PSU surge protection..?

spleenharvester · 16 May 2009 at 12:53

Why isn't there much of it about, for 4-pin etc :confused:

I am talking about the internal PSU connectors, take the Tagan Power Forge for example, it connects to the PSU connector, goes through a fuse, and then connects to the graphics card - am I missing something here? they seem like a very good idea to me.

Sasahara · 16 May 2009 at 23:15

Most decent PSUs will have some sort of overload protection.

spleenharvester · 17 May 2009 at 17:21

There can never really be a guarantee though, that's the problem.

westom · 17 May 2009 at 19:12

spleenharvester said:
There can never really be a guarantee though, that's the problem.

Only that overpower protection, overcurrent protection, and overvoltage protection has been standard on power supplies even long before the original IBM PC existed.

Meanwhile, what does that Tagan device do? What do the spec numbers claim? If it did something useful, that function would already be on the graphics card. But 'word association' alone is sufficent for people to kow it must do something? What is the problem to be solved? How can it be a good idea if the problem is not even defined? That is also how Saddam had WMDs.

spleenharvester · 17 May 2009 at 21:02

I've seen PSUs with "overcurrent protection" and all of that stuff take all sorts of kit out with them, including graphics cards. It's just an extra form of protection, that's all..

JonJ678 · 17 May 2009 at 23:02

Cheap psu's kill things when they die. Expensive ones don't. So don't buy a cheap one.

Extra protection? I see an extra two points of failure introduced. If concerned, run the psu off a 'power conditioner', which might conceivably do more than the three capacitors wired into normal surge protected sockets.

It's a solution to a problem which isn't there

AtaRo · 17 May 2009 at 23:13

JonJ678 said:
Extra protection? I see an extra two points of failure introduced. If concerned, run the psu off a 'power conditioner', which might conceivably do more than the three capacitors wired into normal surge protected sockets.

Totally agree with this.
A decent PSU will already smooth out its output voltage + the loads will also have its own circuits to further filter the voltage that goes through it.

westom · 18 May 2009 at 00:48

spleenharvester said:
I've seen PSUs with "overcurrent protection" and all of that stuff take all sorts of kit out with them, including graphics cards.

The graphics card took out itself - with or without a Tagan device. Power supply overvoltage can cause graphics board damage. But then overvoltage also took out the motherboard, disk drive, etc. IOW power suppy did not damage a graphics card.

Does the supply have overvoltage protection? If not, damage is directly traceable to a naive human. Often one who only sees price - does not demand numeric specifications.

Urban myths promote a fuse as protection. A fuse only does what overcurrent protection does. Anything that Tagan device might do is already provided by a power supply. With or without Tagan, your graphics card damage would still occur.

It sells because it implies something it cannot do. Then a naive majority recommend it. Same technique proved Saddam had WMDs. Anything a Tagan might accomplish was required in power supplies long before the IBM PC even existed. And still some see graphics card damage; then assume a supply caused that damage; then *know* supply did that damage. Just another example of how Tagan gets promoted.

JonJ678 · 18 May 2009 at 01:20

Bit confused by you there. Tagan as developers of the inline protection thing should be slated, but their power supplies themselves are pretty good.

Other things than power supplies kill graphics cards. Sometimes though, everything in the box expires, at which point it's difficult to blame anything else