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Surge protector or wall outlet??

Moneymiike420

Moneymiike420

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 18, 2012
189
63
I currently have my new 27" iMac plugged into a couple year old belkin surge protector.im just wondering if this is ok being that it's a powerful expensive unit I wanna make sure I'm not gonna damage it in the long run....any suggestions or opinions in this would be highly appreciative thanks in advance !
 
I didn't say it will my question Was that I'm using a couple years old surge ,and wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a problem.im sure it's fine I dusted it before I plugged in I'm just anal about electronics ,the hdd click upon bootup or wake up kind of irks me .any tiny sound like that gets me anxious but I probably have absolutely nothin to worry about
 
Moneymiike420 said:
I didn't say it will my question Was that I'm using a couple years old surge ,and wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a problem.im sure it's fine I dusted it before I plugged in I'm just anal about electronics ,the hdd click upon bootup or wake up kind of irks me .any tiny sound like that gets me anxious but I probably have absolutely nothin to worry about
Click to expand...

Good surges have a warranty / guarantee period. Check if you're within that.
 
All surge protectors are not equal. Last Friday I just replaced my mother-in-laws' TV and computer after lightning hit her townhouse. I had "protected" her devices with a ~$20.00 Belkin surge protector. I would look for more Joules than what inexpensive protectors offer and expect to get what you pay for.
 
You can get a consumer UPS system that will protect your system from power surges/outages.

They cost between 50-70 dollars, and will power your computer for about 15 minutes, gives you time to save your work and shut down
 
G51989 said:
You can get a consumer UPS system that will protect your system from power surges/outages.

They cost between 50-70 dollars, and will power your computer for about 15 minutes, gives you time to save your work and shut down
Click to expand...

Exactly. The OP was probably looking at enterprise level ones.

It will also protect any external hard drives and other devices you have hooked up to your iMac. Protection against brownouts, overvoltage, and EMI/RF filtering is nice too. $100 investment is well worth making to have peace of mind IMO.

This is the one I'm thinking about getting pretty soon: http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP1000PFCLCD-Compatible-1000VA-Tower/dp/B00429N192/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pdT1_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&coliid=I22E4B51NC9RMQ&colid=3VNUFKS2PPKS0. Keep in mind I have two studio monitors for mixing. You could easily get by with one that's 400W if you're just using it for your iMac.
 
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Dornblaser said:
Apple has nice options ranging from $59.99 - 199.99. There is no need to go to enterprise level ones. Here are a couple of options that will be better than the inexpensive surge protectors that are sold in office supply stores, super markets, etc.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/TY121LL/A?n=ups&fnode=5a&s=topSellers

http://store.apple.com/us/product/H0880LL/A?n=ups&fnode=5a&s=topSellers
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Those two are pretty much exactly what you see in places like Staples/Best buy.

Only its more money on the apple store :p

I forget what model mine is, but I picked mine up at a Staples about a year ago, it was 75 dollars, and protects pretty much everything. I bought 8 of them for all my PC's/servers in my house. They're awseome.
 
G51989 said:
Those two are pretty much exactly what you see in places like Staples/Best buy.

Only its more money on the apple store :p

I forget what model mine is, but I picked mine up at a Staples about a year ago, it was 75 dollars, and protects pretty much everything. I bought 8 of them for all my PC's/servers in my house. They're awseome.
Click to expand...

Yes, of course my comment was aimed at the inexpensive protectors, I will edit to my post.
 
Dornblaser said:
Yes, of course my comment was aimed at the inexpensive protectors, I will edit to my post.
Click to expand...

Yeah, just stay away from those indeed.

Now, if you don't care about backup power for 15 or so minutes,

you can get A decent surge protector for about 25-30 bucks, it just won't have any battery back up
 
Dornblaser said:
Actually, those surge protectors are the ones that I suggest that you stay away from. I would look for at 3,500 Joules protection.
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I say stay away from the ****** 30 dollar UPS's, and the ****** 10 dollar surge protectors,

A 30 dollar surge protector tho, more often than not will protect your data, it just won't keep power on for a couple of minutes. If you don't care about instant shut down, its the way to go.
 
I have one of these protecting my mac mini, airport, printer, surround system, PS2 (yes, it's old, shut up), apple tv, external hard drives, cable modem, 37" led tv, and my death ray. It's a bit pricier, but worth it. A week after I moved into my new place, a wind storm hit that kept tossing surges at our house. 141 events in a hour, nothing reboot, although the TV turned off a few times.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102133

I love the USB ports on the front. I charge my apple stuff nice and fast, and my android buddies can top off while they are visiting.

Another thing to note about UPS devices (always get one with pure sine wave or similar. new computers dislike the old style) is that OSX recognizes most of them without extra software. Just plug it in and it will show up in the upper left with a charge level similar to how it would work on a macbook.

