Talk about bad luck!

Mazeroth

I've been an avid computer user for 15 years now, ever since I was 9 years old. I've built more computers than I can count for myself, and for friends/family. Whenever somthing needs fixed, ring ring, Christian, SAVE US! Thankfully, I've been pretty fortunate with my computers running smoothly and not getting hardware failures...until this month.

I have two computers I use in my computer room and my fiancee has my old Pentium3-500. In the last month I've had 2 power supplies die on me, 2 video cards, and just today my freaking Belkin UPC battery backup decided somehow, I have no idea, to send a surge of some sort to my main computer and COOKED it. I was using it and heard a loud POP, then it shut down. I opened the case up and smelled the good ol' burnt electronics smell. I smelled around to localize where it was coming from and could tell my video card bit the dust. Took it out and sure enough, gone. I popped another, older video card in to see if it would boot...of course not! My motherboard has an LED readout with 2 digits for error codes. It's showing a 00 error code, which isn't even in the book! Yeah! I have no idea if my mobo is fried, my processor, the RAM, or hell, all of it! My 2 hard drives aren't even spinning up. I know the Belkin had something to do with it because as soon as it happened my monitor turned off, my speakers and my router. The Belkin had to be reset as well. The other 2 computers are in the same room on the same breaker on different surge bars and are still working fine.

Just thought I'd vent a little bit! I'm thinking of talking to Belkin about what happened, but I'm 99.999% sure they'll say it wasn't their fault. I know it's hard to prove it was the Belkin, but that's all I can figure out.

audiobliss

Man, that stinks! It sounds to me like you've narrowed it down to being the Belkin UPC's fault, but good luck on persuading Belkin of that.

jarros

Ouch! That really hurts, man. You could always try the hard drives and ram in another box to see if they're gone or not (although with your luck, they may mess up that system too!). From now on I'll be using a surge protector between my battery backup and computer.

Don't most backup power supplies come with a $X,000 guarantee against things like this?

audiobliss

Originally posted by jarros
Don't most backup power supplies come with a $X,000 guarantee against things like this?

I certainly thought they did. If so....you may come out of this on top.....:D

Polk65

Originally posted by Mazeroth
I'm thinking of talking to Belkin about what happened...

I'm sorry to hear this happened to you.
Absolutely call Belkin about this and tell them what happened. With your years of experience building PC's they ought to cover you. Get a reference number for your phone call, the full name of the person you speak with, then write Belkin a follow up letter with that information.

Originally posted by jarros
From now on I'll be using a surge protector between my battery backup and computer.

Last year I telephoned APC (another battery backup manufacturer), and their tech support rep. told me it is not recommended and also against fire codes to plug a surge protector into their battery backup as this is considered an unsafe extension cord. I even mentioned it was their own brand surge protector and the guy said no. Likewise with plugging your battery backup into a surge protector then into your AC outlet. Check with yours to be sure and safe.