Hypertec 8 Way Powerboard Surge Protected, PB80BK - $26.80 Delivered - Thoughts?

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  ozhunter on 22/11/2013 - 08:25

  No idea about that brand, but in my house we have 4 cheapy Laser branded powerboards for over 10 years now and they're still working.

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  _Bruce_ on 22/11/2013 - 08:47

  Probably won't be of much use and need to be replaced regularly anyway.

  http://www.dansdata.com/gz039.htm

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  Ramrunner on 22/11/2013 - 08:56

  Be aware surge protection does NOT protect from grey-outs or brown-outs, which is THE most common cause of PSU damage. True, they will protect if a surge comes through and trap the surge before it hits the PSU, but if the power drops below 220 or so (which happens more often than people realize), even though your white goods won't show it, they're doing you damage.

  The ONLY TRUE way to protect sensitive computer equipment from surges, grey and brown outs is to get an ACTIVE UPS instead. True, even a single computer 700vA on-line one will set you back $130 for a decent one, but a lot of people who buy these <$50 surge protectors are lulled into a false sense of security.

  I speak from experience, mate, for years my power was actually at about 184V a lot of the time being at the end of the power line in our street, and never noticed too much with TVs and whitegoods and such, but my PSUs would only last 6 months or so every time. Took me a while to figure out!

  Grabbed a few UPS units from work (luckily work for a retailer) and never a problem again. I mean NEVER. My PCs outlast most now.

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    _Bruce_ on 22/11/2013 - 09:50

    but if the power drops below 220 or so (which happens more often than people realize), even though your white goods won't show it, they're doing you damage.

    220V is within Australian spec. If this damages your equipment the equipment is faulty to begin with. The min Australian supply is 216 volts, and most equipment will work just fine much lower than this. Most power supplies wont care till you get below 80V.

    The ONLY TRUE way to protect sensitive computer equipment from surges, grey and brown outs is to get an ACTIVE UPS instead.

    This helps with surges, but isn't a certainty by a long shot.

    but a lot of people who buy these <$50 surge protectors are lulled into a false sense of security.

    This is true.

    for years my power was actually at about 184V a lot of the time being at the end of the power line in our street

    You can get the power company in a lot of trouble for this.

    but my PSUs would only last 6 months or so every time. Took me a while to figure out!

    The low voltage was NOT the problem. Eratic spikes may be.

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      Ramrunner on 22/11/2013 - 11:43

      Bruce - you sound like a sparky! lol

      Often when the voltage dipped below 200, the fridge compressor would make a funny noise (bit of a whine) - did that have nothing to do with damage or anything? Surely a motor trying to pull a certain amount of power but not getting it is a bad thing?

      Also, I don't know about 80V, but my computers would often crash and the motherboard sensors would often give me low voltages on the rails when the voltage dipped below 200. We had 3 computers at the time, different manufacturers, one I built myself with a high end Thermaltake PSU and they all did it.

      You're saying a UPS with a buck and boost circuit WILL NOT help with brown and grey outs??? The UPSs in this office lift or drop voltage to a steady 234V and I never have power issues anymore. This is a complete fluke then? I should mention there are no power problem any more today as the power was fixed but at the time for 2 or 3 years it wasn't pleasant…..

      As for getting the power company into trouble, it was fixed about 4 years ago. We have a giant green cabinet on our property now. Before then every morning at 7:08 we had the RCD blow. We never knew what it was until someone explained that's about the time when Western Power switches on it's extra banks to cope with day consumption. We had RCDs replaced, full power tests done, and although earth leakage was a little on the high side it was well within spec. Every morning. 7:08 or very close thereabouts. Guaranteed. Nobody could tell me what it was at the time. Go figure. At least the UPSs would keep all my equipment running.

      Look, you sound like you know what you're talking about so I'm not going to argue any points with you but basically in a nutshell:

      For a period of 2 or 3 years we had shit power. Things like Biomax pumps, PSUs were lasting 6 months if that, and I was getting a lot of crashing on PCs. Once I put UPS devices on the PSUs, all those issues disappeared.

      So whether your knowledge says otherwise or not, I'm afraid I HAVE to believe an on-line UPS will fix power problems.

      A friend of mine who is a sparky uses on-line UPS units to protect Priva horticultural computers ($8000+) and says they are the only thing that will offer some protection for the power grid. His experience (as mine) is the surge protectors offer some protection against surges (such as lightening) ONLY. There's a lot more to mains power than that.

      Not saying you're wrong, but it sounds you disagree a lot with what I originally posted but the UPSs helped me. No question. I truly think they offer far better protection than a surge protector.

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        _Bruce_ on 22/11/2013 - 12:46

        Bruce - you sound like a sparky! lol

        Engineer actually.

