Belkin Standard 4-Gang Surge Protector Problem

Hi guys

Bought a Belkin Surge protector (Standard) from PCWorld... I hooked it up to my system and accidentally knocked that power switch (That seems to break connection with a small touch, what a piece of crap), this turned my system off obviously... And I got a BIOS message saying "Overclock failed" (My machine is not Overclocked)

Plugged in a normal socket strip and it's not working fine

I noticed the back of the box mentions various levels of equipment (Gold being the highest) and also my machine won't boot properly connected to the Standard SP... Do I need Gold?

(Connected Hardware: my machine - click info button for specs, logitect x530 5.1 speakers, samsung 2032MB monitor)

Cheers for the help guys

T

Quote:

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Originally Posted by th0r0n

Bought a Belkin Surge protector (Standard) from PCWorld

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Well, this is just my personal opinion, obviously, but I think you have made two common purchasing errors here.

1. You have bought something made by Belkin
2. You have bought something from PC World

I wouldn't recommend doing either - the only Belkin products I have ever owned that weren't totally ****e are a few network cables and an external iPod battery pack. PC World seem to like selling their stuff, which is a condemmnation in itself.
Get something from a decent manufacturer like APC if you want to pay for protection, or a generic surge protector from B&Q if you want something cheap and nasty. Belkin is the worst of both worlds, IMO.

While I wouldn't go so far as to condem all Belkin stuff, these 'surge protectors' seem pretty much a waste of money - what is it you are hoping to protect against? If you live at the end of a long country lane where mains voltage regulation is likely to be poor, then there may be some merit in them, but you are better off with a UPS. If you are hoping to protect against lightening strilkes - forget it - a direct hit will go through anything, and if you are hoping to protect against induced surges caused by lightning (not a direct hit) they are of dubious quality, and you have no way of telling if they are effective or not. (They degrade with each surge they protect against anyway) As for 'needing gold' - you probably don't need anything.

Did you say that the machine does boot properly from a normal power socket? You did say that its not working fine...

Yeah sorry it boots properly from a socket

The reason I was looking for one is that my speakers 'pop' when I turn my bedroom light off, or when someone turns the downstairs bathroom light on :/

Belkin POS will be going back to PCWorld.

T

The pop from the speakers is caused by radio interference caused by the tiny spark when you switch the light off - coupled with poor (cheap) design of the speaker amplifier that has poor common mode noise rejection. A surge protector will not solve that problem.

Three ways of tackling this:

a. Supress noise at source and fit a suppressor capacitor to the light switch. ONLY DO THIS IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR ARE DOING! You need the appropriately rated components to do it safely. Not recommended.

b. Re route the speaker cables. The interference is probably being picked up by the speaker leads and fed back into the negative feedback cct of the amplifier. Screened speaker cables might help - but until you try it - hard to say.

c. Check the connectors on the input to the amplifier - do you still get the pop with no inputs connected? If yes, see b above. If no, then it is the input ccts that are picking up the noise, so you need to look at the quality of the input connection leads.

Ah, thanks, I'm not that bothered about the popping if it's not damaging my equipment :)

I'll return the Belkin rubbish, thanks.

T

Ther only danger to equipment is the risk of damage to the speakers (if they are Hi-Fi) and the volume is turned up on the amp - it is possible (but unlikely) for the cone suspension to be damaged by a large excursion - but we are talking speakers costing £300 upwards (speaker only) Computer speakers are unlikely to be damaged.