Surge protectors only do good if every other connected equipment is surge protected. If the phone line is surge protected as well as the router and switch and so is your computer but your brother's computer isn't surge protected then it's possible that the house could get hit by lightning, the brother's computer get's fried and the electricity travels through the network and fries your computer. All this simply because the electricity has travelled through a weakness in the network. I haven't had any experience with the above, but I have heard a case of it a couple years back. Luckily thunderstorms in the UK are pretty rare!
This wasn't a case of the electricity finding a different path around the surge protector - everything connected to the computer was connected through it - cable, power and every peripheral connected to the PC (no network). Its simply a case of the surge protector simply not working (happened a few times, with decent name-brand surge protectors). They sent one back only to be met with a reply in the order of "the surge protector worked as intended, something else must have broken somewhere"
I have several surge protectors, hooked upto my pc's and various home entertainment equipment. I once had a router blow tho even tho it was plugged into a surge protector, i assume that the surge went down the telephone wire. Because of this i always unplug everything i can during a storm. The only things that are left plugged in really are the fridge/freezer, and an cheapo alarm clock, I even unplug the cordless phone and plug the old corded one in. Needless to say nights like last night are boring.
Mr Tad is quite right about surge protectors being next to useless against a lightning strike, having said that lightning strikes are quite rare in the UK so it is probably not a huge issue.
our computer upstairs is on a UPS which is also protecting our phone line to the modem. My computer and all electronics in our house are on surge protectors. I will get a UPS for my computer sometime. So we dont unplug anything. If its really bad I'll just turn the computer off if I think the power might go out. Otherwise I keep playing or whatever.
I just use SurgeMasters for the warranty. Also they're high quality, relatively cheap and very well designed and durable.
I left mine plugged in last night, but now after reading the first post, i think i better swap my network out of my rooter into my pc into the surgeplug. the rooter and that can fry long as the pc works overall
we get lightning daily this time of year. no surge protector. I dont unpug either. Last year a crow decided to land at a main power substation thing and got fried. knocked out the power at out plant. the backup generator kicked in but the plant's equipment was still on and the generator can only power the camp. lights and tv's things like that, not major industrial equipment. so the generator failed, restarted on auto, failed, restarted, failed, restarted, etc, etc etc, went on for about 10 minutes. It killed all our sat equipment, routers, anything not behind a good surge protector. cost a few thousand dollars to fix.
if its the odd summer rumble of thunder then i am not worried as a lighting strike is pretty low so i leave the surge protector to do its job, but if its a proper winter storm, lashing at the windows and lighting the sky up then i unplug and move the plug away from the socket just to be on the safe side. even tho my surge protector covers upto £250K of equipment i would love to try and get the money to replace my gear. overall value ~£3000 of kit plugged in at any one time, trying to prove iv got that valve of kit is the difficult bit!
I don't bother with them. Strikes are so rare in the UK it's not really worth the investment for a high-quality protector. The Connected Equipment Warranty on a lot of them is also a bit dodgy (link).
I've got my system attached to a $200 UPS with some several-hundred-thousand-dollar equipment guarantee on it. I leave it plugged in. TBH I've never been bothered to unplug anything in a thunderstorm before, but just about all of the gear I own that I actually care about is at least going through a surge suppressor.
Haha, that made my day Luckily everything that's connected by wires to my computers are protected. That's quite true, unfortunately. Personally, I leave all my hifi and TV stuff plugged, basically anything that's not a PC. Yea, the answer is simple, they don't. I've heard stories about the protectors exploding in a pile of smoke and sparks, but I quess that's better than destroying a computer anyway. When reading the specs of these, I notice they only can handle a max of a couple hudred joules, which is WAY too little for a lightning... That's the one! It's a legend, I've got two of them. And they both work 100%. One is an AGP and the other is a PCI.
Got a Belkin surge protector for the modem and computer (phone line too) Never worry about it really. I have contents insurance to cover other things, just don't want to lose the computers.
are we talking a lighting strike to your house/flat/tent/whatever? if so wouldnt a lighting rod be cheaper/more effective? if not surely any surges you are going to get through the mains can be delt with via a decent PSU, surge protector & house mains fuses?
The only thing we have had fried is the router when lightening hit the telephone line. A couple of nights ago we lost power momentarily when lightening hit the power lines, and that is not unusual, though far from frequent. (a couple of times a year perhaps)
