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Buying a surge protector/UPS for my new TV?
XenoScholar
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I recently purchased an excellent LCD TV (a Sharp Aquos 42" model). The person at the store recommended that I get a surge protector with this.
I understand why it is theoretically important to own a surge protector, but my experiences with them haven't been too great. They usually don't work when a surge comes that is capable of damaging equipment anyway. Is there a risk to LCD TVs in particular in the event of minor power spikes and such? The person at the store said pixels may become dead, but I don't know how likely that really is if the power spikes are small. Do I really need one?
Also, I'm looking to protect my TV, my amp, my subwoofer, and probably also my game consoles (because I'll have extra power outlets, might as well use them). Should I get a UPS for all this? Is a surge protector better? How much should I be spending on one of these? The person at the store recommended one of these three models (one, two, three), with the latter, most expensive model being the best because of its high-rated power and all that.
I'm a little lost with all this. I don't want to spend $250 on a surge protector, because that seems insane. But I don't want to spend $80 on a surge protector that won't do anything.
Anyone who is more knowledgeable about this than me, lend me a hand! Thanks!
I understand why it is theoretically important to own a surge protector, but my experiences with them haven't been too great. They usually don't work when a surge comes that is capable of damaging equipment anyway. Is there a risk to LCD TVs in particular in the event of minor power spikes and such? The person at the store said pixels may become dead, but I don't know how likely that really is if the power spikes are small. Do I really need one?
Also, I'm looking to protect my TV, my amp, my subwoofer, and probably also my game consoles (because I'll have extra power outlets, might as well use them). Should I get a UPS for all this? Is a surge protector better? How much should I be spending on one of these? The person at the store recommended one of these three models (one, two, three), with the latter, most expensive model being the best because of its high-rated power and all that.
I'm a little lost with all this. I don't want to spend $250 on a surge protector, because that seems insane. But I don't want to spend $80 on a surge protector that won't do anything.
Anyone who is more knowledgeable about this than me, lend me a hand! Thanks!
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Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
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Odds are, you don't need one. Surge protector? Yes a billion times. People with bad experiences with them usually use power strips, not surge protectors. Or, they use a cheap piece of crap that won't do anything.
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-12-Outlet-Protector-Ethernet-Protection/dp/B000HPX46U
I have two of those. They're great. They have long cables, and everythings surprisingly flat.
The only problem is I live in Canada, so I can't buy that direct from Amazon.com without ridiculous shipping costs. I'll check my local computer store tomorrow, their website seems to indicate they have comparable models to that Belkin.
Going without a surge protector is just a dumb idea, then?
Current characters done: Ryu, Dan, C. Viper
Xbox Live: Infilament
And yes, stupid idea to not use one for two reasons.
1) Protect your shit, surge destruction happens
2) I personally have 8 components to my home theatre right now. I used to have 12, but I moved some things around.
Screw the "local stores" - find a major chain and pricematch them back and forth to get the price to where you want it. Check FutureShop/BestBuy - they'll probably have the Belkin listed for not much more. Also try Staples - if you're over $50, it's free shipping.
Also, if anyone tries to get you to buy Monster-brand anything, tell them to get fucked.
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really go to walmart or something, dont pay shipping for something most stores have.
I recently purchased a Panamax surge protector that was about $100. why $100 you may ask? Let me tell you why. It was very nicely featured surge protector with two outlets that was WALL MOUNTABLE with two recessed outlets. I was very nicely able to conceal a worthy surge protector behind my LCD tv and have plenty of room for the electrical cable.
Look around before getting something retarded just because it's cheap. Look at things like maximum current, trip voltage, and response times and you'll quickly find out why some protectors are much more expensive.
Edit: also, look for something that offers a monetary guarantee that it protects your equipment. Like 25k or something like that if your equipment is surged while that is functioning.
True.
UPSs also protect against not just outages, but over- (note, this is different than a voltage spike) and under-voltage situations. Then you get into other more exotic conditions such as line noise, switching transients, harmonic distortions, and a few variations of high/low voltage conditions. Those you may or may not encounter depending on your local conditions in your building or municipality.
Debatable. I'd argue false.
All the above situations can all damage or seriously reduce your equipment life if they're present and unaddressed. Also, as you mention, a lot of electronics don't like being abruptly powered down - especially things with any sort of storage. Your DVR or XBox 360 won't necessarily survive losing power in the middle of a disk write, depending on the situation (ranging from bricking the box if it was in the middle of a firmware update, to just wrecking your 40-hour savegame in another).
