Surge protector for PC hardware

Associate
Joined
28 Jul 2014
Posts
273
Hello guys, what do you think which surge protector will be good for a PC?
I am confused which one i really need to buy
I know belkin are decent, but i prefer something with single row and more sockets
 
IMO if you want to protect your pc hardware you should be looking at a UPS not a surge protector.
 
+1 for UPS. We had some issues with mains recently, hasn't happened for a while then a few together. When it's a blip sometimes the only thing in the house that it still working is my PC due to the capacitors in the PSU I guess (luck), my NAS restarted which isn't good, so I have been thinking of UPS lately myself. Then it went off for 30 secs, which is even more a vote for UPS. But I'll buy one and there won't be any mains issues for 5 years!.. :) so it depends what its protecting and if you think a surge might damage said device, but PSUs are pretty good at filtering the crap imo.

In terms of what to get, they seem to start around £60-120 and up from there, they can have USB connection to run with software and tell your PC to safely shutdown after n minutes if that's what you need etc. Or to save money could just have a dumb UPS which keeps running for n minutes which would be ok for a short power outage.
 
Last edited:
Another vote for UPS.

With some many devices using memory cards & SSDs (Raspberry PI & Video cameras etc) I couldnt afford any of them to fail during a critical write operation.
 
I know belkin are decent, but i prefer something with single row and more sockets

All the cheap surge protectors do very little, they use a MOV to divert extra voltage, however the MOV's wear out + a large surge they still can't cope with.

The makers of these products offer the free insurance if your hardware fails, however it almost impossible to claim.

https://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-...8022-belkin-when-is-a-warranty-not-a-warranty

As others have mentioned, get a UPS.
 
I ended up talking myself into getting a UPS !

CyberPower BRICs BR700ELCD and confirmed it works via USB in QNAP TS-128A NAS. I fact it states the battery would run it for 2 hours.. that should do it :). I set it to safely shutdown after 10 mins. This is an entry level UPS I'm sure but it has USB connection and the battery is replaceable, sorted (and recommended). I might run a cable over to my PC as well (NAS in the kitchen to remove HDD noise from PC), obviously the 2 hours battery backup would drop to about 4 mins if I did that.
 
Back
Top Bottom