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Thread: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

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    I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    So, this particular set up includes:
    A midi atx sized pc powered by a 730w Psu
    A 7.2 channel Yamaha avr
    A PS3
    A 42 inch LG cinema3d TV
    (Probably in the future) A 3d blu ray player
    A router which connects to all above devices via ethernet

    So, I want to get a ups in order to protect this Home Cinema-Gaming set up of mine. The question is: How powerful should the ups be?

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Why do you need a UPS? Looks to me like a decent surge protector will do the job for you.

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Protection from what? UPSs are mainly for ensuring you have enough time to save important documents in the event of a power cut, or to transition to generator power smoothly. If your PC working is that critical then just get a UPS to cover that - I can't off the top of my head think of a reason you'd need to put anything else behind a UPS as a power event isn't likely to result in any destruction of data/calculation for TVs, blu-ray players etc.

    If you're just worried about surges then a surge protector should be fine.

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    I had a power cut, 3 days before my 2 year warranty expired on my Onkyo. It took out the HDMI card so a UPS would be a good idea as I had a branded AV specific surge 5 way connecting it all.

    The problem will be finding a decent size UPS such as a APC smart UPS 2200va one that would cope and keeping it quiet enough unless like me you house it up in the loft out of ears way.

    Mine has structured cabling down into the PC room into a twin wall socket and a spur into the cupboard containing modem and combi boiler.

    It runs a 1200w PSU in my pc, everything else connected to the PC, lights and the central heating combi boiler.

    I knew I had it sorted when the wife walked in during a flight sim session a few years back and said "you didn't know were having a power cut then" As I had removed my headphones I could hear the UPS alarm going

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Also keep in mind that a lot of the surge protectors you buy from the stores are junk. They don't include important specifications and "warranties" that are so full of fine print they are worthless. I've seen no-name chinese ones that consisted of nothing other than a red light behind some plastic (this was from a local market). The market really has been flooded with tat the last few years.

    A common thing you'll hear is that someones "surge protector" went up in smoke and "stopped their equipment from doing so". The irony is that often these things use components of such low quality, that they are designed to pop and make you think it has done its job (and you'll probably buy a new one) at very low ratings.

    Most electronic appliances have their own 'protections' in, in terms of making sure they don't die and stay reliable (to a degree). The components used in a PSU (PC, TV, Hi-fi) these days are of such high quality compared to 20 years ago that you usually don't need to worry. Not only that, but the national grid is excellent in terms of being stable compared to many places in the world.
    No respectable manufacturer is going to skimp on a few dollars worth of components and have additional warranties to deal with because of it.

    As for lightning strikes and such...these cheap devices you see in the shops usually can't handle them (there is a reason they don't publish their specs), so don't think for a second they'll help with that either. Any protection you get is limited by your link to earth ground.

    There are some decent posts by westom in this thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=2248727
    Sadly a few people in there are very ignorant to his claims (which can easily be backed up by some basic maths).

    Having said that, surge protectors are real things, that really work and save equipment. Just don't expect to spend a few quid and get something much more than a placebo and / or close to nothing in terms of protection.

    There is a good article here, with testing, that shows that you don't need to spend crazy amounts to get some protection: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and...d-compare.aspx

    Buy and use one by all means, but do your research. Stick to ones that have published figures, and ideally independent testing to back them up.
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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    I thought UPSs also provide surge protection...!? Plus I liked the idea of being able to turn off the devices myself when a power cut occurs... I had rejected the idea of a surge protector because most of those that I saw looked cheap (I'm currently looking at an apc model). A ups seemed to be a reliable choice. Still the difference in money is great...

    Thanks everyone for your precious help! Be seeing you...

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Even if lightning did strike a pylon, the stepdown transformers would do a brilliant job and eliminating or reducing the surge. Plus, as mentioned, built in PSUs are often of higher quality these days, especially some PC ones (Silverstone etc etc)

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    Also keep in mind <------snipped for brevity - but read the whole lot------->testing to back them up.
    All of the full text - couldn't have put it better myself.

    All I would add is that surge protectors (proper ones!) have a limited life - there is only so much energy they can absorb - but there is no way of telling when they stop functioning, so in telecommunications applications they are routinely replaced as part of a planned maintenance schedule.

