The Best UPS?

I'm in the market for a Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) for my 'puter. I suspect "dirty power" as the cause of some of my memory problems. Any suggestions? Any warnings of what to stay away from?

I need to connect:

1. the monitor
2. the CPU
3. the Cable Modem
4. ?? do I need to connect the cable modem feed??
5. The Wireless Router
6. the Printer
7. the speakers power cord.

I don't have a phone/fax line connected, so I don't care about a phone jack connection.

Thanx for your help...

 

Can't really go wrong if you stick with APC.

Just make sure you get a big enough one.

IMO, I just leave the big stuff battery protected.

 

I learned the hard way what a power outage can do to a comuter. I even unplugged it before the hydro came back on and totally screwed up my system. Had to install windows 3 times, finally stable. The next day I went and bought a ups. I wanted one big enough. So I picked up a apc xs 800 its good for 540watts, told the guy that when it gets charged and I jerk out the plug, if it does'nt work its comin back. Well it works great. I have my main rig hooked up to it 17in crt, modem, wireless router and only using 178watts so can still hook up more stuff. So maybe you won't have to go so big, i am very happy with it as it gives me 25 minutes to safely shut down or I can program to do it in a specfic time. Hope this helps. sm

 

I agree strongly with Adrenalyne.
You can get a genuine APC and know that you have a capable, reliable, high quality UPS.

Or, you can get something "else".

Me, I got my BackUps 350. I KNOW that I have good lines going to my PSU.

 

My 20 peso's worth...........I purchased (online) a Belkin F6C500-UNV UPS a couple of months ago. I feel it is sufficient and was rather cheap. With a rebate I think I paid about $25.00. I feel (hope) I got a good buy. If I remember correctly I purch it from Staples and got free shpg too.

Jack

 

Thanx for the input. Ummm... what factors should I look at when deciding how big of a unit I need? Please remember to put it in Newbie-speak for me....

 

http://www.apcc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm


Take a look.

 

Adrynalyne has it right. If there's a better UPS selector out there, I don't know of it.

There are really only two factors to consider: how much current does your system draw, and how long do you want it to be able to keep running after the power goes out?

I'm using a APC BE350U. When I tested it with my current system, I actually got less than 3 minutes run-time -- and that's without the monitor as part of the UPS load. Fortunately, I need less than a minute for a graceful shutdown once the process starts. Even so, that ran the battery down to 33% of its full charge.

If all you want is protection against dirty power, you might consider a good surge protector -- they're a lot cheaper than a UPS. If you need power outage protection, make sure that you get one with enough capacity to let your system run long enough to shut down by itself without completely flattening the battery.

Keep in mind that most UPS's use lead-acid batteries because they tolerate being constantly recharged very well. However, lead-acid batteries don't take kindly to being deep-discharged -- it shortens their useful life quite significantly. Best to get a UPS that is large enough to give you the runtime you need without taking the battery below 50% charge if you have frequent outages.

As for steve Max's comment: it may not have been the power outage that did the nasties to his computer. There are often surges on the line when the power comes back on -- and sometimes when the power goes out. It could have been a surge that did the damage -- and you don't really need to sustain the expense of a UPS to protect yourself against those.

(As a matter of fact, most "UPS's" are really back-up power supplies, not uninterruptible power supplies. A true UPS feeds the load from the battery at all times; AC mains power is used only to keep the battery charged. In contrast, a back-up power supply (BPS) switches over to battery power only when the power goes out. In normal operation, a BPS's load is always directly connected to the AC mains. The battery isn't in a position to absorb surges before they get to the load, so a BPS has to have surge protection built in. You can get the same surge protection in a good surge bar without paying for the battery and associated circuitry.)

 

Rob M. Even for those "UPS's" that do not have the battery online all the time, do they still not provide protection that is superior to simple surge protectors? I say that because they can switch to battery power fast enough to compensate for "brown outs", I mean the sags in the power line, whereas the surge protectors cannot help at all with these.

 

I was on my computer when the hydro went off. I unplugged it right away. When it came back on after waiting for half and hour it would not boot. The ups I have now senses the voltage. It intervenes when it goes above 138 and when it goes below 97. I have read that powerbar surge protectors are only good for the first surge. You can spend $30 to $50 for a surge protector so might as well spend $50 to $100 for a ups. Thats my opinion.

 

Certainly. A BPS usually includes both kinds of protection.
A surge bar cannot protect against a voltage drop, no matter how slight.

But it's the voltage spikes that destroy equipment. A BPS does not protect against voltage spikes unless it has surge protection built in. You can get that without the added cost of a BPS.

Not everybody has unlimited funds; some people don't need to pay for protection against brownouts and outages. They're extremely rare in my neck of the woods.

 

I think it's more likely that a voltage spike did the damage than the outage itself. As I said before, outages are sometimes preceded by spikes -- sometimes, it's the spike (e.g., a lightning strike) that causes the outage because it causes enough current flow to trip a breaker somewhere.

That's certainly true of the cheaper surge bars that rely on metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) -- given a surge that's large enough. MOVs dump excess voltage to ground very quickly, but they tend to burn up in the process. More expensive technologies don't have that liability, and they generally can't react as quickly. Unfortunately, buying a UPS doesn't guarantee that the better surge protection technologies have been used. A UPS doesn't need any surge technology to function as a UPS.

The surge technology prevents voltage spikes from reaching your computer. As steve Max pointed out, UPS technology takes the load off-line and feeds it from an alternate power source if the voltage goes beyond specified limits in either direction for more than a few tens of milliseconds. Voltage spikes generally don't last long enough to trigger the switching mechanism, but can still have amplitudes of several thousand volts.

In other words, you need to pay attention to what kind of protection you need. Surge bars and UPS's use different technologies, with quite different results.

 

Does line noise caused by refrigerators and other appliances on the same circuit get defined as an undervoltage or overvoltage? Or is that kind of interference harmless?

 

This is a year old thread. Make a new one if you have a question.

Thanks.