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No surge supressor?

M

MrRedHat

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We have a high failure rate of PC power supplies (about 40%). I’m wondering that perhaps it’s not the power supplies, but possibly a surge that got them. They were all working fine for several months and then they suddenly they started dropping like flies.

The reason why I suspect a surge is because none of the PCs are plugged into any surge suppressors (that I can tell). They’re plugged directly into the cubicle outlets and when I asked about it the person told me that the surge suppressors are built into the cubicles.

I was wondering if anyone has seen such a thing and if there is a way to identify if this is true? You would figure there would be something with a “Hey, I have built in surge suppression” on the outlet or something, but I haven’t been able to identify such a thing on the cubicles. I looked at the breaker box and they look like regular circuit breakers to me.
 
If you're talking about a work environment which I suspect you are, they may have some system further down the line that does the suppression on a larger scale such as commercial grade UPS's, etc...

Just a thought.
 
No, there's no commercial grade UPS tied in. When I looked the circuit panel it's square D breakers, much the same as you find in your home. They said, "The cubicle guy told me there was surge suppressors built in, so we don't need any".

To me, the lack of proof, such as, UL listing, documentation for how many joules, etc. it's rated for would be evidence that there is no surge suppression.
 
Thread moved to the Power Supplies subforum. You might get more responses here.
 
MrRedHat said:
To me, the lack of proof, such as, UL listing, documentation for how many joules, etc. it's rated for would be evidence that there is no surge suppression.
Click to expand...
Even a plain power strip should have a UL listing, simply for safety, and I'd be really reluctant to use a PSU that wasn't UL or CSA listed.

All but the worst computer PSUs offer some surge supression through their AC line filter, which prevents computers from locking up or rebooting from every surge generated by other devices, like printers and motors. This photo from HardOCP's review of a 1500W Enermax shows such a filter (donut coil, blue disk capacitors, tan disk MOV covered in dark grey heatshrink):

13438730460rlLbyUCEp_3_11_l.jpg
 
If not a bad batch of PSU's, an alternative culprit to the surge could be brownouts. The machine may not restart, but if the voltage is constantly sagging, it can cause undue stress on components.

I had relatives that lived in an area notorious for dirty power; constant surges and sags. Machines on a UPS that conditioned the power were unaffected. Machines without suffered PSU and HDD failures with alarming regularity. YMMV.
 
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