Question Motherboard - White light?

[Rengal]

When I turn on the button at the back of my powersupply my motherboard gives off a white light for a brief moment. Why is that and is it something to worry about? I am a bit worry that someting with the electricity isn't working right.

Best regards Rengal

 

[COLGeek]

Why are you powering down your system with the switch on the PSU?

That is likely just an LED letting you know that the power has been restored.

 

[drea.drechsler]

When I turn on the button at the back of my powersupply my motherboard gives off a white light for a brief moment. Why is that and is it something to worry about? I am a bit worry that someting with the electricity isn't working right.

Best regards Rengal

What is your system configuration: motherboard, psu mainly but CPU and memory just in case.

Many systems have LED lighting, of various colors and some have special meaning depending on which LED lights up. Someone with experience with your hardware may be more helpful.

 

[Rengal]

Why are you powering down your system with the switch on the PSU?

That is likely just an LED letting you know that the power has been restored.

Because I live in a country where the weather from time to time rapidly changes leading to thunderstorms, especially this time of the year. So I turn off my powersupply and take it out of the wall socket just to be safe. Sadly enough, like a laughter of fate, thunder heavily struck last night leading to light flicker in my house (maybe brownout) and my pc was on. Didn't hear it before it was to late. Nothing happened, but I know that things like this kan lead to degrading of components that first show up a year later. So no, doesn't feel so good for this to happened to a machine I will do a lot of heavy work with. And no my wallsockets are not grounded, so having my pc hooked up to a power surge protector, I have heard, have little to no effect. I hope this answers you question in a good way.


I have 9900k, Aorus Master, Evga 850 G2, 3200 MHz Corsair Vengeance.

Best regards Rengal

 

[COLGeek]

Because I live in a country where the weather from time to time rapidly changes leading to thunderstorms, especially this time of the year. So I turn off my powersupply and take it out of the wall socket just to be safe. Sadly enough, like a laughter of fate, thunder heavily struck last night leading to light flicker in my house (maybe brownout) and my pc was on. Didn't hear it before it was to late. Nothing happened, but I know that things like this kan lead to degrading of components that first show up a year later. So no, doesn't feel so good for this to happened to a machine I will do a lot of heavy work with. And no my wallsockets are not grounded, so having my pc hooked up to a power surge protector, I have heard, have little to no effect. I hope this answers you question in a good way.


I have 9900k, Aorus Master, Evga 850 G2, 3200 MHz Corsair Vengeance.

Best regards Rengal

Understood. That is a lot of computing gear to not be protected with a UPS. You should invest in one. Grounding sockets would be good as well. There are ways to do so (Google can help with this).

 

[drea.drechsler]

...And no my wallsockets are not grounded, so having my pc hooked up to a power surge protector, I have heard, have little to no effect. ...

Don't know where you've 'heard' this, but it's just like anything else: the effectiveness of the protection depends on the quality of the product. There are a lot of very good ones that are a whole lot cheaper than an UPS if you don't need the ability to stay operational through an event. So your PC may lose power and shut down when the lights flicker but it was protected from accompanying voltage spikes and surges.

Here's one review of some quality surge protectors. You might find more if you look. These things are more expensive than the average power strip, but they work and usually have a lot of good features like protection for cable TV lines and phone lines as well.

Another feature worth having is one that determines when it's protection is no longer effective. Surge protector devices don't have infiinite life, they degrade as they shunt voltage spikes to ground. So you have to replace it periodically, it's nice to know when it's time to replace instead of just guessing.

But one thing that's very important is to ground the surge protector since it depends on that ground to work correctly. So if your outlets aren't grounded it won't work right. Maybe that's what you meant by "...have little to no effect." So for your PC outlet at least you should route a ground wire back to the service box and connect it to ground there. Have a licenced electrician do if you don't know how.

The Best Surge Protector

Tripp Lite’s 12-outlet TLP1208TELTV absorbs thousands of volts so they won’t fry your gear, and it helpfully lets you know when its protection wears out.

thewirecutter.com

 

[Rengal]

Don't know where you've 'heard' this, but it's just like anything else: the effectiveness of the protection depends on the quality of the product. There are a lot of very good ones that are a whole lot cheaper than an UPS if you don't need the ability to stay operational through an event. So your PC may lose power and shut down when the lights flicker but it was protected from accompanying voltage spikes and surges.

