Can a power outage damage my pc?

C

Chapapa07

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Mar 20, 2012
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Power outages are very common in my country, 99.9 % of them are not provoked by storms, so there are no spikes or surges when the electricity comes back. The electricity usually comes after 2, 5, or 20 minutes later, it can take even hours. Sometimes it doesn't take a second for coming back.

My problem is that every time there is a power outage , my pc restarts itself when Im playing BF3 or crisis 2, my pc is plugged to a 300w ups but it seems like my ups is not enough for my PC consumption . When there is a power outage and I'm just surfing on the internet or watching movies my PC doesn't restart.

My PC:
Core 2 quad q83002.5 ghz
MSI gtx 550 ti OC edition
4 gb ram ddr2 800
ecs g31tm7
PSU: OCZ Fatal1ty 550 w

So, Can a power outage damage my pc?

Im planning on buying this ups in two months :
APC Power Saving Back-UPS 750

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BE750G&total_watts=200

Is this a good ups for my pc?.
 
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Yes a power outage can damage your PC. Especially considering the low quality of your motherboard and PSU.

Not an expert on UPS.
 
Oh crap.

My pc is running fine now, but that really concerns me, the worst part is that my pc is getting more and more damage because of the outages that makes my pc restart about 2-3 times per week, and I cant buy a new UPS but within two months :(
 
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I would get a larger UPS than that APC. What is your budget to spend and what country are you from.
Your PC is probably pulling around 250watts gaming not including monitors.
What is your current UPS? Does it have a DATA port to plug into the PC? How old is it?
 
I dont have a budget yet...
I'm from Dominican Republic.
My Ups brand is ..Omega, a crappy brand ,it doesn't have a DATA port and, it is almost 2 years old.
 
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Before thinking you need a bigger UPS, do a wattage reading test of your PC. This an be accomplished with a makeshift split extension cord (where hot, neutral and ground are separate wires) and a clamp on meter. You'll get the amps by "clamping" on the hot then times by volts (around 120) to get watts.

I'm suspecting your UPS is either faulty (probably a relay) and not switching fast enough, or the battery is so dead it wont even last a few seconds.

You can test this by plugging a lamp with a 100w incad bulb and when you unplug the ups the light should not turn off at all. It may flicker slightly but a really good ups it wont even flicker.

As for the original question, it can definitely be hard on the PC to shut down hard like that.
 
Danny Bui said:
Yes a power outage can damage your PC. Especially considering the low quality of your motherboard and PSU.

Not an expert on UPS.
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His power supply, while an OCZ, is probably one of OCZ's better units and definitely not crap or low quality.
 
Chapapa, do you live in Santo Domingo? I do IT work out in the Dominican Republic (I live in Santo Domingo now), and have a lot of experience with computers down there. APC UPSs are nice, but I strongly suggest you skip the model you linked. It uses a proprietary battery, and is absurdly expensive for what it is.

Omega UPSs are actually a really good value, they are affordable and offer excellent protection to the about 20 million brownouts a day I have in my area. I have two, a 750w and a 1200w model. If your Omega UPS is not even offering a few seconds of brownout protection it is either faulty or the battery is dead.

Why do you want the data port? Is the automatic shutdown that important to you? That is really the only reason APC ones are so expensive.
 
One scenario that doesn't always happen but I've seen is the sudden death of hard drives from power failures. In that scenario the hard drive is writing to a critical area and all of a sudden the power goes out and the write fails. When the machine comes back on the hard drive clicks and is bricked. Amazingly I've seen this happen to two drives at different times on the SAME machine. This is one of the MANY reasons why UPSs are a godsend. They would have paid for themselves many times over the first time it keeps your machine on during a power failure.
 
