Surge protector or no?

[Watashi]

I was at the super-market today, and while I was browsing for power strips, I noticed that certain ones key feature was surge protection. I had two schools of thought:

1. I need to have that to avoid catastrophic failure for my expensive electronics
2. It is mostly a gimmick, and if anything else my PSU protects against these sorts of things. (EVGA G2 750W)

Opinions? 

[Bult21]

If you are connecting anything of high value to the power strip, it is worth it to pay for a surge protector edition.  Its just one more way to safeguard your technology, therefore giving you less to worry about.

[CryptoMatt]

if you dont want whats plugged in to die if a surge happens then yes. i personally use one for most things 

[Oshino Shinobu]

It's not a gimmick either, it can be the difference between having to replace a £25 surge protector or a £120 PSU. Even for small surges, it can take the load off the PSU, so that instead of the PSU having to deal with small peaks in voltage, the surge protector handles it which could lengthen the life of the PSU and stability of the system. 

 

Decent PSUs have some level of surge protection built in, but it's better to have another layer of protection anyway. It's worth having, especially if you live in an area with "dirty" power where surges are frequent. Even if you're not in that sort of area, it's still good to have. A few months ago there was a lightning storm that took out all of the power around my area and caused pretty big power surges, causing multiple lights around the house to blow and the PSU in my NAS, which was connected to the wall, to die, while everything on my surge protector, including my main PC, was fine. 

[TetraSky]

When the pole mounted power transformer outside blew up(literally), I lost my cheapo alarm clock that was directly plugged into the wall's power socket. But all of my other electronics were plugged onto a surge protector, while they got "tripped" by the bad current, none of my stuff connected to them died, so yes, it is a good idea to invest in one.

[System Error Message]

you can never have too many surge protectors.

[pomkon]

if u live in the city. the power is stable and clean. the bigger the city the better elcetricty. there should be some stats about the reliability of your local power supply, i.e. 99.9999% or average downtime <1m per year.... etc

[spat55]

3 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

It's not a gimmick either, it can be the difference between having to replace a £25 surge protector or a £120 PSU. Even for small surges, it can take the load off the PSU, so that instead of the PSU having to deal with small peaks in voltage, the surge protector handles it which could lengthen the life of the PSU and stability of the system. 

 

Decent PSUs have some level of surge protection built in, but it's better to have another layer of protection anyway. It's worth having, especially if you live in an area with "dirty" power where surges are frequent. Even if you're not in that sort of area, it's still good to have. A few months ago there was a lightning storm that took out all of the power around my area and caused pretty big power surges, causing multiple lights around the house to blow and the PSU in my NAS, which was connected to the wall, to die, while everything on my surge protector, including my main PC, was fine. 

What protectors would you recommend? Just interested in which ones you have atm, I've personally used Masterplug myself.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, spat55 said:

What protectors would you recommend? Just interested in which ones you have atm, I've personally used Masterplug myself.

The one I have for my PC stuff is by Masterplug. It's one of the tower ones which are a bit more expensive, but it's worked well for ages. 

 

I believe it's the SRPT122-MP. I might change it out for a SRPTU122PB at some point as I've had it for a while, or I may just add it as I use all the plugs on my current one (the pains of having so many devices at my desk that require a mains outlet)

[andrewmp6]

They are good to run but a ups is better

[Watashi]

https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-BE112230-08-12-Outlet-Power-Protector/dp/B000J2EN4S/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515951021&sr=8-4&keywords=surge+protector
what do you guys think of that one? seems to me like that would be really good. I'm just worried about the wall not supplying enough current to all of the devices that are plugged into it. 

 

I guess if DC came out of the socket, and electronics turn it into AC then it wouldn't really be much of an issue. (I could be mistaken here)

[Kangaroo Factory]

Needs RGB

[Kangaroo Factory]

Find the circuit breaker by using intuition and a process of elimation. It's probably a 15a at 120v which means no more than 1500 watts. Look up all your devices or get a watt meter thingy. 

 

Ifthere's a LAN, just load the circuit til it blows, and then put the last guy to show up in the kitchen. 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Doomerson said:

https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-BE112230-08-12-Outlet-Power-Protector/dp/B000J2EN4S/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515951021&sr=8-4&keywords=surge+protector
what do you guys think of that one? seems to me like that would be really good. I'm just worried about the wall not supplying enough current to all of the devices that are plugged into it. 

Belkin is a good surge protector brand.

On 1/13/2018 at 7:35 PM, Doomerson said:

I was at the super-market today, and while I was browsing for power strips, I noticed that certain ones key feature was surge protection. I had two schools of thought:

1. I need to have that to avoid catastrophic failure for my expensive electronics
2. It is mostly a gimmick, and if anything else my PSU protects against these sorts of things. (EVGA G2 750W)

Opinions? 

Not a gimmick.  Even though a PC PSU has some surge protection in it, when it's blown, it's blown and the PSU will be dead on the next hit.

12 hours ago, Doomerson said:

I guess if DC came out of the socket, and electronics turn it into AC then it wouldn't really be much of an issue. (I could be mistaken here)

What in the world are you talking about?  AC comes from the wall.  PSUs turn AC into DC.  But this has nothing to do with surges.