The average computer faces more than 120 power problems each month. The cause can be as dramatic as lightning or as subtle as electrostatic discharges on dry winter days. From power surges to brownouts, your computer hardware and data are often vulnerable to factors outside of your control. Fortunately, there are a number of precautions you can take.

There's an important difference between powerstrips and surge suppressors/protectors. A surge suppressor contains components designed to reduce the surges and spikes that pass through electrical lines to your equipment. Surges are sudden increases in electrical current, and spikes are sudden increases in voltage. A power strip, however, is a passive device that simply acts as an outlet multiplier and offers no surge protection. Consequently, equipment connected through a power strip is just as vulnerable to surges and spikes as equipment connected through an outlet. One common misconception about surge protection is that simply unplugging phone, cable and other line cords during a lightning storm can eliminate power line problems. In most cases, not only does this not work, but it also creates a safety hazard. Unplugging the line cords removes the power cord's safety ground, which leaves computers and other equipment still connected to data lines where surges also occur.

Today's new surge product designs address problems in areas such as data and cable lines. For example, many surge protectors now come with built-in jacks for phone, fax, modem and cable lines, which offer protection for these connections.

Sometimes, even surge protectors aren't sufficient to protect your hardware and data — especially when the lights go out. Not only can surges, spikes and brownouts (voltage reductions) cause lost data, but because computer components can be prone to electrical irregularities, these events can also damage the components beyond repair.

A UPS is a battery-equipped device that supplies power to your system in the event of a power outage. UPS systems can power your system anywhere from a few minutes to more than two hours during a power failure, depending on the model and brand of the UPS and your connected equipment. This gives you enough time to save your data and shut down your PC and hardware properly. Many UPS systems come with software that allows you to automatically back up data and shut down hardware in the event that there's a power outage when you're not close to your PC.

UPS systems with automatic voltage regulation provide the same benefits as standard battery backup systems and more. AVR ensures that your PC gets clean, constant voltage by monitoring and adjusting dangerously low and high voltage levels. When voltage levels drop too much, the AVR increases output voltage, and when voltage reaches dangerously high conditions, it decreases the level.