Its common knowledge that power surges are bad for electroncs and a surge protector is the way to go. But what about the opposite problem. Instead of surges my power decreases frequently, lights dim, fans slow down. Is this dangerous to electronics? Do surge protectors cover this? What are my options?

Thanks,

P

Brownouts as they are known, surge protectors dont cover this problem, you need an interactive UPS that runs online and corrects power, not all do it.

A brownout can kill equipment like too much voltage can as well, but not as common however the unexpected shutdown can cause corruption of data.

Make sure things like Write cache is turned off for harddisk, this should only be used where the hard disk controller has battery backup.

Brownouts as they are known, surge protectors dont cover this problem, you need an interactive UPS that runs online and corrects power, not all do it.

A brownout can kill equipment like too much voltage can as well, but not as common however the unexpected shutdown can cause corruption of data.

Make sure things like Write cache is turned off for harddisk, this should only be used where the hard disk controller has battery backup.

[/quote

Pgrin & Bazmlb,

This very day , I removed the 6 year old battery from my UPS - good and faithful servant - it still showed 13 .3 volts (for a very short time !) we have been getting frequent blackouts/ brownouts,

where the UPS has not been able to sustain the necessary voltage/amps for enough time to carefully save and shut down the system.

Solution :- I ran a a wire (2mm diam +ve & 2mm -ve) from the leads that used to connect to the UPS battery, to a car battery (12 v - 75 amp/hour) which is connected to a 12 volt regulated power supply.

In the event of a black out - the UPS takes over and converts car battery 12 volts DC to 235 volts AC for the PC to continuing running until I can save and shut down safely.

Its common knowledge that power surges are bad for electroncs and a surge protector is the way to go. But what about the opposite problem. Instead of surges my power decreases frequently, lights dim, fans slow down. Is this dangerous to electronics? Do surge protectors cover this? What are my options?

Thanks,

P

get yourself an decent ups asap!

I use one for the computers runs computer for nearly an hour after evrything else powers off. use a TFT they use a lot less power!!

Also use one on the home cinema system a huge apc smart ups

you can tell when they are working with a power surge coz they give a very slight click

but when power drops a lot they kick in like a solenoid switching not too loud though

hope this helps

Its common knowledge that power surges are bad for electroncs and a surge protector is the way to go. But what about the opposite problem. Instead of surges my power decreases frequently, lights dim, fans slow down. Is this dangerous to electronics? Do surge protectors cover this? What are my options?

Thanks,

P

get yourself an decent ups asap!

I use one for the computers runs computer for nearly an hour after evrything else powers off. use a TFT they use a lot less power!!

Also use one on the home cinema system a huge apc smart ups

you can tell when they are working with a power surge coz they give a very slight click

but when power drops a lot they kick in like a solenoid switching not too loud though

hope this helps

forgot to say about the UPS I have it's very very heavy for this kind of protection weighs about 50 /55kgs

Brownouts as they are known, surge protectors dont cover this problem, you need an interactive UPS that runs online and corrects power, not all do it.

A brownout can kill equipment like too much voltage can as well, but not as common however the unexpected shutdown can cause corruption of data.

Make sure things like Write cache is turned off for harddisk, this should only be used where the hard disk controller has battery backup.

[/quote

Pgrin & Bazmlb,

This very day , I removed the 6 year old battery from my UPS - good and faithful servant - it still showed 13 .3 volts (for a very short time !) we have been getting frequent blackouts/ brownouts,

where the UPS has not been able to sustain the necessary voltage/amps for enough time to carefully save and shut down the system.

Solution :- I ran a a wire (2mm diam +ve & 2mm -ve) from the leads that used to connect to the UPS battery, to a car battery (12 v - 75 amp/hour) which is connected to a 12 volt regulated power supply.

In the event of a black out - the UPS takes over and converts car battery 12 volts DC to 235 volts AC for the PC to continuing running until I can save and shut down safely.

the only thing you have to be acareful of here is the charging circuit, some UPS's wont handle a larger re charge load like this. Yours may others might not