[SOLVED] Electricity falling out, bad for PC?

[Phil_33]

Hi,

So ocasionally, my electricity shuts down. A few times between (5 times I think) 2015-2016, due to personal things. Then we moved. 2 times it happend last year and 4 times this year. At one time, this year, the generator went off-on-off quickly. And it's only this year we realised that my neighbours wanted to be really childish, so I put a piece of paper in front of the switch so that they can't have acces.

My question now is, is this bad for my pc and if so, how bad is this? Are my components now not going to last aas long as it would've lasted when the electricity wouldn't shut down?

Thanks in advance!

 

[13thmonkey]

It depends on the PSU, a great PSU will help, but a UPS would do even better.

 

[punkncat]

As suggested above, I would certainly suggest a UPS/battery backup.
In the case where the generator goes on/off quickly can cause line spikes and damage any electronic device. In the case that it is just shut down or run out of fuel etc. is less likely to cause damage. Much of that possibility for damage can be mitigated by the output side (quality) of the particular power source as well.
Most modern battery backup units provide for power and line conditioning, as well as a USB hookup in order to set certain standards by condition...IE, power goes out, turn machine off, stay on until battery reaches 'x' etc.

 

[Phil_33]

I see, I don't know how the UPS works though. I can't install it either. But I'll ask around and have someone do it for me or I do it myself with some help. Thanks for the answer.

I'll post some pictures of hwinfo. There you can see if somethings wrong

 

[13thmonkey]

It's a box that you plug into the mains, and you plug your PC into it, it's basically a battery with some electronics around it to provide AC power.

 

[Phil_33]

As suggested above, I would certainly suggest a UPS/battery backup.
In the case where the generator goes on/off quickly can cause line spikes and damage any electronic device. In the case that it is just shut down or run out of fuel etc. is less likely to cause damage. Much of that possibility for damage can be mitigated by the output side (quality) of the particular power source as well.
Most modern battery backup units provide for power and line conditioning, as well as a USB hookup in order to set certain standards by condition...IE, power goes out, turn machine off, stay on until battery reaches 'x' etc.

Ok so these are in idle mode:
https://gyazo.com/483895f38a837f0502bf1ce8066c86df
https://gyazo.com/66605c76115baf56e7c2fbb3e19bbcd2
https://gyazo.com/dd1830007433c1cc043dae0539026ae3
https://gyazo.com/b689025a49593679929bbbea88313ff5
https://gyazo.com/8adbf26c22727ba80f20c2fa0db7777d

And these are under load:
https://gyazo.com/4d5aeb8a24a1ada4b83661e8bef0640e
https://gyazo.com/89c165c95356c688f429ee4d36f44466
https://gyazo.com/5e58b184d1cf1cb8b2228bdb0d32191f
https://gyazo.com/adac9b42f4e5049c506b26c9f9a0837d
https://gyazo.com/06c2cec17e400d7bf28139f69baf3cb6

Hopefully you can see here if something is wrong.
Can you btw tell me if it's a good psu? Like can I still do another 5 years with this one? It's 5 years old.

 

[Phil_33]

I've found out that I would need 700 VA. However, I came across an UPS and it didn't say anything about VA. It did say the product: CP12044LI. And it said 42,7 watts I think. Don't know if this is per hour or not. Only know that this guy was selling it really cheap.

 

[thx1138v2]

I've found out that I would need 700 VA. However, I came across an UPS and it didn't say anything about VA. It did say the product: CP12044LI. And it said 42,7 watts I think. Don't know if this is per hour or not. Only know that this guy was selling it really cheap.

Watts are roughly equivalent to VA (Volt/Amps). So ~43 Watts is not sufficient which is probably why it is so cheap.

Yes, off-on-off quickly can damage equipment in your computer. In fact, that's the scenario I encountered while doing a new build several years ago and it fried a brand new HDD. That's the only time that has happened to me.

One way to prevent that is to use a BIOS setting that tells the machine how to recover from lost power. Set it to stay off so if you lose power you can wait until things settle down before powering up again. I do this even with a UPS.

BTW, don't get a cheap UPS OR a cheap PSU. Everything in the computer depends on clean, stable power and buying cheap components endangers everything in the box.