Surge suppressors — the silent killer!
During the discussion following the injury and hospitalization of DaMann’s XBox 360 hospitalization of DaMann’s XBox, it came to my attention that many people are recommending not using power strips with XBoxes. Well, technically, they’re afraid of surge suppressors, but that’s clearly bogus, so it’s obvious that the alleged problem is power strip fan-out.
We all know, or should know, that daisy-chaining power strips is bad. But using one power strip directly off a modern wall outlet, can that be so bad? I decided to measure it.
So, I got out the trusty volt meter, clipped it onto the leads of my XBox 360, and measured the voltage with the power off and on.
Power off (at power strip): 119.6V
Great! I have a true 120V line voltage! Some places have line voltage as low as 104V, if they are running off of three phase power. This should be OK though, as the XBox power supply is rated to work down to 100V.
So now I turned on the rest of the setup, all plugged into the power strip:
- XBox 360 elite
- Plasma TV
- Onkyo “surround in a box” system with powered sub (aka “the space heater”)
Everything powered on (at the power strip): 118.0
Wow, a 1.6V drop! Acceptable. Now I’m curious! So, I powered everything back off, moved the XBox’s plug to the wall socket, and did the test again. Same results!
Everything off (XBox in wall socket): 119.6
Everything on (XBox in wall socket): 118.0
So, all of my voltage drop was due to the distance from the breaker box
to my outlet.
The verdict is, if you’re worried about “low voltage” ruining your XBox, make sure it is on its own circuit. Here’s a picture of the test setup (at the end, when I was measuring voltage at the wall.):
X360 Power Strip Debunking Setup
No, the kitty litter is not essential to this measurement.
You’re probably wondering why in this picture the meter is showing 120.5. In fact, I was getting a little about 1 volt plus or minus of noise on the line, and chose the average value. So, take these numbers with about a volt of measurable line noise on a cheap meter.
Your mileage may vary, especially if you have 104V mains. Do not daisy chain power strips. Do not overload outlets. For best results, make sure your XBox power supply has plenty of air for cooling, and is on a fireproof surface.
