how to choose surge protector power strip


surge protector plugYou may have never stopped to think about it, but having your equipment at home does not mean you are free to suffer problems caused by reasons beyond our control. This is the case of light surges, which can cause considerable damage and even destroy a normal computer simply by having it connected to the light. So that you have it in mind and know how to avoid major damages, here I leave the experience of years with both my team and with many clients about causes and preventions to avoid breakages due to electrical surges in our PCs .

The first thing I want to comment, is that this is a problem similar to the loss of data, in that if someone tells us the first thing we think is, as it has never happened to me it will not happen to me. Then come the lamentations.

To any of us, while we have connected our equipment to the light or even to the internet through a network cable, we can be ruined, or all together, or any of the components, depending on the type of power surge and nature of it, as well as the type of equipment that we have connected. Also, do not be fooled, not only can it happen to your PC, but also to the TV, mobile, or any electronic device, it will be much more difficult to spoil an old washing machine, or a vacuum cleaner for a reason like this for the simplicity and hardness of his pieces.

What can cause an overvoltage in my house?

When we are in our house, there are many factors that can influence the fluctuations of the current that goes through the cable, think that the automatic that there is in the entrance (and they shoot if we consume more light than they support), they are not filters nor current stabilizers, so that a peak current that is faster than the differential can enter our house, as well as if it is not large enough to shoot it.

In general, unless we short-circuit our installation (voluntarily or involuntarily), or connect an external power source to our installation, there must not be an overvoltage created inside our house, and usually these will come from outside.

A failure in the supply or cuts caused by the companies to perform maintenance can generate a voltage spike, which can lead to the breakage of electronic equipment, but the most common and the least afraid we seem to have when it should be the other way around, is when there’s a storm.

A storm (it does not necessarily have to be electrical, but these aggravate the situation), it can cause the discharge of additional electricity in the wiring of light (outside our house generally), either by lightning, or even by electricity static that accumulates in the environment. These voltage peaks are able to travel through both the light and telephone cables, so we have two access points to our electronic equipment for an overvoltage.

How can our PCs and electronic equipment damage the surge?

First we can find the problem of overvoltage in the light cables, which would cause more energy to enter the wiring with which we have plugged our equipment, and therefore it may be the case that this excess current for which our device is not ready, burn some internal circuit of it.

It could burn the plate of our phone (or a single track would be enough to make it unusable), a power supply of our pc, the motherboard, or even any component that has connected to it.

How to prevent a breakage due to overvoltage in our PC and electronic devices?

The easiest, cheapest and safest, is to unplug them all physically from wall outlets or power strips when we see signs of danger, that is, storms, or when we see a warning that the light will be cut within a few hours, the ideal will be to have everything unplugged while the danger lasts and so for many surges that there will not affect us in the least.

From here you are the one who must choose whether to opt for one of the solutions, or combine them between them, and always remember to disconnect the network cables from the PC and also unplug the monitors in addition to the PC. If you do not usually play online games in real time type Battlefield, you can choose to put usb-Wifi b/g/n and so you take away a headache.

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