Resolving the power issues

All we really need to do to get the formal proof is to cause a system to crash by adding noise to the circuitry. So far, I haven’t be able to find the same combination of components to do that – whatever was causing the high levels of AC noise at the beginning of the ordeal was no longer plugged-in. Maybe it was something my neighbor had plugged in?

Nonetheless, based upon these results, I feel confident saying that AC line noise can cause system crashes and that line conditioners can reduce the amount of line noise to a clinically relevant amount that will bring back stability. Is it rare? Probably, but it does happen. It’s like insurance, only you never see it being used. The other problem is that you’re not going to appreciate the protection that the PC line conditioner gives you. Here’s why:

With perfect power (both line conditioner and power supply), your system is never going to crash from dirty power, so you’ll never have an opportunity where you’ll think to yourself “whew, the line conditioner saved me there.” You will be oblivious to the fact that your AC power is noisy. At the same time, with perfect power, when your system does crash, it’ll be from a cause other than dirty power so you’ll think to yourself “this line conditioner was useless.” It’s a thankless job.

However, after losing 300GB of data to dirty power, the less-than-a-dollar-a-day cost of a high-end line conditioner seems trivial, especially given that a line conditioner will not go obsolete. There aren’t many products that have the same never-obsolete status. The alternative is living on the edge and spending several thousand on HW data recovery. Line noise has killed data – it could happen to you too.

So, my current recommendation is to get the best line conditioner you can afford and never thank me for doing so. In our experience, the PC900 won’t be sufficient in a noise-stressed system such as ours and something of PC1000 performance will be needed. We’ll be working on testing other line conditioners once we figure out how to come up with a test bed for “clinically relevant” AC line noise so we can tell you exactly how much money you need to spend.

What about improved picture/sound quality?

Power conditioners also claim to improve picture and sound quality. We’ll be looking at these claims in a future article. Based upon our initial impressions, you’ll be buying a line conditioner for your PC for stability reasons not performance. That said, with our regular cable TV that’s being viewed on a HDTV, we’re noticing an improvement in the image that’s still small, but more significant than high-end cable differences.