How can I tell a voltage stabilizer is pure or modified sine wave?

[Aileen212]

Hi all. Am a little worried about my son's gaming PC. I moved it to his room where I needed to get a multi-socket power strip. So considering I was getting a power strip, decided to get a stabilizer (for PC). Then I read that you're not supposed to hook newer computers onto stabilizers, unless they're pure sine wave. I have zero clue whether this particular one is pure sine wave. It actually looks kind of sketchy (kind of bad paint job, light-ish weight, soft-ish plastic). Here's the website for it: PX10 2200 – Anthay I'm in South America by the way, so we use 220.

My son's PSU is the Seasonic Focus Plus Gold SSR850FX (I know it's overkill but this particular model was on sale when I got it, lol) so I guess this applies as a modern PSU that can self-stabilize? Will it be safer if I just plug it into the main? My mom is worried about electric instability (we do get blackouts from time to time, they're usually not super long, usually an hour or less, maybe twice or thrice every year). We also get light flickers when it's hot outside and everyone'susing their AC's.

Thanks for any advice, would appreciate it. Don't want to bust my child's PC as I just got him a 580

 

[Wandering one]

What you want ideally is a pure sine wave UPS. This is an uninterrupted power supply that gives perfect protection from spikes and/on brown-outs. Only drawback is price.
Art.

 

[Aileen212]

What you want ideally is a pure sine wave UPS. This is an uninterrupted power supply that gives perfect protection from spikes and/on brown-outs. Only drawback is price.
Art.

Thanks for the suggestion! Will try to get one, although good quality electronic stuff is not as easy to find here or super expensive. In the meantime, will the system be safer just plugged to a regular outlet, or in the [possibly] square sine wave device?

What about a good quality surge-protected power strip? are they useful at all or do they also cause the PSU to strain? They don't use modified sine waves, do they?

 

[iko22]

I see that some voltage stabilizers are also known as automatic voltage regulators (AVR). Some UPS's have AVR's built into them. Then you would have two functions in one product.

Surge-protected power strips are not the same thing. They only provide protection from current surges and voltage spikes. They are designed to protect the equipment, not strain it.

I think the product description would say if it meets the requirement of a pure sine wave.

 

[Megahertz07]

There is no stabilizer, UPS or surge-protected power strip that will protect your computer in the case of lighting on the distribution lines even far away from your home.
You have to consider that a computer PS is always on feeding the MB and memory with 5V even if the computer is off.
I don't have any stabilizer or UPS. I do have a good surge-protected power strip. And I turn the switch off when the computer is not in use. That is the only true protection in the case of lighting on the distribution lines.

You have to consider that all electronics works on DC so it doesn't matter if the input is a pure sine wave or a has some distortion or harmonics. The fist thing a PS does is to rectify into DC, filter with capacitors and invert to lower voltages and again rectify into DC and filter with capacitors.

There are two kinds of voltage stabilizer: One has an auto-transformer with taps and the other is with saturated core. The fist is pure sine wave and the second not. The fist doesn't filter voltages spikes and the second does. The fist one is cheap and the second is expensive and low efficient.

The PX10 2200 – Anthay is an auto-transformer with taps type. That's all you need if you have voltage fluctuation supply without many interruptions.
A UPS is only required if you have constant power interruptions.

 

[maxseven]

Thanks for the suggestion! Will try to get one, although good quality electronic stuff is not as easy to find here or super expensive. In the meantime, will the system be safer just plugged to a regular outlet, or in the [possibly] square sine wave device?

What about a good quality surge-protected power strip? are they useful at all or do they also cause the PSU to strain? They don't use modified sine waves, do they?

If you can't afford a UPS then surge strips are better than nothing at all.

You sound like a candidate for a UPS what with frequent brown-outs & glitches. What may argue against an expensive UPS is the PC not having a spinning hard drive which don't like voltage problems at all.

I don't know if that PSU is one that needs a pure sine wave or not. But in my experience any UPS that *HAS* pure sine wave capability will TOUT IT because it is a sought-after feature. IOW if the UPS you are looking to buy does not say it's a pure sine wave, then it most likely is not!

 

[TechnoMage2016]

Modern computer power supplies are of the Switching Power Supply variety and really don't care if the incoming voltage is pure sine wave or square wave, like comes out of a DC to AC inverter. They don't even care if it's 50 cycle or 60 cycle. And, they do have surge suppression built in.

Now, if you're having frequent power outages, what you really need is a UPS. ( Uninterruptible power supply, also called a Battery Backup power supply) For a UPS, I recommend the APC brand. I've been using that brand for over 20 years with NO problems.

I have five APC brand UPS's here in my house, to protect all my electronics (even my TV).
All my UPS's have their own built in Surge Suppression.

That gizmo you showed us, looks pretty wimpy. I'd not want it.

Good Luck,
TechnoMage