Woke up to a fried motherboard after 5 years of bad practice

I had been using the same surge protector since 2018, daisy chaining power strips off it to fit all my test bench gear. Last Tuesday a power flicker blew out the motherboard on a client's custom build I had sitting open. How often are you guys replacing your power protection gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy8584d ago

My surge protector is from 2014. It has a sticky note on it that says "probably fine." I've been tempting fate for almost a decade at this point.

black.margaret3d ago

Oh totally I feel that @amy858, I had the exact same sticky note situation until last year when I finally swapped out my 2016 strip after a brownout killed an external drive. Its wild how we treat these things like they last forever but the internal MOVs wear down over time and you dont even know it. I switched to a whole-house surge protector after that and still swap my power strips every 2-3 years now just in case. That 2014 one is probably a ticking time bomb honestly.