    Quote Originally Posted by MrRockliffe View Post
    Even if lightning did strike a pylon, the stepdown transformers would do a brilliant job and eliminating or reducing the surge. Plus, as mentioned, built in PSUs are often of higher quality these days, especially some PC ones (Silverstone etc etc)
    No surge protector is going to protect against a direct lightning strike - if you look at a pylon, around the insulators, there are wires to provide a spark gap if the voltage does surge. However there will still be small spikes that will feed through the distribution system.

    And if you get a lightening strike near enough to take out a TV, it wil probably take out the UPS - and possibly anything connected to it.

    Where a UPS IS useful is protecting against brown outs, and minor surges and allow (as the OP said) controlled shutdown in the event of a power cut that might be caused by, for example a lightning strike or other upstream fault.

    But best protection in a thunderstorm, unplug everything and disconnect anything that goes outside the house, TV aerials, phone lines and so on.
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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    From personal experience I would say do not get Belkin UPS's or their surge protectors.

    I had the Belkin ECO surge protectors, more for the fact you can turn off devices with an easy to use wireless button so that you don't have to crawl behind some cupboard or under some desk to flick the main switch. In 6 years I've had 6 fail just after warrantee, 1st 3 I bought went within weeks of each other but for convenience of the wireless button I bought another set, but again 3 years later after warrantee they all fail within weeks of each other. No other devices/appliances in the house connected to mains or other multiway plugs had any issues in that time.

    My unbranded non surge protected multiway plugs have lasted 15-20 years, I still have the one that was connected to my SNES back in the day with all ports working.

    I also had a Belkin UPS, again failed completely just after warrantee. I'm not bothered that the battery does fail over time with all UPS's its the fact with Belkin it seems to completely fail and is unusable. I've never liked their routers either, that I at least escaped.

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Have you looked at the APC ES? It has 4 UPS/surge protection and 4 surge protection plugs.

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosSystem View Post
    Have you looked at the APC ES? It has 4 UPS/surge protection and 4 surge protection plugs.
    Have you read the rest of the thread for the consensus on surge protection products?
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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    Also keep in mind that a lot of the surge protectors you buy from the stores are junk. They don't include important specifications and "warranties" that are so full of fine print they are worthless. I've seen no-name chinese ones that consisted of nothing other than a red light behind some plastic (this was from a local market). The market really has been flooded with tat the last few years.

    A common thing you'll hear is that someones "surge protector" went up in smoke and "stopped their equipment from doing so". The irony is that often these things use components of such low quality, that they are designed to pop and make you think it has done its job (and you'll probably buy a new one) at very low ratings.

    Most electronic appliances have their own 'protections' in, in terms of making sure they don't die and stay reliable (to a degree). The components used in a PSU (PC, TV, Hi-fi) these days are of such high quality compared to 20 years ago that you usually don't need to worry. Not only that, but the national grid is excellent in terms of being stable compared to many places in the world.
    No respectable manufacturer is going to skimp on a few dollars worth of components and have additional warranties to deal with because of it.

    As for lightning strikes and such...these cheap devices you see in the shops usually can't handle them (there is a reason they don't publish their specs), so don't think for a second they'll help with that either. Any protection you get is limited by your link to earth ground.

    There are some decent posts by westom in this thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=2248727
    Sadly a few people in there are very ignorant to his claims (which can easily be backed up by some basic maths).

    Having said that, surge protectors are real things, that really work and save equipment. Just don't expect to spend a few quid and get something much more than a placebo and / or close to nothing in terms of protection.

    There is a good article here, with testing, that shows that you don't need to spend crazy amounts to get some protection: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and...d-compare.aspx

    Buy and use one by all means, but do your research. Stick to ones that have published figures, and ideally independent testing to back them up.
    Many thanks to you, sir...!

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Have you read the rest of the thread for the consensus on surge protection products?
    I did, but I was hoping that UPS stands out more!

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    Re: I want to protect my entire Home Cinema-Gaming set up! What ups should I go for?

    I thank everyone for their help! It was more than I could have hoped for!

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