Brown out & power surge protector question

Hey everyone, I'm using a Mac Pro and was wondering an affordable brown out & surge protector that will protect my computer well without breaking the wallet. I'm not worried about the bells and whistles I just need something that will keep my computer safe from electrical issues. Thanks.

That price range will buy you an outlet strip with MOV surge protection, which is very minimal. It will filter spikes of a certain amplitude and duration, and nothing more. A Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra 8 will give you far better protection and noise isolation. It has both high and low frequency filtering as well as excellent spike suppression, and isolates the devices from each other. It's a great addition to a UPS, which will add brownout protection.
Even at $ 250 total it's well worth it to protect your Mac Pro investment.

Similar Messages

LR 4.4.1 crashing on iMac osx 10.8.5 when using exposure and shadows sliders. Will not restart with out resetting surge protector. Worked perfectly for 1.5 years with upgrades to 4.4

Hello,
Thanks for any help you may have. LR 4.4 worked perfectly on iMac 27' OSX 10.8.5 for 1.5 years until October this year when shut downs began when making adjustments on primarily exposure and shadow sliders. Unit would not restart unless rebooting surge protector(s) after 10-15 minute wait. Apple replaced main board and cleared disc. Back-up and LR 4 reloaded and updated to 4.4.1. New surge protection or direct into receptacle makes no difference and shutdown happens immediately upon slider movement. Any suggestions or self checks an old guy can possibly do? It is Educator/student version.

Hello and thanks for the reply.
The entire computer shuts down and will not restart without a reset of the new (and previous) surge protector or if plugged directly to the wall receptacle anywhere from 30 minute to overnight reset before on button restart will work. Other than slider adjustments on LR, it has only shut down one other time when loading photos via USB 3.0 cable to LR. All images from camera are in RAW. Apple tried to replicate this earlier this week with LR but could not read anything other than an increased usage on one of the diagnostic meters when the sliders were moved quickly from side to side.
Other computer functions are normal and rarely used except for e-mail, web search, and 90% LR. Plenty of memory in reserve.
Considering two upgrades (1) LR 5 to get new camera profiles (Pentax K-3)
(2)Yosemite OSX if it would help the LR4.4 or LR5 actually behave
Hope this helps illustrate the dilemma and thanks for your support.

Power surge built in

I really like the design of the cable, it pops out, it white and sleek. But what about fitting a power surge protector in, its something I have taken a precaution against at home but that cannot be guaranteed anywhere else.
So if I need to plug in then I know I will not get spiked. I really think this addition to the power supply cable would be great!

How do you know it's not already built in? Do you have a schematic of the power brick? Go here to suggest this.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbook.html

Why does iPhoto 09 cause a surge protector beep and shut down?

When iPhoto 09 is launched the Cyber Power surge protector beeps for 10 to 15 seconds and then shuts down. If iPhoto is closed within that time range the beeps stops and the surge protector does not shut the computer down. This only happens when iPhoto is open.

I received this today from the surge product tech support.
The power consumption of your computer varies as it performs different actions. Photoshop is specifically programmed to take full advantage of all the cores in a multi core system. Few programs are set up this way yet, though it is becoming more common. The end result is that with all 4 cores working heavily, the power consumption of your computer rises 50 or more watts higher than when only one or 2 cores are being pushed.
The 425SL is designed to support a maximum load of 230 watts. This is far too small to support a MacPro tower. The 425SL is failing because it is overloading. For good performance you will need a much more powerful UPS. I recommend using something with 600 watts output power at a minimum. MacPro towers often Use power factor correcting (PFC) power supplies. These power supplies are incompatible with standard UPS units. If your MacPro has a FPC power supply you will need to use a Pure Sine Wave UPS. We make a wide range of Pure Sine UPS models. You can view those models here: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/browse-by-category/smart-a pp-ups/pp-series.html
A Pure Sine Wave 1000 series or 1500 series unit would be a good choice for your system.
Thank You,
Pietro Boggio
Senior Technical Support Specialist
CyberPower Systems
877-297-6937 x7914

Effect of a power "brown-out" on Mac hardware? PLEASE HELP!

