Cable Modem/Router and Back up Power Supplies?

[Diablo2K]

A while back I was having problems with my Internet. I had to have support come out 3 times before things were fixed. They replaced my router and modem several times, grounded the system, changed the cables ect. One thing the supervisor said on the 3rd visit is that the Router needs plugged directly into the wall and not into a power strip where I had it. I was not having any issues with the router, my pings to the router were always less than 1ms, never had any dropped connections or any other router problems.
I am thinking about getting a UPS, maybe THESE I could use the smaller one for the router/modem and the other for my laptop and other stuff on my desk, mainly a couple wall chargers. We have power drops and the lights will dim every once in a while and I would like more stable power going to my Modem/Router and other equipment.
Would this be a good setup? Would the router have any issues being plugged into the UPS?

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

One thing the supervisor said on the 3rd visit is that the Router needs plugged directly into the wall and not into a power strip where I had it.

Yeah, this is BS. Electrically, a basic power strip is no different that the wiring in the walls. The filters/etc. in the more expensive suppressors would have no detrimental effect.

I am thinking about getting a UPS, maybe THESE I could use the smaller one for the router/modem and the other for my laptop and other stuff on my desk, mainly a couple wall chargers. We have power drops and the lights will dim every once in a while and I would like more stable power going to my Modem/Router and other equipment.

Something like that is probably fine for the router/modem/etc. Those don't draw much too power on their own.

The laptop already has it's own built-in battery of course, so there's no real need for a UPS for it. I also wouldn't bother for chargers, a blip isn't going to hurt your phone. Just get a good suppressor for those.

 

[Diablo2K]

Yeah, this is BS. Electrically, a basic power strip is no different that the wiring in the walls. The filters/etc. in the more expensive suppressors would have no detrimental effect.




Something like that is probably fine for the router/modem/etc. Those don't draw much too power on their own.

The laptop already has it's own built-in battery of course, so there's no real need for a UPS for it. I also wouldn't bother for chargers, a blip isn't going to hurt your phone. Just get a good suppressor for those.

Suppressor?

Ok, Thanks for your input. I kind of had the feeling that a UPS for my laptop and chargers was overkill.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Yeah, this is BS. Electrically, a basic power strip is no different that the wiring in the walls. The filters/etc. in the more expensive suppressors would have no detrimental effect.

The reason that the supervisor said that is because not all power strips are equal, and people are stupid. I've come across many power strips over the years that were literal death traps from abuse. Like having a space heater plugged in that melted half the strip, or covered in cat piss and random detritus that caused power issues.

I can't tell you how many times I've wasted hours or days trying to provide support to someone that had a power strip like this and offending equipment plugged into it that was malfunctioning. You have no idea how frustrating it is when you find that smoking gun and learned all the time you spent troubleshooting was a massive waste of time.

Yes, you can plug things into power strips, the guy was just trying to save himself from unnecessary headaches.

The laptop already has it's own built-in battery of course, so there's no real need for a UPS for it. I also wouldn't bother for chargers, a blip isn't going to hurt your phone. Just get a good suppressor for those.

A laptop battery is not in any way the same as a UPS. The internal laptop battery is for portable use, a UPS is for equipment protection.

As someone who deals with literally blown up equipment all the time from power surges and lightning strikes, if you have an electronic device, it needs to be on a UPS.

Here's a recent one. Blew chunks out of the ethernet controller chip, and shot flames out the top right with a sooty skidmark.

Router forcibly detonated from nearby lightning strike. It was on an UPS, the surge came in through the cable line, blew up the cable modem and everything attached to it. This is the wifi router, but it also blew out the network port on the server.

Since this incident, I started putting in-line RJ-45 gas discharge surge suppressors between the cable modem and everything else.