Here's one review of some quality surge protectors. You might find more if you look. These things are more expensive than the average power strip, but they work and usually have a lot of good features like protection for cable TV lines and phone lines as well.

Another feature worth having is one that determines when it's protection is no longer effective. Surge protector devices don't have infiinite life, they degrade as they shunt voltage spikes to ground. So you have to replace it periodically, it's nice to know when it's time to replace instead of just guessing.

But one thing that's very important is to ground the surge protector since it depends on that ground to work correctly. So if your outlets aren't grounded it won't work right. Maybe that's what you meant by "...have little to no effect." So for your PC outlet at least you should route a ground wire back to the service box and connect it to ground there. Have a licenced electrician do if you don't know how.

The Best Surge Protector

Tripp Lite’s 12-outlet TLP1208TELTV absorbs thousands of volts so they won’t fry your gear, and it helpfully lets you know when its protection wears out.

thewirecutter.com

Thanks for the better explanation. Yes exactly, my oulets aren't grounded. I shall look into the thing you mentioned and see if I can get some help getting it fixed. Is there any other possible way at the moment to protect from thunderstrikes? I just hope my pc haven't taken harmful damage, it would be so hearthbreaking because I have just built it. I shall be a lot more careful in the future. If I would take it to an apartment (no grounded outlets there to) in the city and the lights flicker from a thunderstrike, would that be less harmful?

 

[COLGeek]

Get an UPS to protect from the power fluctuations and lightning strikes (UPS acts as surge suppressor as well).

 

[drea.drechsler]

Get an UPS to protect from the power fluctuations and lightning strikes (UPS acts as surge suppressor as well).

Sounds pretty expensive when all you need is surge/spike protection.

Especially considering surge protection devices don't last forever. Do they put any kind of special surge protection devices that have extra long life? Most of them degrade after so many surges and need replacement. It's cheaper if just replacing a power strip type of surge protector, but replacing a whole UPS get's expensive once a year.

Still, if you need to know you aren't going to lose work when the power glitches an UPS is the only way.

 

[COLGeek]

Sounds pretty expensive when all you need is surge/spike protection.

Especially considering surge protection devices don't last forever. Do they put any kind of special surge protection devices that have extra long life? Most of them degrade after so many surges and need replacement. It's cheaper if just replacing a power strip type of surge protector, but replacing a whole UPS get's expensive once a year.

Still, if you need to know you aren't going to lose work when the power glitches an UPS is the only way.

An UPS is less expensive than all the hardware the OP is using. By a lot.

I have an UPS sitting 5 feet away from me that I have had for approx 6 years. Replaced battery once. Still rocking on.

 

[drea.drechsler]

An UPS is less expensive than all the hardware the OP is using. By a lot.

I have an UPS sitting 5 feet away from me that I have had for approx 6 years. Replaced battery once. Still rocking on.

And it could possibly be lacking the surge protection it originally had. If so and it gets zapped hard enough all you might lose is the control boards in the UPS so yeah, it protected the computer. But again: that makes it a pretty expensive surge protector. All I'm saying is I think it's value is in being an UPS, not a surge protector.

If all I'm looking for or need is protection against surges and spikes I'll look for a cheaper solution that I don't mind replacing every year to know the protection level remains viable. If the UPS has easily removed and replaced surge protectors you could do that, but somehow I don't think affordable home UPS units are so equipped.

 

[Rengal]

But UPS as far as I can found require an grounded outlet, which I for the moment don't have. Otherwise it will only be a false security and can be worse for your electronic than not using it at all. Please correct me if I am wrong. If UPS is what is needed to be safe from thunderstrikes and it works as planned in a outlet that is NOT grounded I gladly buy it even if I have to change it every year.

Is there any way to test my pc to see if it have taken damage from the thunderstrike being followed by a short light flickering.

Best regards Rengal

 

[drea.drechsler]

But UPS as far as I can found require an grounded outlet, which I for the moment don't have. Otherwise it will only be a false security and can be worse for your electronic than not using it at all. Please correct me if I am wrong. If UPS is what is needed to be safe from thunderstrikes and it works as planned in a outlet that is NOT grounded I gladly buy it even if I have to change it every year.

