Bad power source. What to buy for protection?

[shellseeker]

I brought home a new MacBook with the super drive this week and an upgrade to 2GB of memory. (So Cool!) I did this instead of replacing the hardrive in my 2004 PowerBook G4 for the second time.

I am wanting to do whatever I can to protect my MacBook. I live in an RV and sometimes the electrical systems in the parks are very old and problematic. I am not sure if the failure of Powerbook was related to this or not, but I do know it could be.

I have heard you can buy a product to protect your equipment from bad power that is a step-up from a power surge strip.

If anyone has any suggestions or brand recommendations please share.

I will appreciate any input.

 

[disconap]

Since you have a laptop with a battery, just buy a high-end surge protector, you should be fine.

 

[Trepex]

See if you can find a deal on a "power conditioner". A straight surge protector will normally only protect from spikes. I hate to say it but Monster's power conditioners really DO work well and sometimes you can find them on sale. There are lots of alternatives though if you look around.

Don't get a UPS though since there's no point for paying for a battery

 

[Poeben]

Sounds like your best protection would be some sort of voltage regulator. I have used units by Furman, but those are designed more for rackmount audio gear.

 

[iDeal]

As remarkable as it may seem, I do know a little about switched mode power supplies. And unless your power supplies drop below about 90volts rms or cuts out for more than 2 seconds you should be absolutely fine. To see what I mean, take the battery out of your computer, boot up on line power and then unplug the computer for say .5sec, your mac should stay alive. If you have a switch on the line side try flicking it fast, the mac should still live. The capacitors, inductors and filters in the powerbrick will do a better job than any other power filters, really. If you are worried, you could try running the computer through some batteries, but than would add quite a lot of fun and games. Please ask any questions. Hope that helps.

 

[shellseeker]

Thank you for input.

I will do a little research on Voltage Regulator and Power Conditioners.

iDeal,

Good information to know.

I have had two concerns. One is the power surges that happen and all power goes off. But they have rebuilt my electrical box with new equipment and I have not had a surge since.

The other is that my 5th wheel is 50 Amp, but I have had to go down to 30 Amp in this park. When I turn on my AC, and we are still doing that in Florida, the lights flicker just a bit, and that concerns me. My MacBook is on a good surge protector. I am just trying to do what "I' can to keep my hard drive from crashing. I am very careful about what I have turned on at one time because I know you have to do that in RV, especially when you have to go down in amps.

Maybe I am worried about nothing. Just some on the forums point to "bad power" as being a reason for hard drive failure.