When you have several electrical devices together, as is often the case on the desk where you have the PC, it is quite common to have only one power strip (or thief) on which you absolutely plug All. You should know that these power strips, especially if they are not of good quality, have certain limits, not only of power, but also of voltage (voltage) which, if exceeded, can cause overloads. What would happen to the power strip of your PC and the connected devices themselves if this happens? We will see it.
From time to time we have told you about power strips, these socket multipliers that allow us to plug several devices into the same wall outlet, and what happens if, for example, you connect several power strips in series (disclose: nothing happens until it is overloaded). But what happens when it is overloaded? For example, imagine that you plug a high-drain vacuum cleaner into the power strip of the PC and with that the voltage and power skyrocket… to get down to business, you must first know what this limit is, so let’s go .
How much power can a power strip withstand?
Typically, when you buy a power strip, they don’t think about how much power it supports, but how many power outlets they have to know how many devices you can plug into it. However, you should know that this is quite important information if you want to avoid overloading, especially since to be honest, in the end almost all of you buy the typical power strip “from the Chinese” or from the hardware store, the white that has no labels or other information than that printed in low relief on the plastic of its case itself.
Those cheap power strips that don’t have any kind of protection usually have a 2200 watt peak power limit, which does not mean that they support 2,200 watts of continuous consumption but that they are ready to support this power at specific times, so pay attention to that. In any case, as we mentioned before, you can check this information on the plastic case itself, where it is usually engraved in bas-relief.
On the other hand, higher quality power strips with protection generally support higher power and voltage peaks, with ranges from 3500 to 4800 watts or even more (although more than that is already for industrial power strips).
What happens if the PC power strip is overloaded?
Certainly, if you search the internet for images of overloaded power strips, you will see pictures of power strips that have completely burned out, even with fire, smoke, and melted power strips. It’s something that can really happen, although the most normal thing is that it never happens because before the general automatic will jump
However, it sometimes happens that these security systems break down, either because they are not correctly installed, or because they are in poor condition, or because the electrical installation of your house is too old, or because you don’t even have a general protection system, either simply because it’s not a 100% foolproof system and sometimes it fails or starts working too late.
In these cases, the first consequence will be overheating of the power strip, and it could actually end up melting or even burning. This is an extreme case that in 99.99% of cases will not happen, but the possibility exists and must be taken into account. Generally speaking, nothing should happen to your PC, not even in these cases, since what will burn will be the power strip and not your PC, which also has a power supply which also has its own protections , which will fire before anything harm happens to your precious hardware.
How to prevent the power strip from being overloaded?
For safety, normally the sockets in the kitchen of your house have their own automatic and higher amperage than those in the rest of your house. Indeed, household appliances consume much more than any other device and also generate higher voltage peaks. For this reason, the first piece of advice we are going to give you is that never connect devices to a power stripbecause there are many polls which overload it.
Beyond that, the second recommendation is that although we have already told you that power strips can be daisy-chained without too much trouble, it is better to buy one power strip with the largest number of sockets must link the power strips together, both for security and for cable management.
Finally, we have always recommended the use of good quality protective strips (in fact, we always recommend using an inverter), especially for the PC and all the devices that we must connect to its ecosystem. If you want us to recommend a specific power strip, we recommend this APC model (we’ve talked about this in other articles, we’ve been using this specific model for over 10 years now and it’s still going strong… it’s expensive, but it’s a worthwhile investment.
