On Thursday, October 28, 2004, at 02:54 PM, David Dudine wrote:
For protection of the computer against surges on the AC line, and as a top
notch line noise filter, I recommend the Brick Wall. Pay attention to their
explanation of MOVs and the common practice of diverting the surge to
I'm going to mention something that is a little different than these recc's for surge protectors/ battery backed up things and mention something even more important:
Your best (and only, really) defense against lightning, and any originating-external-to-the-house issues, is: proximity to ground. you could have a $500 backUPS type solution in your computer room but if it's a long way from house ground, or even not grounded WELL as many older houses can be (and a 3 prong plug does not a ground make) it is not doing any real good against surges.
A good "whole house surge protector" that goes in your breaker panel (and is likely installed by an electrician, total cost about $250 maybe, $45-75 of which is the part) is so much better than anything you can add secondarily at an outlet (again, for surges). Without a good ground, all those BackUP UPS's and Bricks are not very effective against external issues, you'd be better off doing something at the breaker box in almost all cases- unless your computer room is right next to the house ground (which only occurs at the breaker box). It's one of those paths-of-least-resistance things- without a good path, the surge isn't going ANYWHERE even if you have a $300 protector. It has to get dumped to SOMETHING.
You still should have a battery-backed up UPS to help against sags. And also internal to the house surges are common and won't be helped by the breaker box protector, you still need the BackUPS or Brick for that.
Somewhere I have archived a post about this and a listing of part numbers for whole house protectors you can install- a good supply shop will know about them. Home Depot used to carry them but quit doing so a year or two ago. I've emailed the post to a few people who were building their house from the ground up; their electricians said it was 100% correct. Some guy would post it to one of comp.sys.mac.* groups some time ago, whenever someone asked about BackUPS-type solutions.
I need to find it again, if I can I'll post it here. It is good info.
On a side note- when I was buying a real signal conditioner (no battery backup, just signal conditioning) for some sensitive lab equipment 5 years ago, entry level on things that really worked well (with ONE plugin on them) was about $400. I've not looked since then, but in things electronic, the price does reflect what you are getting.
HTH.
Brian
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