Is there any way to test my pc to see if it have taken damage from the thunderstrike being followed by a short light flickering.

Best regards Rengal

You'll need an earth ground for any surge protection device to work correctly. It doesn't have to come with the outlet, that's just the way they pick up the ground connection in a convenient way.

You could run a wire from a convenient copper water pipe to the case of your computer. That will help the surge protection built into most PSU's to work right but it won't help an external surge device work correctly.

It's very hard to test for lightening stressed components that are still functioning. If it works it's still OK you just don't know how long it will last or if the next voltage surge will be the one that does it in.

 

[COLGeek]

I agree that you need to resolve your grounding issue for long term use and safety.

 

[Gam3r01]

And it could possibly be lacking the surge protection it originally had. If so and it gets zapped hard enough all you might lose is the control boards in the UPS so yeah, it protected the computer. But again: that makes it a pretty expensive surge protector. All I'm saying is I think it's value is in being an UPS, not a surge protector.

If all I'm looking for or need is protection against surges and spikes I'll look for a cheaper solution that I don't mind replacing every year to know the protection level remains viable. If the UPS has easily removed and replaced surge protectors you could do that, but somehow I don't think affordable home UPS units are so equipped.

A UPS is greatly more concerned with saving your data compared to hardware protection than a surge protector offers.
Having the proper power stability provided by a UPS is far more valuable than just plain surge protection.

 

[drea.drechsler]

A UPS is greatly more concerned with saving your data compared to hardware protection than a surge protector offers.
Having the proper power stability provided by a UPS is far more valuable than just plain surge protection.

I can agree with that... especially see value in locations with highly unstable power plagued with drop-outs and brown-outs.

 

[popatim]

A UPS is greatly more concerned with saving your data compared to hardware protection than a surge protector offers.
Having the proper power stability provided by a UPS is far more valuable than just plain surge protection.

This is soo true.
My cousin's PC would crash all the time and I suspected it was a power issue all along just from the being in a small town on the edge of a power grid. Got him a UPS and suddenly his PC was stable and still running that i7-2600 today.

If you want surge protection and don't have grounded outlets, get a whole house surge protector. They are typically much better then most every outlet strip made.

 

[popatim]

In reading this entire thread, I would recommend getting both.
I would get the surge protection going first. You seem to be doing well with unplugging for storms and I would continue with that. The PSU can absorb some of the brownout and a good HDD will park the heads to prevent physical damage when it senses power dropouts. If these brownouts are common, you probably should pick up a UPS but you will need a grounded outlet to prevent it from going into 'loss of earth ground' alarm, which is rather noisy.

Electrical code here deems earth ground be to the fusebox/breakerbox or another earth ground wire that does go there. We cant ground to a water pipe even if its right at the pipe where water comes into the house at.

 

[Rengal]

In reading this entire thread, I would recommend getting both.
I would get the surge protection going first. You seem to be doing well with unplugging for storms and I would continue with that. The PSU can absorb some of the brownout and a good HDD will park the heads to prevent physical damage when it senses power dropouts. If these brownouts are common, you probably should pick up a UPS but you will need a grounded outlet to prevent it from going into 'loss of earth ground' alarm, which is rather noisy.

Electrical code here deems earth ground be to the fusebox/breakerbox or another earth ground wire that does go there. We cant ground to a water pipe even if its right at the pipe where water comes into the house at.

Change of plan. Need to use this pc in an apartment in the city. The outlets are not grounded except in the kitchen where one outlet have metalprongs on its side which grounded outlets usually have. I have talked to the landlord (if my english is right) and grounding all outlets in the apartment ain't an option. I will be extremely careful taking my pc there so do not worry. Brown outs following a thunderstrike can occur even there. What I wonder is can I connect a surge protector to the outlet in the kitchen, use a long outlet extension hooked up to it and drag it all the way to my main room and then connect a UPS to it in my mainroom and from there hook up my computer to it? I have heard that using an extension from a grounded outlet to a room where the outlets are not grounded can be a cause of fire, why I don't know. I have got a lot of amazing answers here so thats why I ask you again, is this a possible method to be able to use both a surge protector and UPS to protect my pc in the future, a pc that will do a lot of heavy tasking.

