My apartment was just hit by a rather nasty power outage/power surge. All of the lights and electricity went out for a split second, then everything came back on almost immediately. It didn't even get completely dark, but my 360, two monitors, and my computer all turned off, and then immediately turned themselves back on. The 360 Red-Ringed at this, but my computer seemed to be OK on startup.
All of these electronic pieces are behind two surge protection strips [
EDIT: By which I mean, spread out amongst two surge protectors, both of which are plugged into the wall separately], both of which have 'indicator' lights to tell if they've been fried or hit by a surge. Neither of them flipped over or show indications that they got fried. So I have two quick questions.
1.) Should I chuck out the surge protectors and get new ones? I remember hearing somewhere that you should do that no matter what when a surge hits them.
2.) Is there any way to check my computer for damage? I'm not sure what kind of damage might result from a power surge, or how I might ensure that it's okay.
Thanks in advance!
Posts
If a surge protector failed to protect your equipment following these guidelines, there should be a warranty. If there isn't, well, buy a new surge protector with a warrenty. I love my Belkins.
PSN: TheScrublet
The 360 might just need to be unplugged for a few to clear the error. Its one of the steps they walk you through if you call support for that error. Unplug the brick and the system.
NintendoID: Nailbunny 3DS: 3909-8796-4685
I have a PC with a 620W PSU, a Radeon 4850, Core2Duo e8400 and a 19" LCD monitor. I want a No Break, to avoid nasty surprises like the 4 hour blackout tuesday night.
How strong in VAs should the No Break be?
Thanks!
Also, don't expect 4-hours of battery run time. My system gets about 15 minutes, which is sufficient to survive a brief outage, or shut the system down properly when there's a longer outage.
(edit) That said, your computer isn't drawing 620W all the time, which is why you might be fine with something rated less, and I wouldn't get hung up on estimated run-times based on that level of power usage.
NintendoID: Nailbunny 3DS: 3909-8796-4685
Oh, crap, sorry, I forgot it had a different name in the US. No Break is a stupid name anyway. Yeah, it's an UPS.
And I only want it to last enough for me to safely shutdown the system. even 5 minutes would be good enough. Also, there are some rare "flash" blackouts, like the power fails for just a second... An UPS would probably stop my PC from shutting down on those occasions.
You can usually tell popped caps by visual inspection. Don't own the monitor but look at the pc's internals to see if anything's blown
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH