BIOSTAR First to implement integrated LAN & USB Surge protector

[brownninja97]

gigavyte has done this for a while.

[TheGFactor]

A lightning strike on the internet line into your house won't be stopped by your typical surge protector. That only protects against power line surges. Some surge protectors have RJ45 pass throughs but not all.

Yeah, all of mine have passthroughs, so it wouldnt be a use to me. I wonder if the price premium on this mobo will be worth the cost

[Techhog]

Bollocks, real surge protectors start at $150.  Does this mean they have quadrupled the cost of their product in the name of surge protection or is this a gimmick like the cheapo power board surge protectors?

What qualifies as a "real" surge protector? Serious question. Are you equating it with UPS?

[NumLock21]

So biostar claim 

 is bullshit!!

They need to get out more before claiming as "world's first". IMO ESD guard is a great feature to protect faulty USB drives from damaging the USB ports, but again they ain't the first to do so.  Here is them IC chips on how they look like.

http://www.asus.com/microsite/2013/MB/8series/5Xprotection/

[Altecice]

A lightning strike on the internet line into your house won't be stopped by your typical surge protector. That only protects against power line surges. Some surge protectors have RJ45 pass throughs but not all.

 

Virgin Media (my ISP) fit surge protectors to the line that runs to your house and fit a mini one at tthe end of your coax cable that comes into your house.

[mr moose]

What qualifies as a "real" surge protector? Serious question. Are you equating it with UPS?

 

Most domestic surge protectors (like in power strips) are basically useless against all but minor power surges.  I am talking commercial UPS and dedicated units. 

Essentially anything they can fit to a motherboard that will not increase the cost of the board dramatically is going to only provide nominal protection. 

[Scheer]

This is just a marketing gimmick. The point of surge protectors on Cat5 is to blow up BEFORE hitting the components, why would you have it blow up at the motherboard? 

 

Buy one of these and put it in between the modem and router, try to tie the ground into your water pipes. http://www.ubnt.com/accessories/ethernet-surge-protector/

 

And buy two of them... so you can swap it out when it blows up. They will take indirect lighting hits and not blow, where some of the voltage bleeds thru onto the cat5, but if lightning directly hits the cat5 line, nothing consumer grade is going to be able to dissipate that. The only thing I've ever seen take a direct lightning hit and keep going are cell towers, and we bury 250-500' of #2 solid copper wire along with 20-30 10' copper ground rods for the grounding system on them. Your house just uses your water main for the ground.

 

My state department used to use Cambium/Motorola PTP dishes for all the Sheriff communications, we replaced the surge protectors nearly every time there was a really bad storm. The protectors always blew up, but at least all the equipment was fine.

 

 

What qualifies as a "real" surge protector? Serious question. Are you equating it with UPS?

 

Basically if you don't hear a relay clicking when you plug it in, its really not doing anything.

 

I run Innovolt PM15's on all my electronics if I don't have a UPS on it, you can find them for around $150, cheaper than replacing a $2000 computer...

 

Your typical cheap surge protector just has a little fuse inside of it, these will have active relays, and even record the power so you can go back later and verify lightning hits for warranty, or just see how stable the power is. The way I see it is the cheap protectors do more to save your house breakers from wearing out when you plug too many things in than protecting you from voltage spikes, as it will blow the protector fuse before your breaker (the more times a breaker trips, the easier it will trip, so you don't want to trip them too often).

 

My mother-in-law wasn't paying attention and had her computer and printer plugged into a brand new APC UPS, but plugged them into the surge protection side, not the battery backup side... Both of them quit working when they had a storm roll in, but the modem, router, and monitor that were plugged into the battery backup side were fine. So even a nice expensive UPS doesn't have a worthwhile surge protector built into it, other than the AC-DC-AC converting side.

[Tigerbomb8]

Ah.. No.. Gigabyte has done this http://www.gigabyte.com.au/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4483#ov