Let's say that you've just saved your every extra penny for a couple of months and bought (or built) yourself the latest high-end gaming system available on the market, featuring the speediest graphics cards in either SLI or CrossFire modes, a 1 or 2TB HDDs (or perhaps even a couple of SSDs), several gigs of RAM... OK, you've probably got the picture regarding the kind of system I'm talking about. Then, you start playing your favorite FPS and then, right in the middle of the hottest action scene, your power network gets a sudden surge. The result? Half of your computer's components are “fried” beyond repair.

In fact, there are a couple of things you might wanna do in order to avoid such a situation from occurring again (or occurring at all, for that matter). Some of them require you to spend a little extra money in order to safeguard your system against power surges, while others are quite simple and only need a couple of minutes of your time.

The first thing that you should do is simply check out the state of the wiring in your home. If the wiring is faulty or damaged, the power surge might affect it to a larger degree than it would one with an OK system. It's always a good idea to install grounded power sockets throughout your home, in order to deflect the surcharge towards the ground, rather than your computer.

The second thing you could do is simply be careful when a storm's coming, for example. I don't know about you, but after getting my computer's HDD and Ethernet adapter fried after a lighting bolt hit the building I live in (and the wiring on top of it), I'd rather pull out all of the cables connected to my computer during powerful thunderstorms than go through something like that again.

However, if you're not keen on pulling out all of the wires whenever the weather's acting up, you could always go for a simpler, but costlier solution. Hence, you could purchase a Surge Protector, a device that absorbs the excess voltage released through one's electrical system during a power spike, thus keeping your computer safe. The best idea here is to check the power ratings, typically the UL 1449 clamping voltage.

Underwriters Laboratories (UL) rates the clamping voltage of various surge protectors at around 500 amps. When comparing various surge protector models, it's always a good idea to look for the lowest possible rating, as well as the fact that the respective device protects along all three power lines (hot, neutral and ground).

Another very important issue worth mentioning here is the fact that your device of choice will have to come equipped with a circuit breaker and should also have a very fast response time, in order to prevent any excess voltage from reaching the network. Plus, it should sport a power shut down protection system, a feature for shutting off power to all of the outlets once the unit has reached its capacity to protect.

Another aspect you should also check is the Joule rating, which indicates the amount of energy the respective device is actually capable of absorbing. Quite obviously, in this case, the Joule rating should be as high as possible, since the higher the value, the higher the level of protection the respective device will be able to provide.

Finally, if you decided to go for something a little fancier, you could always go for a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), especially since most of these devices also double as surge protectors. We won't go into more details regarding this issue here, because this subject has been thoroughly covered in a previous article.

In any case, regardless of which particular solution you will go for, you should choose at least one, if you care enough about your hardware, that is.