Hi,
Please could someone help me to understand the effect of a power "brown-out" on Mac hardware?
I have an iMac 27" (Late, 2013).
I would like to use a solar powered battery device with a 150 Watt External modified sine wave inverter. According to the Mac website, my model will use approx. 78W when idle, and 180W at CPU Max.
So, because I live in South Africa, where we now have load-shedding (planned black-outs depending on national energy grid pressure) I have invested in an EcoBoxx 160 DC + (http://www.ecoboxx.co.za/pages/products.php?app_id=4).
My question is thus: If I use my Mac with the device, and it happens to demand more than the 150W generated by the EcoBoxx, would this cause damage to any of its component parts?
I will only be using MS Word on my Mac under these conditions, so I imagine that if I close all other applications then the power demand of the Mac should not approach CPU max?
Also, if I ran it through a surge protector, would this make a difference?
I would be extremely grateful for any advice or suggestions, as I am desperately trying to complete my PhD dissertation, and cannot afford to continuously suffer the effects of load-shedding!
Thanks and Warmest Greetings,
Clinton

Open the Universal Access pane of System Preferences, click on the Seeing tab, drag the Contrast slider all the way to the left, set the monitor to Black on White, and turn off the other checkboxes except for those at the bottom of the window.
(22429)

Power requirements for surge protector?

I want to get a surge protector that will support the power requirements of a Macpro and a 30-inch cinema display. I would also like it for an Airport Extreme and an external FW drive, though those are not as important for being on the same outlet, they can be on a different one if necessary. What should I look for in terms of power ratings, etc.
Thanks!

Stanwelks,
I sit near a forest of cables and had that problem. The instruction books on the Display and the Macpro have information enabling you to work out the Amperage they use. One can derive amperage from a stated wattage knowing your voltage. I know mine I don't know yours. Here in UK most residential wall sockets take up to 13 Amps. Most plug blocks say they are good for 13 Amps. So in the train it is the smallest capacity of link, socket or plug block , that matters.
I had to put some devices (the display and MacPro were the worst 'offenders', on a separate wall socket linked to my 'lair' by a long cable. There was slight leeway to the 13Amps so a printer (seemingly of low amperage) is added.
The other things you mention are small amperage but check. It is a good idea to work out the amperage of each device you have if you can.

Battery backup/ surge protector and sleep power cycle on my iMac

I have a simple question regarding whether my iMac is going through a power cycle when asleep. The situation: my iMac and various peripherals are powered through an APC battery backup/ surge protector. The iMac is plugged into the master outlet on the battery backup of course.
I have a set of very good computer speakers which are plugged into the outlets controlled by the master outlet; these power down when the master outlet device (the iMac) goes to sleep. The strange thing is that while iMac is asleep I hear the speakes ocassionally power on (the bass cube makes a noise that indicates this). So it seems there is a powering down and on cycle going. Is this normal? Should I change anything in my setup. APC recommends plugging peripherals (like speakers, which they name specifically) into these controlled outlets to save energy.
It may be that I simply need to contact APC to change the threshold sensitiviy, however, it is currently set to medium (the recommended default).
Thanks for your help.

I may have mistated. The APC manual states the following:
"To conserve electricity, configure the Back-UPS to recognize a Master device, such as a desktop computer..., and Controlled peripheral devices, such as a printer, speakers, or a scanner. When the Master device goes into Sleep or Standby mode, or is switched OFF, the Controlled device(s) will be switched off as well, saving electricity."
The thing is that I seem to hear the speaker going on.. (thus they must be also going off) from time to time while the iMac is asleep. Again this may be a question for APC.
Thanks for your help.

Does the power cord have a surge protector built in?

Does the "brick" at the end of the power cord have a surge protector built in? I'm wondering whether it's ok to keep my Macbook plugged in and charging during a thunderstorm or not.

markrox7 wrote:
So I shouldn't leave my Macbook to charge during a thunderstorm if I don't have a surge strip/adapter?
That is correct.
Get a surge protector for everyday use.
Unplug the charger during thunderstorms. Surge protectors do not protect against the damage that a lightning strike causes - they just protect against electrical surges.
Mrs H

Post-power surge question. Please help.

