For example, I just had a problem with my printer where it displayed error message that said the scanner was already in use… except it wasn’t. I looked up a solution, which worked, that in part said:
“The printer should be directly connected to the wall outlet and not to a surge protector.”
How does something like that lead to software hiccups/bugs? What’s the difference?
In: Technology
There’s a number of things that you could actually be plugged in to, a power strip, surge protector, power conditioner, and battery backup.
Generally the first two should not have any impact, the second two depending on how good they are can cause funny things to happen down the line. The manufacturer simplified troubleshooting down to “plug it directly in to the wall” so that people aren’t trying to figure out which of the things it is plugged into. I have seen poorly designed examples of both that struggled to deliver the proper voltage or current, especially when talking about the requirements when something is being turned on.
For a scanner, most of the time it’s in standby and not using much power. When you try and use one of the functions it wakes up the power supply and there’s a moment where it wants way more power than before “NOW!!”. Most devices run a health check during this phase, so if it’s demanding power and the conditioner or battery backup are slow to respond with the necessary voltage/current it can throw an error.
Should it happen? No, but I’ve seen enough equipment act funny when plugged into cheap (or poorly designed expensive like in home audio) power side devices that I don’t blame them. Plus it also forces a lot of people to unplug and repower devices, which is a troubleshooting step many consumers overlook.
Either way just having an extension cord in there shouldn’t make a lick of difference, if the device is actually trying to manipulate the power in some way all bets are off.
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