1. What is power conditioning and why do I need it?
The electricity that powers your computerized equipment carries with it some harmful properties called transients, surges, and noise. These phenomena are excessive spurts or spikes of electrical energy ("noise") that travel along the power line and enter your system. This noise, if allowed to pass through to the electronics of your system, will eat away at the microprocessors and cause them to malfunction and ultimately to fail.
Effective power conditioning filters out these harmful disturbances, preventing malfunctions and the erosion of your equipment while substantially enhancing its reliability and overall operation.
2. What types of equipment can benefit from power conditioning?
Any kind of computer-based equipment will show improved performance when protected against noise. Some applications are:
3. What causes electrical noise?
Electrical noise can be caused by major disturbances like lightning, but are most often the natural by-product of the use of electricity. For example, noise that gets into your equipment can be caused by the elevator in your building, the air conditioner, the emergency generator set, the coffee maker, the copier machine, or even by a neighboring piece of electronic equipment. No matter where you plug in your equipment, you find electrical noise. In fact, it's only safe when it's unplugged.
4. I don't have any power problems. Why do I need a power conditioner?
Electrical noise is truly an invisible problem since the damage it does may not cause your system to fail immediately. This unseen damage frequently causes "soft" failures, such as those unexplainable error in printing, system lock-ups or inaccurate test results. Ultimately, the cumulative effect of these problems will show up as "hard" failures. And that means your system stops working and requires repair.
You may not realize it, but you've probably adjusted to many of these problems. After all, they came with the equipment, right? Wrong! Even the most reliable computer equipment can run more smoothly with power conditioning.
5. Why don't manufacturers build protection into their systems?
Some levels of protection are built into most systems. However, since electrical noise levels vary dramatically from location to location, and there is considerable pressure to keep equipment price levels down, manufacturers usually build in a lower level of protection. In effect, it's up to the user to provide the proper environment, which includes clean electric power.
6. Must I protect my whole network or just my central computer?
Electrical noise can enter your system from any part that is connected to the outside world. Therefore you must be wary of every item that is plugged into the wall and every item that is connected to a telephone wire or other communication connection. Each item must be protected with a power conditioner. Items which are clustered together may all be plugged into a properly sized single power conditioner while items further afield must have their own power conditioner. The telephone line can be protected separately with an Oneac Line Protector.
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