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General discussion

HD SURGE PROTECTION

May 9, 2006 1:20AM PDT

Lightening struck very close to our Dallas, TX home the day before we left on vacation. Although we had name brand surge protectors on each computer, lightening fried the cable modem and NIC in one computer and the other will not pass the Power On Self Test (POST) so may have lost motherboard there.

Question: What is the BEST surge rotection for situation like this?

Thanks,

Discussion is locked

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My protection scheme
May 9, 2006 4:41AM PDT

Here's what I did as I have lighten'n stikes constantly in my area(the woods). First, I finally cut down the tree that seemed to promote stikes everytime. On top of this, I used surge protectors of these sorts:

strip surge protector
AC outlet dual protectors, cover oulets(pass thru)
single AC cord protectors for each plug
line conditioner with UPS

I didn't install a circuit breaker type protector as its working good w/o one. One thing I looked for are those surge protectors that have a LED showing "active" so if I got hit, the LED was out and needed replaceemnt. The whole purpose is to protect the system and stero, so it was less costly to repair/replace. With the above protection, on 1 hit, the hit had to go through 4 protection levels, even if it wiped out all, usually the system damage was nil or none. trust me, it was worse before that. Of course when I could, I unplgged the system during storms.

tada -----Willy Happy

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summer cooking...
May 9, 2006 4:48AM PDT

The use of an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) is your best protection. Look at the APC line. This way you only cook the UPS and not the entire system. Surge protectors are rated in "jules" (google it). The higher the jules rating the better the protection. Again APC has a good line of them. I'm not advertising for APC. It's just what I use in my house. Every outlet has at least a surge protector. My "computer room" has a dedicated circuit to the breaker box (I used to design computer rooms).

and life goes on...

Jack

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(NT) (NT) It's spelled Joules. ;-)
May 9, 2006 7:49AM PDT
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(NT) (NT) must be the drugs..... ;-)
May 10, 2006 7:51AM PDT
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Look for a surge protector. . .
May 9, 2006 8:00AM PDT

that has connections for coax and RJ-45. The initial power outlets will protect against strikes coming from the power lines. The coax and RJ-45 jack will protect against strikes on the cable/telephone line.

But know this. A good strike will fry everything: the protector and everything connected to it. Count on it. When storms are in my area I unplug everything. If I leave for any extended length of time I unplug.

My setup is thus:

Surge protector plugged into AC outlet. Cable and WAN cord into Surge protector. UPS (2) plugged into surge protector. Computers (2) plugged into each UPS, modem, router, monitor plugged into each UPS for balance. Another surge protector plugged into the UPS non-battery plug for extra peripherials.

Overkill? I hope so.

Wayne

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Most surge protectors are garbage!
May 16, 2006 2:19AM PDT

I was using good quality TripLite surge protectors throughout the house (for A/V equipment) and one in conjunction with a large APC Back UPS Pro 1000 for my PC setup. A lightning hit last year took out my PC and all of my A/V equipment except for the UPS (although it still works, the surge went through it and fried the PC and router!). For REAL protection from lightning strikes, and for good information on the different types of protectors, check out www.zerosurge.com, brickwall.com, and www.avsforum.com (search for surge suppressor).

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Surge Protectors
May 16, 2006 12:32PM PDT

So what do you recommend if not a surge protector??

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Multiple lines of defense..
May 17, 2006 12:16AM PDT

Did you read any of the information on the url's I posted at the end of my last message?

I've decided to purchase a 2R15W from http://www.zerosurge.com/HTML/standaloneres.html
I'll use that as my first line of defense. Then as secondary protection I'll connect a ''standard'' (MOV type) surge strip to the ZeroSurge and plug my UPS and other equipment into the surge strip.

I'm also considering connecting a ''whole house'' surge supressor at the breaker panel just to help condition all the lines in the entire house (go to homedepot.com and enter ''surge'' in the search field.. they have about 3 different ones).

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Thanks
May 18, 2006 7:36AM PDT

This helped a lot... I found a lot of useful info. Thanks.