Surge Protector Strangeness? (Updated)

Lucky Cynic

Hey guys, I've got like a 2 or 3 year old APC surge protector/battery power strip brick thing. Recently I decided to move my stuff into a different room and of course, a different wall outlet. Well, now there is a gentle and low sort of buzzing sound, as if there was a hair clipper on or something, but it isn't all THAT loud however it is quite noticeable. What should I do?

Try and swap outlets perhaps or maybe go out and buy another? I'd really hate to have to do that...

zanetheinsane

The exact same thing happened to us at our place, where we have some shitty wiring in some parts. There are two solutions you can go by here. First is to get some ferrite rings (RadioShack sometimes has them) to put around your cables to try to filter out noise. Monoprice has some nice 24AWG Ferrite Cores for a decent price.

The second solution (which we went with) was to buy a slightly more expensive surge protector. This Phillips model was the one we went with, they sell them at Wal-Mart and K-mart for about the same price (probably cheaper minus shipping). They specifically list that they have eletronic noise-filtering on the box and we haven't had any problems since.

This is one of those cases where a more expensive name-brand model is going to actually work.

Lucky Cynic

Okay. A bit of an update. Turns out it was not the surge protetector but that big brick thing that powers my 7.1 speakers and subwoofer. It's always run a bit warm but it does buzz and it is annoying and kind of worrying. What can I do about that now?

ZackSchilling

Lucky Cynic wrote: »

Okay. A bit of an update. Turns out it was not the surge protetector but that big brick thing that powers my 7.1 speakers and subwoofer. It's always run a bit warm but it does buzz and it is annoying and kind of worrying. What can I do about that now?

Buzzing power bricks that were not buzzing before can mean impending failure. When it fails, it could take out the speakers. This exact thing happened to an external HD enclosure of mine. The power supply starting buzzing, got steadily louder, and then died, taking the enclosure with it. If it's a replaceable part, GET IT REPLACED, NOW.

Lucky Cynic

ZackSchilling wrote: »

Lucky Cynic wrote: »

Okay. A bit of an update. Turns out it was not the surge protetector but that big brick thing that powers my 7.1 speakers and subwoofer. It's always run a bit warm but it does buzz and it is annoying and kind of worrying. What can I do about that now?

Buzzing power bricks that were not buzzing before can mean impending failure. When it fails, it could take out the speakers. This exact thing happened to an external HD enclosure of mine. The power supply starting buzzing, got steadily louder, and then died, taking the enclosure with it. If it's a replaceable part, GET IT REPLACED, NOW.

How sure are you of this? >_>;

ZackSchilling

Well, I had this power brick connected to an external drive enclosure. One day it started buzzing. I thought it was my old APC surge protector. I removed that and the buzzing continued. I tried to ignore it for a few days but it kept getting louder. Then, one day, the buzzing stopped and my external drives stopped responding. I looked down and the LEDs were on but the drives had stopped spinning and my computer no longer recognized the device. Its power brick was hot as the sun. I unplugged the power cord and tested it with a voltmeter. There was a 5v and a 12v supply line. 5v tested fine, 12v tested like holy shit that's a lot of volts. I found a replacement power brick and the drives would spin up but still no luck getting the computer to see the thing. I RMA'd the enclosure and supply, got a new one, put back in the hard drives, and then everything was fine.

So yes, I am pretty sure the process was buzzing -> failure -> broken device. I'm lucky I didn't lose the hard drives.