----------

I have one of these protecting my mac mini, airport, printer, surround system, PS2 (yes, it's old, shut up), apple tv, external hard drives, cable modem, 37" led tv, and my death ray. It's a bit pricier, but worth it. A week after I moved into my new place, a wind storm hit that kept tossing surges at our house. 141 events in a hour, nothing reboot, although the TV turned off a few times.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102133

I love the USB ports on the front. I charge my apple stuff nice and fast, and my android buddies can top off while they are visiting.

Another thing to note about UPS devices (always get one with purse sine wave or similar. new computers dislike the old style) is that OSX recognizes most of them without extra software. Just plug it in and it will show up in the upper right with a charge level similar to how it would work on a macbook.

Short version: hit up newegg, cyberpower is a good brand, you get what you pay for, death rays need surge protection too
 
Sorry about my noob ish reply I'm still very new to Mac and the first price I saw was about 1500 lol didn't realize they had those for around 1-200 bucks. My main concern was that indidnt want my Mac to get internal damage somehow from the surge but I think I'll be fine without a ups thing considering I don't do a lot of work tasks or powerful tasks with my Mac
 
Moneymiike420 said:
I think I'll be fine without a ups thing considering I don't do a lot of work tasks or powerful tasks with my Mac
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Has nothing whatsover to do with the type of tasks you use the Mac for. It's about protecting your investment from not just power surges, but brownouts and momentary power failures also, which can wreak havoc on your hard drive, and its data, not to mention the other electronics.

A UPS costs <$100 and is very cheap insurance against "death by power company".
 
Price is no guide to quality or performance, I've got a Crest power board which has better spec when it comes to surge protection that Belkin and most others on the market and it cost half as much. It's so good I got a new one when I move the G5 PowerMac for my new iMac, because of set up issues I'll be using the new one on this Mac and the old one on my new iMac (when Apple bothers to update them).

Most surge protectors are going to be useless if your house takes a direct hit from lightning but that said you're much better off with any surge protector than nothing at all.

I never had much luck with UPS, had one once and it had a habit of switching to battery even when the power was still on and everything else in the house was still working.
 
UPS Variety

There are a bunch of good UPS systems available that you can match to your Mac system that will power your computer, hard drive and assorted other bits such as your wi-fi router and TV (so the Netflix movie doesn't go south with the A/C current) and my grandson's iPad running off the wi-fi doesn't interrupt his Call of Duty battle too suddenly. If you shut down the computer or the UPS does it for you gracefully, you have a comfortable experience instead of a @#$%^&&&&&* one when a lightning surge blows the transformer across the street or fries your surge protector.:mad:

I have three UPS in my house protecting three separate computer systems and their ancillary gadgets as well as my wifi router. When the storms pass by with lots of lightning, wind, and heavy rain, hail, etc, Central Maine Power with their vast array of electric supply wires all hanging up in our lush pine forests are frequently smashed thereby as well as our winter ice storms dropping the wires. CMP has frequently had our power back up in a few minutes, so a little patience before shutting down prevents interrupting work for a while.

My systems don't notice other than having the UPS software alert us that main power has gone away and we should shut down in 15 minutes or so. Plenty of time to stop work and shut down gracefully without any panic.

Check out http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=27 for their assortment of varied capacity UPS, starting at $139.99. You can add up the wattage load total of your system and pick the size system you need. All the sizes of the UPS Pro on that site include management software. The systems communicate with your Mac through UPS to tell it when something nasty happens. I don't work for APC or own stock in the company, but have had over ten years happy experience with their product.

They have a battery replacement program for the day when your battery dies (mine have lasted from four to six years). They swap you a new one with a free return UPS label for the dead one at a very reasonable price.

If you can afford a Mac, you should be able to afford to protect it better than a cheap Radio Shack surge protector and enjoy the comfort of no sudden shut downs in the middle of a project.
 
WilliamDu is a very smart man and I echo his sentiments. We live in a glitch-prone part of the power grid and I have nearly a dozen UPS systems for computing and AV as well as surge protectors on every piece of AC-power electronic gear I own. Someone will say "yeah your elephant repellent is working too" but I've had no problems living in this blackout/brownout/surge/lightning-plagued area for 10 years.

WilliamDu said:
[APC has] a battery replacement program for the day when your battery dies (mine have lasted from four to six years). They swap you a new one with a free return UPS label for the dead one at a very reasonable price.
Click to expand...
I didn't know this, will have to look into it, thanks!

WilliamDu said:
If you can afford a Mac, you should be able to afford to protect it better than a cheap Radio Shack surge protector and enjoy the comfort of no sudden shut downs in the middle of a project.
Click to expand...
I'd add to "no sudden shutdowns" "or power-induced hard drive problems with accompanying data loss".

Other than that, I couldn't have said it better myself! :)
 
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