Buying new "everything" after a power spike(?) fried it all

Something to consider regarding Surge protectors - these are very often nothing other than varistors, and once they’ve taken a considerable surge will likely need to be replaced! Not saying they’re not good, just something to keep in mind. :wink:

Thanks…yep I think that they are referred to as “sacrificial” I think the Furman I’m looking at is the non lemming version :slight_smile:

http://www.furmansound.com/product.php?div=03&id=PL-8CE

What I find missing on them is earth leakage circuit breakers. Of course, it may require explicitly fitting a ground strap, but it is better than having 30mA KILL you.

Online (double conversion) would provide the cleanest continuous supply, but are noisier (need a noise cage or another room) and more expensive than the common line-interactive type. At least there will be no control tones or smartmeter bleedthrough on them.

Hiya Patanjali,

Funny you should mention that…am still trying to locate the ground rod for the place we are renting at the moment…have spoke to the real estate guys and they say that it “should be properly earthed”…not sure I like the word “should” …so have asked for a more definitive answer.

Do you know if it’s possible to test a house for earth issues? (other than getting an electrician in)

Cheers,
Greg

Any water pipe will do the trick, but not gas (risk of explosion if any arcing occurs). Just put a tight metal band or earthing strap (like this or this) around it, screw a large gauge cable to that, and link that to the earth lug (or case) on your UPS.

However, there may be regulations that govern what you may use and who may do it, and upon which insurance companies may decide your legal liability in the case of problems.

Buy an earth leakage tester. They give you several currents to test the trigger level that your breakers trip at, and indicate wiring faults in the house or extension cables.

When earth leakage testing, just be sure that you actually have residual current devices (RCDs - required by law in Australia but don’t know about elsewhere). Of course, when the RCD trips, all appliances or lights on that circuit go dead, so just warn other occupants about what might happen (will happen at 100mA test).

Well, if you need high wattage (over 1kW), by far the most economical solution is to buy multiple boxes. 1kW seems to be the watershed between prices that still make sense to a normal person (as in small/personal studio owner) and what looks like totally-unreasonable-only-a-large-corporation-would-buy. You can get a 1kW Cyberpower or similar brand “small business-class” UPS for around $200. But if you need something like 3kW, you can either buy a single “enterprise-class” UPS for $3,000+ or three of the afore-mentioned 1kW units for $600. Needless to say, I’ve always opted for the latter and never had any issues.

Thanks very much Patanjali…was actually out just now getting myself a multi meter at the local Jaycar (Hornsby in Sydney :slight_smile: ) …and got the basics on how to test each socket for an earth issue.

Will probably still get the earth leakage tester too…not convinced the RCD’s are all ok…we’ve been here a year and have never had to go to the fuse box.

Cheers,
Greg

And am now back on the UPS path again after finding this one at a similar price to the Furman

http://www.cpsww.com.au/Product/Product/GetProduct?id=11&mid=32#.VBN4WFcY3mE

have also made quite a bit of progress on specing my new system…and hardware seem a lot more efficient nowadays…am only up to 300w usage so far…so I think a 900w UPS might be the go.

If getting an online (double conversion) UPS, the power factor (VA vs W) varies widely between different makers. I don’t know how they work in other aspects, but Eaton UPSs seem to be the most efficient (~90%), which means that you get the most power out for a given input, which may be an issue if you are approaching the maximum power available from a normal outlet (2400W/10A in Australia).

Thanks…haven’t looked at Eaton yet…will do so

Cheers,
Greg

Getting back to the new PC…I now have the bulk of my research done.
Amazingly the wattage estimate even with the video card in the mix is still only 273w…and only 213w without it!

Q1: I’ve put down a 650W PSU…is that too powerful considering the above and that I am planning to use a 900w UPS?

My initial plan is to use the onboard display port on the Asrock motherboard to drive one of these lovelies:
http://www.aocmonitorap.com/root/anz/product_display.php?id=575
…and then later on add the Asus video card below.
(I was originally going with an Asus MB, but it only allows max of 512mb max shared memory for onboard GPU)

Q2: Have never used a display port before…do they simply work?

Q3: Any glaring mistakes in that list below that anyone can spot?

Cheers,
(Homestretch) Greg



PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Txt9nQ

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (random choice...have no idea which one to get yet)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory
Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 White ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Some random Pioneer Blu Ray unit
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB STRIX Video Card
Storage: Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

That doesn’t sound right. Your nVidia GPU alone needs at least 500W of room (maybe a tad less, but 500 is a safe number every gamer knows…) You probably used the idle power consumption figure to make your calculations. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean anything except for…consumption while the GPU isn’t doing anything. :slight_smile:

Q2: Have never used a display port before…do they simply work?

Yep, they do.

Thanks Indi…the parts picker thingy didn’t seem to get the video card quite right …but the spec for the card says 75W unless I’m reading it wrong?

http://www.asus.com/au/Graphics_Cards/STRIXGTX750TIOC2GD5/specifications/

Glad to hear DP just works…was quite surprised to see that so few vid cards/motherboards have them …it seems (on paper) to be one of the few ways to drive a large resolution monitor at 60hz.

Cheers,
Greg

No! From the specs for the STRIX-GTX750TI-OC-2GD5:

up to 75Wno additional PCIe power required

It has modest power requirements for a gaming card.

use this to figure out the power needed
I would get a Corsair RM 750w

as for UPS you need an inline interactive
trip lite or cyberpower

you can not go by VA you have to go WATTS

740W power supply needs a 750W UPS. plus figure in your monitors (video and audio)
plus interface etc.

triplites ominvs1500 will do its 940W

DP just works, but the same cannot be said for cables.

You may find that full DP cable works OK, and if one was supplied with your monitor, it most certainly will.

However, with mini DP (mDP), a lot of cables are made to work with the Apple 2560x1440 displays and are rated for 8+GHZ. However, if one has a 30" Dell at 2560x1600, such cables will be flakey at best or just not work, and seemingly varying with the phase of the moon! One needs 10+GHz cables instead. I found out the hard way.

Fortunately, they are both available from plenty of places at about the same low prices, but you have to make sure they state that they are 10+GHz. Many don’t state any rating.

Personally, while full size DP cables tend to be built like they could tie up a ship, mDP cables are thinner but still fairly stiff. However, the plugs seem too small for the stiffness of the cable and they are not locking like the full size ones. When I had two quad mDP cards and consequently all mDP cables, I had to be careful to make sure the cables lined up straight into the socket because it seemed like too much sideways stress on the socket might break them, especially if using a short mDP to HDMI or DP adapter connected to a much heavier cable. Just seemed under-engineered for purpose, just to make them small. However, they were universally used for Apple connections for a while, so they must have worked out OK.

OK, not really familiar with that model. However the nVidia website has this:
“Minimum System Power Requirement (W) 300W”

So it needs a 300W room. Plus the rest of what’s in the computer, I’d say that 500W is the bare minimum.

No! That 300W is the recommended minimum for the whole system, including the graphics card.

Note that above that, it states:

Graphics Card Power (W) 60 W

However, you are looking at the nVidia site there, which is for their reference design, and not the Asus product page for the OP’s actual card, which can consume up to 15W more.

Thanks Scott,

I used that site to calculate wattage…it still came up at around 280 watts for me.
Dont mind having extra headroom in the PSU so long as the fact that I’m only using half of it is not an issue?

Re UPS…yep, I figured out the difference between VA and watts required…and this is the 900W UPS I had decided on…any good?

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/pfc-sinewave-series/CP1500PFCLCD.html

Cheers,
Greg

Thanks for the heads up on the DP cables Patanjali !

Cheers,
Greg