thanks u for such a nice explanation.. I am just still confused about something. The power going out doesn't gaem the hardware nor the PC? It's only dangerous when it comes back?

[MURFING]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

A blackout type situation (power off, a while later power on) isnt harmful to your harware, but your pc getting turned off unexpectedly can ofcourse mean stuff isnt saved, or if it shuts down in the middle of an update cause software corruption. annoyance, not "dangerous".

 

A brownout type situation (power flickering, unstabile voltage/grid frequency) can cause all sorts of oddities, but realisticly your power supply should hard turn off when it cannot sutain propper voltage.

 

the most "dangerous for hardware" thing is when you have notable voltage spikes on the grid, like when there's a lightning strike. that's what decent surge protectors prevent.

Ohhh I get it now.. Basically a normal power outtage like a bormal power cut as the lights go off is completely normal and won't damage nor harm the pc nor the hardware do all I gotta do when it happens is to unplug my power-strip till tge lights comes back.. Right?

[wanderingfool2]

33 minutes ago, MURFING said:

I am still confused.. The power itself going out doesn't harm the hardware? Such gpu, cpu and etc? 

Usually power outages will have an effect on the power supply.  Since electronics work on an DC voltage instead of AC the power supply is converting...it takes a range of AC voltages usually (as lots of places can go from like 100 - 130 v) and makes the required DC.  So when you have a loss of power it still is providing the required DC voltages until the capacitors run out effectively.

 

For that reason a good quality power-outage usually won't kill any internal devices (unless the device was running a firmware update).  Never say never though, as the power-supply is effectively taking the brunt of the surges.  [Completely different if the outage is caused by a lightning strike though, where you could have voltages where it jumps the gap and sends a high voltage to CPU components].  With that said as well, if the power supply gets damaged it can lead to hardware failure as well (I've had a power supply fry a motherboard and also fry ram).

 

Having managed a fleet of computers before, and had multiple power outages, I've never had a power-outage break the hardware...I have had it corrupt the OS but never break a computer.  For reference, I've seen probably 20+ power outages while working...with about 12 computers for each office (since power outages rare were all offices)...so that's 240 equivalent "power" outages when consider on a per computer count.

 

So on that accord from my personal experience that is less than 0.42% chance of hardware failure during a power outage...I mean it's a small sample size, but they were the cheap old power supplies which I think shows just how much a computer usually doesn't care about power outages.

[manikyath]

9 minutes ago, MURFING said:

Ohhh I get it now.. Basically a normal power outtage like a bormal power cut as the lights go off is completely normal and won't damage nor harm the pc nor the hardware do all I gotta do when it happens is to unplug my power-strip till tge lights comes back.. Right?

unplugging isnt necessary. a power outage is literally the same thing as turning your power strip off.

 

[MURFING]

8 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Usually power outages will have an effect on the power supply.  Since electronics work on an DC voltage instead of AC the power supply is converting...it takes a range of AC voltages usually (as lots of places can go from like 100 - 130 v) and makes the required DC.  So when you have a loss of power it still is providing the required DC voltages until the capacitors run out effectively.

 

For that reason a good quality power-outage usually won't kill any internal devices (unless the device was running a firmware update).  Never say never though, as the power-supply is effectively taking the brunt of the surges.  [Completely different if the outage is caused by a lightning strike though, where you could have voltages where it jumps the gap and sends a high voltage to CPU components].  With that said as well, if the power supply gets damaged it can lead to hardware failure as well (I've had a power supply fry a motherboard and also fry ram).

 

Having managed a fleet of computers before, and had multiple power outages, I've never had a power-outage break the hardware...I have had it corrupt the OS but never break a computer.  For reference, I've seen probably 20+ power outages while working...with about 12 computers for each office (since power outages rare were all offices)...so that's 240 equivalent "power" outages when consider on a per computer count.

 

So on that accord from my personal experience that is less than 0.42% chance of hardware failure during a power outage...I mean it's a small sample size, but they were the cheap old power supplies which I think shows just how much a computer usually doesn't care about power outages.