geforce said:
One scenario that doesn't always happen but I've seen is the sudden death of hard drives from power failures. In that scenario the hard drive is writing to a critical area and all of a sudden the power goes out and the write fails. When the machine comes back on the hard drive clicks and is bricked. Amazingly I've seen this happen to two drives at different times on the SAME machine. This is one of the MANY reasons why UPSs are a godsend. They would have paid for themselves many times over the first time it keeps your machine on during a power failure.
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Yep or a server where the drives have been spinning 24/7 and then they are shut down. Especially if they're older drives. Last summer that happened to me. 2 of my 5 drives for the raid 5 never came back up. I eventually got one of them to come back and got access to my data again but lot of it was corrupted so ended up restoring lot of stuff from backups. I had replaced all drives to be on the safe side.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Before thinking you need a bigger UPS, do a wattage reading test of your PC. This an be accomplished with a makeshift split extension cord (where hot, neutral and ground are separate wires) and a clamp on meter. You'll get the amps by "clamping" on the hot then times by volts (around 120) to get watts.

I'm suspecting your UPS is either faulty (probably a relay) and not switching fast enough, or the battery is so dead it wont even last a few seconds.

You can test this by plugging a lamp with a 100w incad bulb and when you unplug the ups the light should not turn off at all. It may flicker slightly but a really good ups it wont even flicker.
Click to expand...

When Im not gaming, my pc doesnt restart and it last about 5 to 8 minutes.

C'DaleRider said:
His power supply, while an OCZ, is probably one of OCZ's better units and definitely not crap or low quality.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I already knew my motherboard was a low quality mobo, but my PSU too??, I didn't believe it.


fishrule said:
Chapapa, do you live in Santo Domingo? I do IT work out in the Dominican Republic (I live in Santo Domingo now), and have a lot of experience with computers down there. APC UPSs are nice, but I strongly suggest you skip the model you linked. It uses a proprietary battery, and is absurdly expensive for what it is.

Omega UPSs are actually a really good value, they are affordable and offer excellent protection to the about 20 million brownouts a day I have in my area. I have two, a 750w and a 1200w model. If your Omega UPS is not even offering a few seconds of brownout protection it is either faulty or the battery is dead.

Why do you want the data port? Is the automatic shutdown that important to you? That is really the only reason APC ones are so expensive.
Click to expand...

Yes I do live in Santo Domingo.

I ve always thought Omega was a bad brand because of their low quality PSUs, if you type Omega on google, you cant find a decent web page about their products or about their company, is like Omega is a ghost company..

My Ups offers uninterruptible power JUST when Im not gaming ( about 5 to 8 minutes), otherwise, it will restart my pc.

I don't want data port, In fact, I'm not interested at all, is just that @ninjaturtle asked me if my UPS has data port and I answered that it hasn't .

geforce said:
One scenario that doesn't always happen but I've seen is the sudden death of hard drives from power failures. In that scenario the hard drive is writing to a critical area and all of a sudden the power goes out and the write fails. When the machine comes back on the hard drive clicks and is bricked. Amazingly I've seen this happen to two drives at different times on the SAME machine. This is one of the MANY reasons why UPSs are a godsend. They would have paid for themselves many times over the first time it keeps your machine on during a power failure.
Click to expand...

Thats what I ve always read in many forums, the hard disk is the most likely to get damage when a outage occurs, but in any of those forums was never mentioned if the PC was on full load or not.
 
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Actually, despite Danny's assessment, the OCZ Fatal1ty PSU is actually one of OCZ's decent Sirfa-built units. It is of a different platform than the ModXStream Pro series. The only reason why I do not recommend it is OCZ's notorious customer service quality.
 
Hmm if it's just when your gaming then could be it does not have enough power. Do a load test while gaming. I know with my PC I can use over an amp extra when I am gaming. So it can definitely add 100-200 watts easily.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Hmm if it's just when your gaming then could be it does not have enough power. Do a load test while gaming. I know with my PC I can use over an amp extra when I am gaming. So it can definitely add 100-200 watts easily.
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I don't want to be rude but, how is that going to help me?

Btw, How could I delete a post?
 
