Will this affect my monitor

C

Copycats

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I forgot to turn off my monitor first and turned the power strip off directly (the power strip has a surge protector built-in :: isobar Ultra 6). Then I turned the power strip on again. The monitor seems fine now, but wondering would that somehow damage the monitor? :(
 
Not likely. All you're doing is cutting power. But best to just shut it off at the monitor first.
 
cutting power is no big deal the surge may occur when turn the power back on ... so that's what I'm worried about
 
Your monitor is fine. Turning the surge protector on is no different than plugging the monitor straight into wall.


Now for the computer itself, it best to shut those off first because of the possibility of corrupting data that hasn't been written to disk yet. But a monitor doesn't have any thing to corrupt from delayed writes.
 
The computer was off. Only the monitor was still on when I turned the power strip off.. To my understanding, turning the power strip on should be safer then plugging anything directly to the wall, because any power surge should be suppressed by the surge protector. But without the protector, surge could burn the A/C convertor in the monitor.
 
Copycats said:
The computer was off. Only the monitor was still on when I turned the power strip off.. To my understanding, turning the power strip on should be safer then plugging anything directly to the wall, because any power surge should be suppressed by the surge protector. But without the protector, surge could burn the A/C convertor in the monitor.
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Well, I was referring to the action of connecting power, not the affects leaving it plugged in might have. So yes, using a surge protector is theoretically safer for electronic equipment.
 
A surge protector protects against voltage spikes due to things like lightning strikes. It shouldn't have any effect on normal power-up. Turning the power on and off definitely should not damage any consumer electronic device.
 
Good point, Adam! But believe it or not, power surge could happen even during normal power-on. Granted, however, damage should rarely happen.
 
Copycats said:
Good point, Adam! But believe it or not, power surge could happen even during normal power-on. Granted, however, damage should rarely happen.
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What you're talking about it called in-rush current or switch-on surge. A surge suppressor will not block that since it's cause by the device itself. It also won't protect against any surges caused by other devices plugged into the surge suppressor.
 
ryan_975 said:
What you're talking about it called in-rush current or switch-on surge. A surge suppressor will not block that since it's cause by the device itself. It also won't protect against any surges caused by other devices plugged into the surge suppressor.
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Yeah, the term "power surge" is ambiguous. A surge protector is designed to protect against high-voltage spikes. The current doesn't have to be very high because the voltage creates a huge electric field that rips holes in tiny electronic components. What you get during normal power-up is a current spike as the transformer energizes and the capacitors charge up.
 
Copycats said:
Could this unsuppressed switch-on surge damage the equipment potentially ?
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not usually. Equipment damaged by their own in-rush current would have to be very very badly designed. Also, in-rush current generally won't damage other equipment outside of the device being turned on.
 
Copycats said:
Could this unsuppressed switch-on surge damage the equipment potentially ?
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No -- the equipment is designed to handle it. Any device with *really* big inrush current (like a high-power audio amplifier) will have built-in current limiting if necessary. Keep in mind that the monitor has to handle blackouts, low-quality power grids, crazy customers, etc. I'm sure a lot of people power-cycle their monitors on a daily basis.

Consumer electronics devices aren't designed to have super-high reliability, but they shouldn't break that easily under normal use conditions either. Manufacturers and retailers do care about how many returns they have to process.
 
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