"JANA" wrote in message
nications...

These low cost surge protectors are not very good. Your best bet is a
UPS. This way if there is a power cut, your computer will be protected.
You will have a few minutes to save your work and shut down the
computer. If there is a strong surge from lightning, there is not very
much you will be able to do about it.

According to international standards for Europe, North America, and many
other countries, all power supplies must have some type of built in
surge protection. They do the best they can at a reasonable cost.

In reality, when the power company distribution takes a hit, anything on
the AC mains line can be damaged. A little box with a few varistors is
not going to do anything much for you unless it is very elaborate in
design. This will cost a lot more than you would be willing to pay. If
the power lines delivering power to your home get a lightning hit, there
is no way a small surge protector or a small UPS will help. The only
thing you can count on is that the ground on the power entry of your
home does its best to absorb as much as possible.


This is, to say the least, incomplete and unduly pessimistic. The writer
appears to be mouthing half-truths and platitudes; I don't think he has the
least idea what he's talking about.

Any protection is better than none, and as you add surge suppressors around
the house, you get additional protection for everything on the same circuit
(and to a lesser extent, on other circuits).

Twenty years ago, PC Magazine regularly tested surge suppressors. They no
longer do, so there's no way of knowing which are good and which are
ineffective. I have a lot of $80 Belkins that were purchased for $20 or less
from buy.com. I've never had a problem, but then, I have no idea of what
_might_ have happened if they hadn't been connected. *

Some manufacturers offer a warranty that states that, if your equipment is
damaged _and_ the surge suppressor itself is damaged, they will repair or
replace your equipment.

What is commonly called a UPS is actually an SPS. A true UPS would provide
fairly good surge suppression, because it replaces the line voltage with its
own internally generated voltage all the time. An SPS does this _only_
during a brownout or full loss.

You need surge suppressors for anything electronic, and an SPS or UPS for
your computer.

* The only damage anything I owned suffered was a lot of blown
semiconductors in an answering machine using discrete devices. (I fixed it
by systematically replacing shorted or suspect Qs and Ds.)