There are plenty of crap surge protectors that are in fact, really surge protectors. They often times fail spectacularly even without actually being hit with a surge (I've seen crappy surge protectors just melt down because of bad design and constuction). It's true that because now almost every power strip claims (rightly or wrongly) surge protection of one degree or another, when people encounter a true vanilla power strip they might wrongly think they are protected when they are not, but the sad truth is that even a lot of surge protectors are worse than useless (literally - they can damage connected equipment or cause fires when they fail).
Surge protectors DO NOT protect your equipment against damage in the same way a UPS does. They are primarily to prevent the devices from being plugged in from slagging and causing a fire, not so much for actually preventing damage of the equipment itself. If a surge protector prevents a fire, it has performed its job. If you read into the specs, most good surge protectors don't kick in until the line voltage is around 5-6 times normal (clamping voltage), and still let through a significant amount of energy in joules. Most equipment isn't designed to withstand this, but chances are it won't burst into flames. Also, be aware that a direct lightning strike is well outside of the protection range of any consumer-grade surge protector. If you take a direct hit, your stuff will go foom if it is plugged in (in might even still do so even if the strip is turned off - those transients can actually jump the gap on the power switch).
Read the enclosed warranty claims information very carefully. Last I checked, even on the more reputable manufacturers, the requirements were onerous, to say the least. Most require that you retain at least the original purchase receipt and UPC code. Some may require the original pacakging entirely be retained. Most require that all connected equipment be plugged into the surge protector (you can't have the TV plugged into one, and the Stereo plugged into another but still connected to the TV, etc.), or that the surge protector be connected to anything but directly to the wall. Numerous cases of claims being vigorously disputed or stalled exist. YMMMV, but be aware that those equipment "insurance" policies may be worth less than the paper they're written on.
Also, keep in mind that most surge protectors use metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) or other components to absorb the surges. These components have a finite life and can usually only take one big hit (or several smaller ones) before the protection they offer is exhausted. You will not necessarily know when that protection has been consumed (even though some surge protectors offer idiot lights that say "protected", there's no assurance those indicators are anything other than power on lights, or that the surge protector still actually has any useful life left in it - I have surge protectors that are a decade old that the protection lights have never extinguished, I doubt very much it's because they're still good).
I use surge protectors as outlet expanders or extension cords. If I want to protect my equipment, I plug it into a UPS. There are plenty of inexpensive models that are decent. Cyberpower has a line of relatively inexpensive (read: disposable) UPSes that are well within the budget-minded's range. APC is hideously overpriced for the home user, but does have the advantage that they're the only UPS that's natively supported in Windows without additional drivers or management software (which turns out to be rather crucial if you plan on using one with a Windows Home Server), although they offer software as well (free for the single-system desktop, a more expensive product for enterprise management).
For the love of god, don't buy Monster's brand of UPS, line conditioners, or UPSes. We will have to point and laugh at you. I did actually look at them once. They didn't even offer any technical specifications on the boxes or product literature, and that's just the starters.
For a TV and multimedia setup like that, as has been said, no need for a UPS unless you have the cash to spend. I've found that usually the more spots a power strip has open, and the more sturdily built it is, the better off you'll be. Name brands are also a pretty decent idea, I think. I love my Powersentry strips.
Of course there weren't any specifications. When you're selling the greatest goddamn product on the earth you don't need to list specs on the box or even disclose them. Whatever the customer is comparing them to, Monster's will be better every time. Every time! I think you'll clearly see now that listing them would serve little purpose.
/sarcasm
Whoa...hrzup...what just happened there? I think I was channeling a Best Buy employee.
Bah. In my long dissertation, I forgot to mention - UPSes do not have any inherent surge-protection features. Nearly all UPS manufactureres include surge protectors built into the UPS, but UPSes aren't surge protectors themselves (the exception are UPSes that completely decouple the input voltage from the equipment supply, but since I doubt you'll be installing a giant 8-ton kinetic ups, I don't suspect that'll apply).