I just had a power surge and my G5 iMac shut off. However, my external hard drive did not. I restarted my computer and the external hard drive is not appearing on the desktop. I don't know what to do. Should I simply shut off the external hard drive and restart it? I would really like not to tank the external hard drive. We're supposed to getting high winds tonight from Hurricane Earl, so I need to get this straightened out rather quickly so I can shut everything down properly.
I will appreciate any help or suggestions.

It's likely that the external drive isn't 'mounted' and also possible that any firmware in the drive (depending on the model) may be wedged. A simple restart (power off, then back on) will probably solve the problem. If you're worried the Mac really did mount the drive but just isn't showing it on the desktop, you can check.
Open "Disk Utility" -- it's in the Applications -> Utilities folder. The left margin of Disk Utility will show all local drives and filesystems visible to the Mac whether the filesystems are actively mounted or not.
If the external drive does not show up in Disk Utility's list, then the filesystem isn't mounted. Power off the drive. Wait several seconds to allow it to spin down. Then power it back up. It should appear on the Mac after a short delay.
If the external drive is formatted with an HFS+ "Journaled" filesystem, your drive should be fine (no corruption) even though it suddenly lost power. If it happened to be in the process of performing a 'write' (e.g. saving a file) then that file may be incomplete, but the drive & filesystem itself should be fine.

Help! - Power surge during capture.......media management question

Hi all.....a power surge occured just at the end of capturing a 40 minute tape, and the computer shut off (I will be hooking up my battery backup immediately!).......I believe the media still exists on the capture scratch disk, but no clip appears in the browser. If the media exists, is there a way in FCP to create a clip to link it to......or do I just have to delete it and re-capture??
thanks for any advice & info!!

You could always check the actual file (if there is one) in the folder you designated in FCP as the "Capture/Scratch folder. If it plays fine in QT Player, it may be alright ... but my advice would be to recapture.
-DH

Won't let me copy to hard drive post power surge

Ok, to make a long story short, I hope, I had an electrical fire (everyone's ok) that involved and destroyed my laptop's power cord and as part of that fun I seem to have had a power surge that has reset some of the defaults on my computer but not all. Some of the folders I created prior to the surge are gone, etc. The only real problem is that the permissions on my internal hard drive seem to have been reset. Below are the things it will and will not allow me to do.
-- I cannot copy files from a flash drive, cd or external hard drive to the internal hard drive. I get that circle with a line through it. Clicking and dragging, copy/paste, nothing works.
-- I can move stuff that is already on the internal hard drive from folder to folder.
-- I can save email attachments to the internal hard drive.
-- I can copy stuff from internal the hard drive to a flash drive, cd or external hard drive.
-- I can read the files on flash drives, cds or external hard drives, such as a movie file, just fine, they run without a glitch. The peripherals did not suffer any resets as a result of the fire/power surge. When it happened the computer shut down automatically and I think that saved the accessories from being damaged because the computer is the only thing that showed any changes after it happened.
And before someone asks, yes, I checked, I have 40 GB of HD space so it's not a space issue.
I right clicked on MAC HD and did the Get Info and looked at the details of the permissions on various files and tried shifting some of those around but even though it says Read and Write it still won't let me copy to the internal drive from other sources. Interestingly when I got to the User file it was marked Read Only but changing it to Read Write didn't help. Something I did once worked but then it stopped working so I have no idea what it was. I put everything back the way it was. Could somebody please help me? My computer is old and dieing a slow painful death but if I can make it last a little longer that will make my life so much easier. Please let me know if you need any system info or anything.
*Thank you!!*
PS. I'm not posting this on the peripheral thread because the problem isn't really the peripherals, it's the system not wanting to play nice with others, so that's why I put this over here.

Hi. It's not a dumb question, cause if it is then my answer is really stupid, what's a repair permission? lol I don't know what that is so I guess the answer is no, though I can guess from the name it's a program to fix permissions if the files get messed up? I knew how to change the permissions in Get Info but past that I was getting into things I don't know so I figured it was time to ask for help or I'd be on here asking how to un-erase a hard drive. jk So how would I do that and is there anything else I should do?
Sorry if my initial post was a bit defensive. I had a moderator give me flak over some minor thing on a post once and I was supremely frustrated with this problem. Sorry if it came out kinda angry. I appreciate any help you can give me.