Ps. My PSU have:
Over Voltage Protection (OVP)
Under Voltage Protection (UVP)
Over Power Protection (OPP)
Short Circuit Protection (SCP)
Over Current Protection (OCP)

But I have heard that those protection mechanisms won't work if the power supply ain't hooked up to a grounded outlet. Is this true?

Best regards Rengal

 

[drea.drechsler]

Change of plan. Need to use this pc in an apartment in the city. The outlets are not grounded except in the kitchen ....

Best regards Rengal

The extension cord could work but with some considerations:

Be sure the extension cord includes the ground wire...it should have three prong plug and socket.

The fire hazard is mainly because long extension cords can get hot with a heavy current flowing through them and then catch fire. To prevent that use heavy gauge wire cord and do not leave it coiled up (coils concentrate the heat and increase the fire hazard).

I'd suggest also getting one of the outdoor cords used for outdoor tools...they have a very rugged insulation coating and usually come in heavier gauge wire. At least 14ga, 12 ga if it's going to be really long.

The next thing is they're a trip hazard. So be careful how you locate it and when moving about. And don't cover it in a carpet or rug. That both increases the fire hazard and encourages people to step on it which could wear through the insulation and create a short.

I'd also run the extension cord straight from the outlet and put the surge protection device right adjacent to the computer. Not only will it work better as surge protector, but it has a circuit breaker (or should) and you want that to help protect against overcurrent in the extension cord.

 

[Rengal]

The extension cord could work but with some considerations:

Be sure the extension cord includes the ground wire...it should have three prong plug and socket.

The fire hazard is mainly because long extension cords can get hot with a heavy current flowing through them and then catch fire. To prevent that use heavy gauge wire cord and do not leave it coiled up (coils concentrate the heat and increase the fire hazard).

I'd suggest also getting one of the outdoor cords used for outdoor tools...they have a very rugged insulation coating and usually come in heavier gauge wire. At least 14ga, 12 ga if it's going to be really long.

The next thing is they're a trip hazard. So be careful how you locate it and when moving about. And don't cover it in a carpet or rug. That both increases the fire hazard and encourages people to step on it which could wear through the insulation and create a short.

I'd also run the extension cord straight from the outlet and put the surge protection device right adjacent to the computer. Not only will it work better as surge protector, but it has a circuit breaker (or should) and you want that to help protect against overcurrent in the extension cord.

Thanks for the great answer. I will go with that method. One last thing if it is ok. When the thunder struck, followed by a short light flicker; why didn't the pc or monitor shut off? Would it have done that for example if the oulets where grounded? The question may be very stupid, but I hope it's okay for me asking?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks for the great answer. I will go with that method. One last thing if it is ok. When the thunder struck, followed by a short light flicker; why didn't the pc or monitor shut off? Would it have done that for example if the oulets where grounded? The question may be very stupid, but I hope it's okay for me asking?

The power supply has monstrously huge capacitors (which are essentially little batteries) that will maintain voltage if power drops for a couple milliseconds. That may be by design (keep-alive capacitors), or just an accident because your system was in a low-load state with lots of excess capacity in the PSU filtering.

 

[Rengal]

The power supply has monstrously huge capacitors (which are essentially little batteries) that will maintain voltage if power drops for a couple milliseconds. That may be by design (keep-alive capacitors), or just an accident because your system was in a low-load state with lots of excess capacity in the PSU filtering.

So the best solution would also be to buy a new powersupply because the capacitors in the psu beeing excessively used and may no longer be up to the same standard as before?

 

[drea.drechsler]

So the best solution would also be to buy a new powersupply because the capacitors in the psu beeing excessively used and may no longer be up to the same standard as before?

Not saying that... the capacitors in a PSU have a long life if good quality. That's partly why everyone insists on good quality PSU's since they use better capacitors to be sure they DO have a long life.

 

[Rengal]

I meant if it have being damage by the thunderstrike and the best solution would be to buy a new one. Because of the psu being a ticking time bomb waiting to fail and take the hardware with it. Apparently a lot of people in my country have got their pc's destroyed by the big thunder so it doesn't bode well for the future. I wish I just would have heard it in time. But no point regretting it, best looking forward and hope for the best .

Best regards Rengal