HEY TOM

[napoleonherself]

My family lives in an old house where none of the outlets have the ground hole thingie. We are about to be shipping off an idiot-proofed laptop to them, and we would prefer to know that that laptop won't get borked by, say, a lightning strike. Mecha's saying they make adapters to turn a two-hole into a three-hole, and then we could plug a surge protector into the adapter and then the laptop and router into the surge protector. Only he says that since there's no ground, in the event of whatever it might try to dump the charge on the adapter, and then the adapter might explode.

Please advise on the best course of action to take in this matter.

A UPS is also being considered as a possibility (remote, as WE had trouble hooking the battery in ours up, so who knows if my family could do it), and similar requests for advice go along with that.

Kthx.

Comments

[nidoking.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, surge protectors offer no protection if there's no ground available. However, if the outlet is sufficiently close to a coaxial cable outlet (such as one for a cable modem), you can get a surge protector that has coaxial protection and plug the cable as well as the power into it. It will get its ground through the cable line. That's how I did it in my old apartment, and it was also a great troubleshooting tool when the cable service went out. "Hi, I'm not getting a cable signal. No, it's the line itself... it's not even grounded anymore. The light on my surge protector's out." I'm told it's also possible to run a ground from another outlet or from outside, but I wouldn't know how best to go about that.

[vxo.livejournal.com]

The adaptor will not explode, indeed. Surge protectors will still dump energy from a surge between the line and neutral terminals... however, a surge that gets in on both (lightning?) will still try to find some way out of the system if there's no ground. I'd suggest an upgrade to the wiring, but for the time being, a three to two adapter will work.