Use of WRT54G after Power Surge

I was very satisfied with my WRT54G v2 until I went on vacation and came back. While on vacation a power surge or lightning struck and wiped out a bunch of things from my garage door opener to office: cable modem (no ethernet port), router (no internet port), old BEFSR41 used as a switch (power supply dead).
After puttering for awhile, the WRT54G has some limited lifesigns.
-- wireless access works fine
-- switch ports work fine
-- Internet port does not work
Question:
-- Is this something that is serviceable?
-- Can it be converted into an access point or something?
Are old power supplys available for BEFSR41? or is it just junk now (even with supply, it could be fried)
A few thoughts would be worthwhile

You can still use the router like a wireless switch. It can be either connected straight to a modem for a single wireless computer or be connected to an existing network that has a router.
All you have to do is connect this router to the modem on any of it's switch ports and same thing if it'll be connected to a switch or a router.

Power surge now nothing but issues.

So I had a power surge (no protector...I know dumb) and my pc restarted. When it came back on it loads the bios. If I leave the bios, it beeps once long and then 2 short and goes to black screen. Everything I read says that it means my video card is shot. Here is what I am running:
MSI FM2-A75MA-P33
AMD A10 680K
So having said that I am running integrated graphics. Does this mean my processor is shot or did I fry something on the mobo? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

ok it is sounding like the surge maybe has killed the CPU or fried its memory controller!
one lastage thing to try is a CMOS clear >>Clear CMOS Guide<< remove the power cord and do a clear and leave the battery out for 5 mins and put it back in and see if it works then!

Power surge fried inputs on 55" LG LCD TV

TV was bought from BB, but out of warranty (no extended). It's about 2 years old. The TV turns on, but none of the inputs work. A surge went through my PC hooked up to the TV via HDMI...literally fried the HDMI cable into the port to where I almost couldn't remove it.
What are my options? Are these input boards cheap enough to where repair is viable or am I better off just getting a new TV?

I doubt anyone would buy parts from a TV that has been affected by a power surge.
Bet the cost of a surge protector doesn't seem so bad now?
Sorry your TV got burnt. Buy a surge prottector for the next one, and don't buy the cheapest surge protector you can find...
If you find my post useful or informative, please click the icon below with the plus sign and star to give kudos. Thank you!

Power Surge ruined external drive

Wonder if anyone can help?
Am operating a Mac Pro at work and recently a power surge caused one of my WD books to corrupt... it's currently in the lab being worked on but needless to say that it was a bit of a nightmare and has prompted the purchase of a G RAID pronto.
Just wondering what could have caused the power surge? I'm running two Cinema HD monitors, one of which is using a higher power adaptor than was supplied. The last adaptor failed and the monitor would not operate with another of the same power... MAc Forums suggested that a higher power adaptor was the solution and it worked.
However, could this be the cause of the power surge? Just keen to prevent another drive being wiped out in the same way...

Hi CD,
Sorry to hear about your corrupted WD book.
I use Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protectors to protect all my computer and TV/audio visual equipment:
http://www.belkin.com/uk/powersolutions/
My Mac Pro based computer system, which is used solely for my personal use (including photo editing, digital imaging and colour printing up to A2 size), and which is insured for £13,000.00+ on my home contents insurance policy, is protected by a Belkin SurgeMaster with a Connected Equipment Warranty up to £75,000.00:
http://www.belkin.com/uk/powersolutions/warranties/
I know that the Belkin SurgeMaster does not give the protection of a UPS for work in process, but I do not need that because Time Machine does hourly back-ups, which is adequate for my usage.
My hi-fi set-up is the only system which is not protected by a Belkin SurgeMaster. Instead, that is protected by an Isotek Orion mains filter, designed specifically for audio systems:
http://www.isoteksystems.com/cgi-bin/products.pl?id=13
As you are using a Mac Pro for work, perhaps you need a UPS to protect work in process against power cuts, but your ancillary equipment could be protected by Belkin SurgeMaster(s) at a fraction of the cost of a UPS.
Just a thought!
Regards,
Bill

Brown out & power surge protector question

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