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I recently bought a laptop. While connecting it to the AC mains for charging it up for the first time, I wondered what would happen if a power surge occurred while my laptop was connected to the AC mains.

I asked a few of my friends who told me not to worry.. the adapter I use would protect my laptop. Still the doubt lingers in my brain..

So here's my question: should I use some form of stabilizer for my laptop? My question might be simple and downright stupid, but I thought I'd ask it anyway, as my electronics knowledge is literally zero.

Note: I live in India, in case you need that knowledge.

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Firstly the adapter does protect the laptop from surges.

Secondly, not using the adapter - and instead allowing the battery to fully discharge, recharging it and then allowing it discharge and so on, is supposed to enhance the battery life.

So it's a good idea to keep your laptop disconnected from the main power supply as much as possible in the interest of battery life.

I haven't answered your original question regarding surge protectors - since I don't have an answer :) but thought it would be good to share the fact that it's a good idea to keep the laptop disconnected from the AC supply as much as possible.

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  • Read this: wiki.answers.com/Q/…
    – Boris_yo
    Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 7:28
  • It is not better for the battery to do full recharge cycles, and it hasn't been true since Li-Ion batteries took over, which is well over a decade now. See e.g. Battery university, which among other things say "A partial discharge reduces stress and prolongs battery life.", the complete opposite of what you're saying. It is, however, good to remove the battery when using AC power, since heat deteriorates the LiIon battery. The best in the interest of battery life is simply to not overuse it.
    – Daniel Andersson
    Commented Mar 21, 2012 at 14:44
  • "Firstly the adapter does protect the laptop from surges." - From what I read, it is very difficult to protect the computer against a surge caused by a close lightning strike. So I don't believe that the adapter protects a laptop unconditionally.
    – iwis
    Commented Sep 1, 2020 at 13:03
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Try the Belkin BZ103050vTVL Mini Surge Protector/Dual USB Charger, which has great design and functionality. It protects your laptop from surges and at the same time provides useful USB ports to charge your other gadgets. It's quite portable for what it can do.

A review at Amazon said : "...equipment I used overnight every day for two weeks had no problem from the potentially erratic India power." (sic)

See Belkin's list of official distributors in India for availability. (Don't click on the cyberstar website though, as it appears to be infected with browser exploit thingy)

According to Belkin their full range of merchandise is also available at "Odyssey chain of leisure stores" in India.

Should cost you about 1200 INR.

Belkin BZ103050vTVL

The picture show the US version but Santosh Mishra of freshnews.in, an Indian news webite, reports that this model is available for the Indian market.

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It depends. Real surge protection has multiple levels. High quality house wiring should already contain high-level surge protection, and a good power adapter offers some low-level protection. With an unreliable power grid as in many places in India, your main problem are probably brown-outs, i.e. the opposite of a power surge. A laptop's power adpter and battery will filter out those just fine.

But there's nothing (certainly nothing portable) that can protect your laptop against the kind of power surge you get when lightning hits a power line nearby and the house wiring doesn't have high-level surge protection.

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    So brown-outs won't fry laptop's components?
    – Boris_yo
    Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 7:24
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    @Boris_yo: correct.
    – Michael Borgwardt
    Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 7:28
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Your friends are right. :)

APC - list of products for surge protection

http://www.apc.com/products/category.cfm?id=12

voltage and frequency

220-240V/50Hz

India plugs

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If you are very paranoid about this you can purchase a cheap surge protector.

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