will a ups stop power switch pops?

[car3on]

Hey dudes and dudettes....
Whenever a power switch gets turned on or off, right down to the power on the kettle, the computer reacts to it, meaning I am getting spiking or somesuch through the pute.. Thats what seems to happen anyway
Will a ups isolate the pute from that sort of stoof, or do I need to ring the owners of the house, and tell them to fix their power? It seems to halt the digital audio outs everytime a switch is thrown, I don't like that
How can I stop it???

 

[RustyNale]

Yes, a good ups will stop the spikes and the brown-outs.

 

[Boobers]

Is your house properly grounded? Do you have three-prong grounded outlets? Check to see if your circuit breaker panel is grounded to a cold water pipe AND to a copper spike (driven into the ground) outside your house. If you have a bad ground, lots of wierd things can happen. An expensive UPS with a proper filter MAY help, but many cheaper ones won't, especially if they aren't properly grounded in the first place.

 

[alkemyst]

bad...bad power. Is this a older house? Fuse box or circuit breakers (this doesn't necessarily mean fuses are bad, just fused house tend to be problematic with modern equipment).

If it is old you can try to ground what you have again and see if it improves. If it doesn't a re-wire may be necessary, which can be simple to very tedious depending on the architecture/layout of the existing house/wiring. You could also just run a new circuit for the problematic equipement which hides the problem from them, but doesn't eliminate it.

In old houses alot of circuits are shared. Some people can't use a hair dryer with the air on and other wierdness.

 

[Smilin]

Before you even start, run down to the hardware store and get a tester. You can get 'made for tards' models that tell you if you have a hot ground and whatnot with a few simple lights.

My old apartment had some butt-wiring in it and It cost me about a computer and a half in hardware.

 

[alkemyst]

Yeah that is right, the electronics cost is a possibility. I am a *handyman* not by trade, but by hobby. I knew one guy that lost about $10k in A/V gear because he was using one of those $1.99 surge protectors.