Greatttttt explanation dude Thank u lots... Breaking the PC means a harm to the gpu, cpu anf etc, right?

[MURFING]

12 minutes ago, manikyath said:

unplugging isnt necessary. a power outage is literally the same thing as turning your power strip off.

 

Ohhhh same thing? Didn't know that.. I remember my lil brother has switched my power-strip off while I was using my before lol... So literally power outtage can put.it as impossible to harm the PC huh? I mean such as gpu, cpu and etc

[wanderingfool2]

2 minutes ago, MURFING said:

Greatttttt explanation dude Thank u lots... Breaking the PC means a harm to the gpu, cpu anf etc, right?

Yea in this case I mean even the power supply.  Nothing really broke in all those events.  I'm sure on some level the power supply's overall lifespan was likely shortened, but generally that's not an issue I had to worry about.

 

The only case of the powersupply that damaged components though, not sure if that was a power outage (it happened like 25 years ago...when I was a pre-teen).  It was a powersupply of questionable quality anyways, and the caps eventually bulged on them...could power outages have caused that...maybe...but caps also in those days had a tendency to do that.

[Potatoes__]

5 minutes ago, MURFING said:

So literally power outtage can put.it as impossible to harm the PC huh? I mean such as gpu, cpu and etc

Yup, but it may lead to problems if the power goes away when the PC is updating or writing to the disks. But that can usually be handled by the error checking thing in your OS.

 

And by the way IF something happens to the electricity (like a surge or something) the PSU is usually the only thing to die. In some rare cases and if the PSU is cheap and nasty, it may take some other parts with it, like GPU or CPU. Long ago my GPU died along with the PSU after a surge, but that was maybe 20 years or so ago and PSUs back then were much simpler.

[MURFING]

12 minutes ago, Potatoes__ said:

Yup, but it may lead to problems if the power goes away when the PC is updating or writing to the disks. But that can usually be handled by the error checking thing in your OS.

 

And by the way IF something happens to the electricity (like a surge or something) the PSU is usually the only thing to die. In some rare cases and if the PSU is cheap and nasty, it may take some other parts with it, like GPU or CPU. Long ago my GPU died along with the PSU after a surge, but that was maybe 20 years or so ago and PSUs back then were much simpler.

Ahaaa I seee.. Actually, I did turn it on right after the power had came back and I didn't notice any " windows error checking nor fixes" It means no harm been done?

[Pusbucket]

The only thing I can think of that would potentially be literally damaged due to a power failure is a HDD.

Specifically a HDD from pre-1985-86 before IDE/PATA became standard with auto-parking heads, so if you have 45 year old hard drive, you may have issues.

Other than that a power failure is essentially the same as turning it off.

[MURFING]

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Yea in this case I mean even the power supply.  Nothing really broke in all those events.  I'm sure on some level the power supply's overall lifespan was likely shortened, but generally that's not an issue I had to worry about.

 

The only case of the powersupply that damaged components though, not sure if that was a power outage (it happened like 25 years ago...when I was a pre-teen).  It was a powersupply of questionable quality anyways, and the caps eventually bulged on them...could power outages have caused that...maybe...but caps also in those days had a tendency to do that.

My psu is XPG core reactor II 850 WATT

[MURFING]

2 minutes ago, Pusbucket said:

The only thing I can think of that would potentially be literally damaged due to a power failure is a HDD.

Specifically a HDD from pre-1985-86 before IDE/PATA became standard with auto-parking heads, so if you have 45 year old hard drive, you may have issues.

Other than that a power failure is essentially the same as turning it off.

Nope don't have that.. So u mean a power cut AKA power outtage can never and impossible to harm PC components such as gpu, cpu, rams and etc?

[wanderingfool2]

15 minutes ago, MURFING said:

Nope don't have that.. So u mean a power cut AKA power outtage can never and impossible to harm PC components such as gpu, cpu, rams and etc?

I would say, never say never/impossible.