 

[Diablo2K]

Should I get a ups for my laptop that also has ethernet protection as well? My laptop is wired to the router. Are there any good ones that won't cost an arm and a leg? I am sure it would have to be a newer model that has at least 1gb throughput.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

The reason that the supervisor said that is because not all power strips are equal, and people are stupid. I've come across many power strips over the years that were literal death traps from abuse. Like having a space heater plugged in that melted half the strip, or covered in cat piss and random detritus that caused power issues.

I can't tell you how many times I've wasted hours or days trying to provide support to someone that had a power strip like this and offending equipment plugged into it that was malfunctioning. You have no idea how frustrating it is when you find that smoking gun and learned all the time you spent troubleshooting was a massive waste of time.

Yes, you can plug things into power strips, the guy was just trying to save himself from unnecessary headaches.

None of what you describe can be attributed to a power strip itself. Pull that out, and people who don't take care of their equipment will find some other way to screw it up. Same thing could happen, for instance, were an electrically noisy device plugged into the same wall outlet or even somehere else on the same circuit.

A laptop battery is not in any way the same as a UPS. The internal laptop battery is for portable use, a UPS is for equipment protection.

As someone who deals with literally blown up equipment all the time from power surges and lightning strikes, if you have an electronic device, it needs to be on a UPS.

Here's a recent one. Blew chunks out of the ethernet controller chip, and shot flames out the top right with a sooty skidmark.

Router forcibly detonated from nearby lightning strike. It was on an UPS, the surge came in through the cable line, blew up the cable modem and everything attached to it. This is the wifi router, but it also blew out the network port on the server.

Since this incident, I started putting in-line RJ-45 gas discharge surge suppressors between the cable modem and everything else.

You don't need a full-on UPS for this. A proper quality surge suppressor will server the exact same purpose, take far less space, require less maintenance, and cost far less. All a UPS does is add that battery backup power if there is an interruption. A laptop's own battery covers the same function.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Should I get a ups for my laptop that also has ethernet protection as well? My laptop is wired to the router. Are there any good ones that won't cost an arm and a leg? I am sure it would have to be a newer model that has at least 1gb throughput.

UPS units with ethernet protection are generally only available in the higher end units, and even there, they're often limited to 10/100 speeds.

If you want a surge protector for ethernet, I'd just get an in-line RJ45 gas discharge unit. All you need to do is wire it up to a ground source. Ideally, you'd want a dedicated ground rod, but a building ground through the wall outlet works when nothing else is available.

Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GBLFFNK

For a UPS, a 550VA APC would be more than enough for your equipment.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IEC34MQ

None of what you describe can be attributed to a power strip itself. Pull that out, and people who don't take care of their equipment will find some other way to screw it up. Same thing could happen, for instance, were an electrically noisy device plugged into the same wall outlet or even somehere else on the same circuit.

Bad power strips can MOST DEFINITELY cause equipment issues, you don't know what you're talking about.

Arced, burned, overheated copper will alter its conductivity and can cause significant voltage drop that can also be random. Dirty contacts in the power strip can do the same thing. Being plugged directly into the wall drastically reduces the chances of encountering this, because they're not located directly on the ground where detritus can readily fall in,or be grossly overloaded with too many devices.

Noisy devices are almost entirely irrelevant. SMPS are RF blasters and have transient filtering stages for a reason.

You don't need a full-on UPS for this. A proper quality surge suppressor will server the exact same purpose, take far less space, require less maintenance, and cost far less. All a UPS does is add that battery backup power if there is an interruption. A laptop's own battery covers the same function.

"Surge Suppressor" power strips are worthless and don't protect anything. At most, they have a few MOVs arranged across the hot and neutral to ground. Those things won't protect against power spikes, they get blown up and whatever else is on the strip gets blown up after them. They also offer ZERO protection against all other types of power issues, which can do silent damage to equipment. There's a reason they're simple and cheap, they're crap that doesn't work.

I've had to deal with thousands of pieces of equipment over the years that was destroyed on "surge suppressors" of all types, ranging from cheap Walmart crap, all the way up to APC branded stuff. They don't work, period.