Red Squirrel said:
It will help you determine if you are overexceeding your UPS. If you are, then it's time to buy one that has a higher rating.
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Hmm, now that I think about it,
8 months ago, my pc was:
Dual core e5800 (now I have a core 2 quad q8300)
HD 5670 (now I have a gtx 550 ti oc editon)
4 GB DDR2
ECS G31tm7
Generic PSU 525W (Now I have an OCZ Fatal1ty 550w)

Every time I was playing BF3 and there was an outage, my pc restarts itself, but when I got my actual setup, my pc didnt restart itself again, probably because of the higher efficiency of the ocz 550w , it uses less energy.

I dont know why but, my pc began to restart itself again 3 months ago every time there is an outage.

So how do I do a load test and how Im going to determine if I have to replace my ups?
 
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geforce said:
One scenario that doesn't always happen but I've seen is the sudden death of hard drives from power failures. In that scenario the hard drive is writing to a critical area and all of a sudden the power goes out and the write fails. When the machine comes back on the hard drive clicks and is bricked. Amazingly I've seen this happen to two drives at different times on the SAME machine. This is one of the MANY reasons why UPSs are a godsend. They would have paid for themselves many times over the first time it keeps your machine on during a power failure.
Click to expand...

+1
I was coming to say the same thing. For a couple years we were having a lot of power outages/brownouts in our neighborhood and I lost one hard drive during an outage and another hardrive only lasted 5 months- I dont know for sure the second one died from the outages, but I would guess that was the most likely culprit.
 
I trying to calculate your components, so far I'm estimating:
I never heard of the Omega brand.
-CPU, 95w. I really do like when they post'em :)
-GPU, Est. 90w
GTX-550-ROUNDUP-ROUNDUP-49.jpg

No idea or guess what the others could be pulling but you are about at 185watts, not including your monitor/s.
I know you're not interested in having a DATA port on an UPS, but you can set up your PC to automatically power down if you are not around, some people leave their PCs on to run tasks.
 
So how do I do a load test and how Im going to determine if I have to replace my ups?
Click to expand...

I would go ahead and get that UPS in your OP and put your tower on that and your non-critical stuff(monitor, sound system) on the Omega.
 
Chapapa07 said:
I dont know why but, my pc began to restart itself again 3 months ago every time there is an outage.

So how do I do a load test and how Im going to determine if I have to replace my ups?
Click to expand...


Get a two plug ends and a some wire and make a split wire plug. you can also buy them premade but I never found any so it's just easier to make yourself.



Then use a clamp meter to test at the hot or neutral. Write down that number, then check the voltage (remember to set it to volts!) then times the amp reading you got with the voltage, and that's how many watts you are using. NOTE: Only do this if you are comfortable working with line voltages, if you get wires mixed up or don't know what you're doing it can be bad, but it's fairly straight forward to make.

They also make plug in meters that will do that, but I never manged to find any without ordering online. This test can be done with easily obtainable supplies.

But yeah I'd go with a newer higher capacity APC with serial interface and auto shut down software. I can almost guarantee that's what the issue is. Need more capacity.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Get a two plug ends and a some wire and make a split wire plug. you can also buy them premade but I never found any so it's just easier to make yourself.

Then use a clamp meter to test at the hot or neutral. Write down that number, then check the voltage (remember to set it to volts!) then times the amp reading you got with the voltage, and that's how many watts you are using. NOTE: Only do this if you are comfortable working with line voltages, if you get wires mixed up or don't know what you're doing it can be bad, but it's fairly straight forward to make.

They also make plug in meters that will do that, but I never manged to find any without ordering online. This test can be done with easily obtainable supplies.

But yeah I'd go with a newer higher capacity APC with serial interface and auto shut down software. I can almost guarantee that's what the issue is. Need more capacity.
Click to expand...

I really cant do that, but thanks anyway :)
 
Maybe to your HDD. I would keep your gaming and high power task to a minimum til you buy another UPS and see if you can run HDD diagnostic programs, I don't know what is a good one to use, try HDtune and do a scan.

Edit: If you can go in your BIOS and set the power state to stay off and not restart, it should by in power management.
 