 

Power surges can cause issues with components other than the power supply...but typically the power supply will be the one that takes a lot of the abuse.  In some cases it can cause issues to other components, but again that is super rare to happen.

 

While the beginning of a power outage is less likely to have the massive surge as when power is restored, it also doesn't exclude that (such as lightning strikes etc...or some surge that causes the power outage).  I would say it's not something to be overly worried about unless you are having outages daily, a nice quality surge protector will also save the power supply from a bunch of impact.

[MURFING]

23 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I would say, never say never/impossible.

 

Power surges can cause issues with components other than the power supply...but typically the power supply will be the one that takes a lot of the abuse.  In some cases it can cause issues to other components, but again that is super rare to happen.

 

While the beginning of a power outage is less likely to have the massive surge as when power is restored, it also doesn't exclude that (such as lightning strikes etc...or some surge that causes the power outage).  I would say it's not something to be overly worried about unless you are having outages daily, a nice quality surge protector will also save the power supply from a bunch of impact.

Probably was just a normal power cut/power outtage.. I do have a power strip with surge protector from APC, tho.. What I did when this happened was that I did unplug ny powerstrip and waited till the power came back then re-plugged it.. U think that ws more than enough to protect the pc 100%? Also I was running a game while the power outtage had happened, would that matter? Or same result eitherways?

[Mark Kaine]

16 hours ago, MURFING said:

I am still confused.. The power itself going out doesn't harm the hardware? Such gpu, cpu and etc? 

... I don't know... but despite what people seem to say there are lots of people having issues to the point of PC straight up not working anymore after a power outage so that's definitely a possibility, however, I can only speculate as for *why*... I suppose that could have many possible causes and simply *no power* isn't really the main issue...

 

I also suspect it strongly depends on your PSU, for example I had a power outage a few years ago, the entire house was without power for like 1 - 2 minutes, and I was playing a game, lights went out, my monitor went out I couldn't see anything but the rgb of my PC did *not* go out which was strange....So after the power came back my monitor powered up and I was still in the game, it didn't even boot me from the server (which I have no good explanation for)...so yeah, whatever it was my PSU just powered through somehow (it could also have been a shorter outage, maybe 30 seconds, but that at the very least... so with my monitor powering on again which takes about 20 seconds minimum it was about 1 minute altogether at minimum)

 

So yes, and there's not much you can do about it other than buying a generator because even people with "UPS" are often reporting "broken computers" after outages, brownouts, etc... not saying they can't help, but they aren't a guarantee either apparently. 

[Needfuldoer]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

So yes, and there's not much you can do about it other than buying a generator because even people with "UPS" are often reporting "broken computers" after outages, brownouts, etc... not saying they can't help, but they aren't a guarantee either apparently. 

It depends on what kind of UPS they have, too. The cheap ones (that look like overstuffed surge protectors) are typically offline devices, and will happy pass dirty power or a brownout through to the devices plugged into them until the problem gets severe enough to trigger their transfer switch.

 

If you want real-time power conditioning, pick a line interactive UPS. 

 

https://www.fs.com/blog/comparison-of-ups-topologies-line-interactive-vs-online-vs-offline-3538.html

 

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

It depends on what kind of UPS they have, too. The cheap ones (that look like overstuffed surge protectors) are typically offline devices, and will happy pass dirty power or a brownout through to the devices plugged into them until the problem gets severe enough to trigger their transfer switch.

 

If you want real-time power conditioning, pick a line interactive UPS. 

 

https://www.fs.com/blog/comparison-of-ups-topologies-line-interactive-vs-online-vs-offline-3538.html

 

I see, so something like this would be good?

https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/201456036_-ups-green-cell-power-proof-2000va-1200w-greencell.html

 

 

Just curious because I remember some cases where people had a cyberpower ups (apparently a rather expensive brand) and still had a non functioning PC after some power outage,which I found obviously sus.  (and I know it could probably be fixed but maybe difficult as you don't really know which part(s) broke)

Edited January 1 by Mark Kaine
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