The primary purpose of an UPS is to protect your equipment. It is not a substitute for a devices internal battery. An $80-150 UPS is cheap insurance to protect thousands of dollars of equipment.

 

[DoubleTap]

We used to get a lot of brief outages - usually less than 2 minutes - often less than 30 seconds. It drove me crazy until I put our cable modem, router and my PC (but not the monitor lol) on a UPS.

These little blips are a lot less frequent than they were a few years ago, but they still happen occasionally.

It's worth a couple hundo to get it done.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Having a UPS on the internet modem is basically a necessity these days with how complex they've become. I remember in the good old days when an internet modem from power on to working took about 30 seconds.

Now it's like 5-10 minutes, sometimes longer. They usually have some bloated Linux running on them with overly complex scripts and software packages that take ages to load. Or in the case of Spectrum, they split the modem and the router/wifi into two separate devices, each with their own bloated firmware that takes up to 10 minutes each.

 

[Diablo2K]

Having a UPS on the internet modem is basically a necessity these days with how complex they've become. I remember in the good old days when an internet modem from power on to working took about 30 seconds.

Now it's like 5-10 minutes, sometimes longer. They usually have some bloated Linux running on them with overly complex scripts and software packages that take ages to load. Or in the case of Spectrum, they split the modem and the router/wifi into two separate devices, each with their own bloated firmware that takes up to 10 minutes each.

I have Spectrum, Separate modem and Wifi 6 router. When I need to reboot them it takes no more then 5 minutes for the to reset. I was having problems with my Pods the other day, I unplugged everything and starting with the modem powered them on one at a time, doing this took about 15 minutes altogether and it didn't even solve my problem! I will be getting a Mesh Wifi system soon and then soon after getting them wired for backhaul!

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

Bad power strips can MOST DEFINITELY cause equipment issues

Well yeah, duh. No one said they couldn't. What I've been saying, should you choose to read and comprehend and not launch into knee-jerk reactions, is that there is no problem using a properly maintained power strip where appropriate. Buy decent quality, obviously, preferably UL listed or at least CE marked, and take care of it.

And we can't pretend wall sockets and the like can't fail just the same. Basic contractor-grade ones are very cheap and manufactured cheaply to hit a price point. Going directly into the wall, per the suggestions by the OP's tech, isn't going to help.

"Surge Suppressor" power strips are worthless and don't protect anything. At most, they have a few MOVs arranged across the hot and neutral to ground. Those things won't protect against power spikes, they get blown up and whatever else is on the strip gets blown up after them. They also offer ZERO protection against all other types of power issues, which can do silent damage to equipment. There's a reason they're simple and cheap, they're crap that doesn't work.

I've had to deal with thousands of pieces of equipment over the years that was destroyed on "surge suppressors" of all types, ranging from cheap Walmart crap, all the way up to APC branded stuff. They don't work, period.

The primary purpose of an UPS is to protect your equipment. It is not a substitute for a devices internal battery. An $80-150 UPS is cheap insurance to protect thousands of dollars of equipment.

The surge suppression and filtering circuitry in a typical consumer-level is not going to be any different than that of a good surge suppressing power strip. The line-interactive UPS design, of which all but the most expensive units are, does not isolate the incoming AC line from the connected equipment. To get that you'd need to step up to (and pay much more for) an online UPS design which does isolate the incoming AC from the connected equipment via the rectifier/inverter arrangement.

A UPS will certainly protect against power sags/brown-outs, which a suppressor/filter obviously can't. One is a good idea for the modem/router/etc. as well as desktop PCs or anything else that doesn't take well to interrupted power (as you alluded to above, i.e., long boot times, I have a UPS for my Tivo). I don't see any disagreement on that point. My contention is that a laptop and chargers have no real use for a battery backup, if the AC blips for a bit those will ride out the issue on their own.

There's also the fact that a UPS isn't just the initial cost. There's also replacing the batteries every few years, which, depending on the size, can be 25-50% of the cost of a new unit.

Anyway, I've said my piece. You're free to disagree.