        Often when the voltage dipped below 200, the fridge compressor would make a funny noise (bit of a whine) - did that have nothing to do with damage or anything? Surely a motor trying to pull a certain amount of power but not getting it is a bad thing?

        First below 200 and below 220 are not the same thing. The fridge should be designed to handle around 200V but not less. This is a case where low voltage really can damage equipment (motors, not power supplies). The current draw will increase as the voltage decreases, and the motor will get hotter. This will reduce the life of the motor.

        Also, I don't know about 80V, but my computers would often crash and the motherboard sensors would often give me low voltages on the rails when the voltage dipped below 200.

        This doesn't make any sense. Go have a look at any modern power supply, it will say something like 100-240V on the box, and they will work at an even greater range than this.

        You're saying a UPS with a buck and boost circuit WILL NOT help with brown and grey outs???

        You said it is the only true way to protect against surges (amongst others). This is misleading at best.

        Before then every morning at 7:08 we had the RCD blow. We never knew what it was until someone explained that's about the time when Western Power switches on it's extra banks to cope with day consumption.

        This is your problem. Not the voltage drop.

        Once I put UPS devices on the PSUs, all those issues disappeared.

        No question this helps in many situations, but the details you provided were not correct.

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        cwongtech on 23/11/2013 - 02:01

        So, what's the cheapest UPS..
        Just to clarify - if power cuts out suddenly (suppose.. a blackout) - that's harmful to the PSU?

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        _Bruce_ on 23/11/2013 - 08:44

        Just to clarify - if power cuts out suddenly (suppose.. a blackout) - that's harmful to the PSU?

        If you just went and turned the breaker off? Highly unlikely. If you had (for example) a dodgy switch that arced a few times before dropping power? This is bad.

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        Ramrunner on 23/11/2013 - 09:42

        What Bruce says is true. A clean power break shouldn't damage the PSU. HOWEVER how often does the power break cleanly? At my place it's often severe light flickering on and of 4 or 5 times, TVs fading, THEN the power goes off. Can't say for sure whether that doesn't cause damage but Bruce will tell you for sure. He really knows his stuff by the looks.

        Bruce will not argue with the following though, as I'm a certified computer technician for the last 16 years and I've seen this hundreds of times:

        What it DOES do is the immediate power drop is very bad for your PCs operating system and possibly hard disk. If the PC is writing to the hard disk at the time of the power out, it will quite likely corrupt the data.

        Often the computer can recover the data at next boot up, and if you're running linux with a journalling file system it's more often than not but NTFS (Windows files system) is not quite that robust.

        There is a very real chance the hard disk can corrupt in the event of power failure and the extent could be from no effect to complete operating system re-install or even replace hard disk (very rare but I've seen it).

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        _Bruce_ on 23/11/2013 - 10:56

        Bruce will not argue with the following though, as I'm a certified computer technician for the last 16 years and I've seen this hundreds of times:

        What it DOES do is the immediate power drop is very bad for your PCs operating system and possibly hard disk. If the PC is writing to the hard disk at the time of the power out, it will quite likely corrupt the data.

        Often the computer can recover the data at next boot up, and if you're running linux with a journalling file system it's more often than not but NTFS (Windows files system) is not quite that robust.

        Did I mention my other degree is Computer Science? First off NTFS has a journal. The possible failures are:

        1: Mechanical/Electronic failure in the drive. This is again a problem from intermittent power, not sudden drop. For 2 decades even mechanical heads are self parking.

        2: Filesystem integrity. This simply isn't a problem any more. Almost all file systems today have journals and the software that controls them is very good.

        3: Partially written files. This IS the only part that will go wrong from sudden loss. Typically this is not 'bad for your PCs operating system' as they almost never write to important files (unless you are in the middle of an update - that is bad). Otherwise you will just lose whatever save game/document/image you were writing to.

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        Ramrunner on 23/11/2013 - 12:24

        I stand corrected. NTFS has had a partially robust journal since Windows 2000 and XP with version 3.1 a pretty much fully robust one.

        Problem with my doing MY degree back in 1994. The first versions of NTFS had no journal, but that's no excuse for me not knowing that they have had for a decade now. Apologies.

        As for Bruce's 3 points above. 2 is indeed a moot point.

        I stand by my original comment though. A UPS will still protect you from 1 and 3 whereas a surge protector will not.

        I also still believe regardless of mounting evidence that power loss can cause hard drive corruption. Most computer hard drive repairs I get are after power failure. It is a noticeably higher number. My experience. Take it or leave it.

        I personally still have UPS devices on all my computers/NAS devices in the office. Any form of power failure does not bother me in the slightest.