Power supply over heating....(help me soviet!!!)

Hi all, this is actually a question for my GFs asus g51 which has a CPU and GPU OC....but, i trust the sager/clevo folks more, and this is a basic question. the power brick / power supply is on the floor by her desk, and plugged into a totally different socket than her monitor /rest of PC equipment because if its not we get really bad feed back on her external LCD (bad flickering) My Sager + her speakers an gadgets are plugged into the most convenient outlet. At any rate, we're all good in this set up. but im concerned she will leave clothes or something on top of her PS causing it to fry or over heat, is that likely or do they have thermal shut offs etc? I've all ready given her the talk but you know....

 

Its likely she will do it, and no, GFs dont have shut offs, at all.

 

well, crud....i figured as much. Maybe i'll stick the power brick under her dresser where theres at least constant breathing room all around it.

 

Stick a laptop cooling mat underneath it.

 

and btw, is it normal to get external monitor when theres a bunch of stuff plugged into a surge protector? It only happens when notebook power is plugged into the same outlet/surge protector. On same circut but different outlet we're fine.

 

My concern with surge protectors lies more with how well they can filter noise rather than actual surge suppression as noise is a lot more common than getting a micro brownout or blackout. At home, I have a frontline surge protector at my wall, then my UPS, and three protected power strips branching from the UPS with each one serving their own purpose. My notebook has an additional inline surge protector behind the PSU for when I use my notebook on campus or elsewhere away from home. The frontline surge protector should be something small, cheap, and disposable, while the UPS should be your primary defense. This way, if you do get a power surge, your frontline surge protector will take most of the brunt before the rest of the spike goes to ground and to your UPS. Yes, it is perfectly fine to daisy chain surge protectors as long as you don't exceed the rated current draw.

One consumer grade surge protector with basic passive noise suppression ($10-20 junk that you commonly find at Worst Buy) might not be enough to shield the feedback from other devices going to the external monitor as seen from your description, steadfast9661. That is why in my setup, I have three different strips instead of plugging everything into one strip or linking all three strips off one another (which is stupider). The surge protector at the wall filters noise from the house line, and the UPS filters noise that travels between my three strips if any has bypassed the surge protected strip itself. I made a few of them with 0.2uF capacitors or higher with a rating of atleast 360VAC as they are better at filtering the common irregularities, especially most EMI's, that can cause erratic behavior with your electronics. This is why it is very important to atleast have a protector between the wall and any expensive or high power device you have in your home (TV, computer, microwave, heater, home theater system, refrigerator, etc) as noise can travel throughout the whole power cluster in your house line. Then again, you might just be getting dirty house current.

I don't know why I rambled about that, but after rereading your post, steadfast9661, I have a few answers for you. All fanless PSU's need to be operating on a flat surface with nothing insulating any of the five of the six sides. You can put heatsinks ontop of it if you want, though it's not going to help that much since almost all notebook PSU cases are made of Lexan, which has thermal conductivity equivalent to cement, but every little bit helps I guess. But you should be fine since, if I can recall, your G51 uses a 150W Delta PSU. But my "down to earth" answer is don't let your girlfriend leave her bra ontop of the PSU. The pads and stuffing in those things can cause some real overheating problems. I'd say I have the same problem with my woman too; she keeps leaving wet towels near my HDD racks and the enclosure fans will suck in the humidity. Just use good judgement and don't obstruct high temperature components. Keeping things tidy has more benefits to it than you think.

 

These surge protectors are the best you can get, and can be had for less than $50.

They are good for noise and spikes. They use Metal oxide varistors, toroidal balanced chokes, ferrite rod-core inductors and VHF capacitors. These will isolate noise between devices, If these can’t nothing can. I have been using them for years at home and work and have never had any equipment get damaged by line noise or spikes. ( I live in Denver where we get some pretty serious thunder storms.)

http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/model.cfm?txtSeriesID=74&EID=345&txtModelID=104

 

I always carry an old APC surge protector with me when I go gigging. One time when my friends and I were doing this one gig at a community center, the idiot DJ had the entire sound rig plugged through some POS Belkin strip. During our sets, my bass amp would pick up voltage cuts from my guitarist's Soldano tube amp every time he hits his pedal switch. Noise protection is very important, especially when you can hear it.