Need a UPS for...

I need a recommendation for a UPS. All the UPS calculators, or whatever you wana call them, at sites like APC and Belkin suck. I'm building a DAW (Digital Audio Workstaion) PC that consists of:

• Motherboard - ASUS P5B-VM DO
• CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz E6600
• Memory - Corsair 2x1GB DDR2 800Mhz TWIN2X2048-6400
• DVD sata
• DVD Burner sata
• HDD - Western Digital 160Gb sata
• HDD - 2 x Maxtor 300GB sata
• FDD - sata :lol:
• PSU - ??? 500W quiet/silent
• Heatsink/cpu fan - nexus pht-7750
• Case - LIAN LI PC-V2100B PLUS II
• Monitor - 17" crt
• Firepod - An 8 channel Firewire interface an 8 in/8 out A-D converter with
• 8 mic pre’s, 2 High-Z instrument ins, and MIDI/Digital I/O. External.

No other external devices such as printers, scanners, etc...
I think that's it. I'd really appreciate you opinions.

 

You mean a PSU? which stands for power supply unit...

 

No, i meant an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). I should have been more clear, sorry bout that.

 

I am a technician, so I can give you a technical viewpoint on it. I'm also a UPS user.

The important number here is total wattage. Power supply wattage only tells you what the max a power supply unit can deliver, it doesn't tell you how much power your computer is using. The variation is huge between what the PSU is rated at and what the computer is using.

The monitor is the other power hog. Its wattage is probably printed on the back of the monitor, it will definately be listed in the technical specs.

If the computer is store bought it's wattage should be listed somewhere, if not it becomes a bit more difficult. But isn't really a big problem.

Generally, you don't really need to know how long a UPS will keep your setup powered. You can generalize from the discription on the box, which will list average computer workstation life. I know it is an approximation, a very rough one, but ask your self if you really need to know the life down to the minute?

The real use IMO for a UPS is when the power company is screwing with you. It will generally keep power fluctuations from your computer, although mine has failed upon occasion to do this right.

The other thing is battery life, they are only good for around 3 or so years. Use them a lot and it is shorter, use it a little and it is maybe longer.

Big UPSes can power a computer workstation for about an hour, a medium sized unit for about 15-30 minutes, and a small one for about 5 minutes. The key to the life is battery size, which translates into physical size pretty closely.

If you really need exact number as to life of the UPS you will need to get the real wattage your computer uses. If you want to go into this I'll help you out, but generally it's not really needed.

 

The computer is not store bought, it’s my own build. My biggest concern is, will the UPS I buy have enough Watts, etc... to reliably handle/protect my PC, will it handle power dips and surges well.

The more battery time the better but not important, about 15mins would be nice. The battery life during a power failure isn't as important to me, as long as my pc has enough time to shut itself down. The power fluctuations are my biggest concern.

 

I can't really speak about brand reliability, something like consumer report would be better for that IMO.

Battery condition is critical for proper operation of a UPS, my UPS (I've had several over the years) worked great under all conditions when it was new, or when I had just replaced the battery (generally they are user replaceable).

Where it got iffy is after a year or two, and the power company was doing its worst (off on off on, definately not a brownout). The UPS would just shut it down, and not power up. This was definately the second best thing it could do from my standpoint, and the battery was probably pretty much gone then anyhow. When I replaced the battery, it worked well again.

Several points, a larger unit should work better because of the depth on the battery. A unit that lasts 1 hours will still work 30 minutes when the battery has lost 50% of its storage capacity, whereas a 5 minute unit will need service now. There is also something nice about being able to leasurely shut down your computer after a power/brown out, instead of having the power company dictate what you do.

Most UPS's have an audible alarm to let you know when it is activated and working. They also have a second alarm, much more urgent, to let you know the battery is almost depleted, and you need to shut your computer down now.

My UPS is for my BBS, which sits alone for lone periods of time being ignored by me. Since my BBS software is old, it uses an old OS (Win98SE), and shuts down when the UPS shuts down. My power company started replacing wooden poles with metal ones, so for a while it was rough (about the same time I changed the battery). I am firmly convinced if not for the UPS my computer would have kicked up it's heels and died.

As for driving the output load, I suspect all UPSes can handle your needs. A single computer and monitor is what they were made for. The big difference is time of service after the lights go out.

Hope this helped.

 

So as time passess the stanby time on a battery decreases therefore the bigger the standby time the longer your UPS battery will last? Also your saying that the standby time is a little more important than the VA rating? I'm thinking about getting a 1000va APC UPS, forget the model #. I'd be willing to spend from $100 to $150USD on a UPS maybe but unlikely i'd go up to $200.

 

That is about right. I wish I had bought a bigger unit, but space is at a premium where the setup is.

Lets say your computer uses 500W ( a bogus number, it should be closer to 300W), Watts = Volts X Amps, 500W = 125V X Amps, Amps = 4Amps

And lets say your monitor uses 200W (again bogus, figure about 75% of that), Amps = 1.6Amps. 700 Watts is about 30 minutes of juice.

BTW, a bigger UPS will definately source more amps, they figure you'll be powering more computers and equipment.

You need to look at the UPS specs to see if it can source this amount of current, I predict no problems. jI'm willing to bet the unit you are talking about buying will last closer to an hour.

 

UPS, PDU, Surge Protector with RJ-11/RJ-45, and coaxial protection. Here in Florida most power companies will rent you a unit to protect you from their fluctuations and lightning, Iowa is bad for lightning also. I like to think of Belkin as a quality product but imagine if you want to open your wallet wider there are better options. Heat dissipation should be a major consideration also. I imagine you have read the wiki on UPS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply
and an old thread that was good reading
http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/archive/topic/1471-1.html
and this site linked from the wiki might be worth a look at
http://www.upsci.com/UPS.htm
sorry I couldn't be of more help, none of our pc's were over 2K out of the box, three were under 200, and one was free, so a surge protector is our protection of choice, that and laptops with battery power. But there is something special about quality products you create with your own two hands...,understand why you would want to protect it. Hope it works out:cool
Bug

 

I couldn't agree more. My main use for the UPS's that I have is to provide "clean" energy to my computers. By "clean" I mean the power fluctuations that Bill mentioned - power dips and spikes can wreak havoc with computer componants.

My largest UPS will only run my primary PC for 15mins - but as most power outages last a fraction of that I'm doing well. Longer "Run-time" = more money . . . if you are not that concerned about runtime, UPS systems are not that expensive - just make sure the model you select features "AVR", or Automatic Voltage Regulation.

For around $150.00 you should be able to get a decent midrange device. I've used Belkin and APC models - they both performed well. I have also used a CyberPower model, and while the device itself performed Ok, the software that came with it had a serious memory leak.

 

I've got an Ultra @1000VA which is on the low end of the price scale. I live in a quickly developing area and the power keeps winking out, usually just long enough to shut the system down. Along with an LCD screen I have external cable modem and a router so that brings the battery life down to 30 minutes which is long enough to do almost anything. BTW, the better quality UPS's also generally have better surge energy capacity measured in joules. Mine is 2100 if it matters. Bill can probably give you a number to shoot at.

 

Interesting info, so where would a "simulated sine wave" sit in the scheme of things? It seems that companies don't like to provide this info, tough to find the specs in this respect.