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ninjaturtle said:
Maybe to your HDD. I would keep your gaming and high power task to a minimum til you buy another UPS and see if you can run HDD diagnostic programs, I don't know what is a good one to use, try HDtune and do a scan.

Edit: If you can go in your BIOS and set the power state to stay off and not restart, it should by in power management.
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Pwr on after Pwr failure is set to "power off " by default" so, I cant do anything...

I ran a program called "CrystalDiskInfo" and it says my HDD heath status is "Cation", but I already knew my HDD was damage the day it was given to me because it has always been veery noisy.


dandragonrage said:
http://www.refurbups.com/APC-IBM750-Smart-UPS-IBM-750 - can you find something like that instead? The regular Back-UPS line isn't that good.
Click to expand...

No... I cant :(

Edit: I found a ups that is even better but it costs twice..
 
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Theoretically all PC PSUs need pure sine wave. I've never seen one not work with modified though.
 
I just buy the apc Power Saving Back-UPS 750 and it works great, when a power outage occurs while Im playing battlefield 3, the UPS does not show any strange behavior like in some reviews in xtab labs, where power supplies made by sirtec didnt work properly with a UPS without pure sinewave.

The only problem I have now is the noise of the ups whether or not Im using my pc, even when the ups is off, with nothing connected to it and the ups connected to the wall outlet, the ups sounds always have similar noises like the ups in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw14sS2EntM

At the first hours of using my ups , it almost sounds like the ups of this video (40% less noisy) , but later the noise became more constant (without pauses which is a little better).
Edit: the noise with pauses came back.

Is the ups damage? because my last cheap ups was noisy ONLY when my pc was using its battery or , this noise is normal?.
 
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I had to let the ups charge 16 hours... after that time, the noise disappeared :p

Problem solved!
 
Was reading this subject about power outages and was wondering what the effect is with "brown-outs" and computer longevity?

Would a UPS protect against the brown-outs or do I need to purchase a line conditioner?
 
A decent UPS should help, when the power goes to say, below 100v, it will switch over to battery. During thunderstorms I sometimes hear mine click on/off.
 
For brown-outs, the feature you are looking for it called Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR).

This means that the unit will attempt to boost or trim the input voltage before going into battery mode. Some system will allow you to set an acceptable voltage range, but generally they will handle +/- 10-20V before switching to battery.

I believe that the APC unit I have at home accepts input voltages from 102-132, with 120 being the target voltage. So that unit will boost up to 18 volts and trim down up to 12 volts.

Almost all line-interactive UPS units will have this feature, and almost all modern UPS units are line-interactive or on-line. (On-line UPS units always draw from the battery for the output, and as such, AVR is just for the batteries and not really a concern.) As such, almost all modern UPS units will handle brown-outs just fine.

The older units which may have problems are those which use a standby model rather than a line-interactive or online model.
 
TESLA said:
For brown-outs, the feature you are looking for it called Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR).

This means that the unit will attempt to boost or trim the input voltage before going into battery mode. Some system will allow you to set an acceptable voltage range, but generally they will handle +/- 10-20V before switching to battery.

I believe that the APC unit I have at home accepts input voltages from 102-132, with 120 being the target voltage. So that unit will boost up to 18 volts and trim down up to 12 volts.

Almost all line-interactive UPS units will have this feature, and almost all modern UPS units are line-interactive or on-line. (On-line UPS units always draw from the battery for the output, and as such, AVR is just for the batteries and not really a concern.) As such, almost all modern UPS units will handle brown-outs just fine.

The older units which may have problems are those which use a standby model rather than a line-interactive or online model.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Tesla......
I live in Central California where it goes 100+ during the summer with frequent brown-outs.
Always wondered how much life is taken from electronics with brown-outs and how to prevent damage to my cpu's, flat screen and sound system.
 
TESLA said:
I believe that the APC unit I have at home accepts input voltages from 102-132, with 120 being the target voltage. So that unit will boost up to 18 volts and trim down up to 12 volts.
Click to expand...
Don't PSUs do the same? Most are rated for about 90-130VAC input.
 
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