The conclusion I forgot to include is that for protecting stuff that cares if it suddenly loses power, or has the power drop in and out rapidly (which would include things that include any sort of writable storage such as DVRs and game consoles), you may want to consider getting a UPS. Seeing as most UPSes will be practically unloaded, might as well plug in the TV as well. In fact, you may have to be covered by the equipment protection warranty (whether it be a UPS or surge protector), keep in mind in order to be covered usually all connections have to run through the protector: power, phone, coax, ethernet - for all equipment that is connected. Regardless of what you choose to purchase, read the fine print carefully and make sure you follow it to the letter. They will not pay out willingly, or with any urgency.
I don't know how sensitive modern HDTVs are to power fluctuations, but I suspect a UPS will be much kinder on your TV's life. Whether its necessary depends on how bad your power is. Where I've lived, the Summer was a bad time for any sort of electronics, because the heavy demand on power for air conditioning meant power sags and overvoltage (as well as transients on the house power when the AC would turn on and off). I have specific needs that call for both surge protection and battery backup, and because of the interconnectivity of the AV system, everything's plugged into the UPS.
To spell out my situation a bit more, I have an APC UPS which I bought for a little over $100 two years ago or so. It protects my computer only at the moment (and all attached accessories). It's rated for 750 watts, apparently, and my power supply for my PC is somewhere around 500 W, so I think it's fairly close to being loaded. My family has protected their PCs with APC products for years, so my dad recommended I get this particular brand.
My home theater setup has the following components which I would want protected: my LCD TV (which, according to the manual, consumes 215 W of power), the amp all my speakers are hooked up to (250 W or so), my subwoofer (don't know the wattage), and, ideally, whatever consoles I can hook up to it. I have a PS2, Wii, 360, and N64 which are used frequently... this means I could use 7 outlets for maximum convenience. Is a 750W UPS capable of handling this load? I don't know if those numbers refer to maximum wattage that it rarely ever reaches or whatnot.
I think you've convinced me that a UPS is the way I need to go. I live in an area which has unreliable power at times... our UPSes have saved our PCs on a number of occasions from complete power blackouts to the house due to storms and just general weirdness. Even since I've purchased this new TV which was less than a month ago, the power has sort of surged once or twice, turning the TV and all surrounding electronics off (and the lights flashed, but remained on), and our UPSes beeped at us. I'm willing to spend some reasonable money on a solution that will actually protect my equipment... if I need a $100 UPS, I'm willing to do that if I can use my electronics without worrying during a rainstorm. I have an HD satellite receiver which is plugged into my TV through an HDMI cable, so I'm not sure how much I need those power bars which claim to "de-snow" noisy cable pictures.
You say APC is too expensive for what I get? I should look at a different model for this setup?
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UPSes are not generally rated in Watts (W), they're rating in Volt-Amps (VA), which is pretty confusting, since Watts are, generally, Volts times Amps. You'd think they're the same thing. They're not.
The power drawn by computing equipment is expressed in Watts or Volt-Amps (VA). The power in Watts is
the real power drawn by the equipment. Volt-Amps are called the "apparent power" and are the product of
the voltage applied to the equipment times the current drawn by the equipment. UPS have both maximum Watt ratings and maximum VA ratings. Neither the Watt nor the VA rating of a UPS may be exceeded.[1]
[1] http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/SADE-5TNQYF_R0_EN.pdf
APC recommends that the VA rading of the load be no more than 60% of the VA rating of the UPS.
If you really have a 750 VA load, you're going to need a 1250 (or more) UPS.
That's just salesbait. That's line (or power) conditioning, which is another class of power devices where there's a lot of snake oil out there. You can't clean up noisy power (on significant frequencies) with a just power bar. Generally you need a number of good-sized capactiors (which is all the power bar will use, if that), and a very heavy transformer. You'll see the same sort of nonsense on Monster's product literature.
To see another example of a bad power conditioning product, see this: http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2008/06/24/the-nothing-card/
APC at list price is pretty expensive, but refurbs (or used) are good deals. I've got several old APCs that I bought used or refurbed, and I've only replaced the batteries (with non-APC-branded sealed lead-acid) as they've worn out. APC isn't a bad brand, but it usually offers more (and does have that "name-brand" tax) that a lot of home users may not need.
I think however, that if you've done your power calculations correctly, you are going to need a pretty grunty UPS, which may exceed your budget in all cases (going over 750VA generally jumps a price plateu). Cyberpower and a few other brands may have a unit that will meet your needs, but it will probably be closer to $200 than $100.