Advice on a new UPS

[Cyrus the Great]

What are major brands, what specs should I consider mostly?

[cwb27]

APC. Absolutely cannot go wrong with them.

[sxz]

I'd go with APC for their superb customer and RMA service. I had a 725VA UPS from them which suffered from a problem where it'll constantly emit a noticeable hum/ringing. Shortly after contacting APC about the problem they shipped out a brand new one to me which ALSO suffered from the same problem. So again they shipped a second one to me where the problem was pretty much gone. Of course I had to send back the original one I bought and the first RMA they sent, back to them but THEY PAID FOR ALL THE SHIPPING BACK AND FORTH. That's 4 X (the cost of shipping a 20lbs. package).

[ShadowVlican]

I'd go with APC for their superb customer and RMA service. I had a 725VA UPS from them which suffered from a problem where it'll constantly emit a noticeable hum/ringing. Shortly after contacting APC about the problem they shipped out a brand new one to me which ALSO suffered from the same problem. So again they shipped a second one to me where the problem was pretty much gone. Of course I had to send back the original one I bought and the first RMA they sent, back to them but THEY PAID FOR ALL THE SHIPPING BACK AND FORTH. That's 4 X (the cost of shipping a 20lbs. package).
good to know they have that high level of service

now i feel that i made the right choice long ago with my APC UPS

[Deal]

Is it just marketing hype that all UPS intrinsically have or is Automatic Voltage Regulation (blackouts AND brownouts) worth paying for?

Same question too for Line Noise Filtering.

If so, would the key shopping criterias be the Wattage/VoltAmps and level of customer service?

[IronMac]

Is it just marketing hype that all UPS intrinsically have or is Automatic Voltage Regulation (blackouts AND brownouts) worth paying for?

Not all have AVR and, yes, it's worth it.

Same question too for Line Noise Filtering.

Not sure but I once had a modem blown out through a lightning strike.

APC is what I have used for over a decade and it's what I recommend.

[computer01]

APC is just perfect for 99% of people. I use APC myself and love the products and service. I have at least 200 APC UPS units and other suppressors. The few times I've had problems, APC was there to remedy it. (Including advance shipping a 200lb unit four times on their dime!)

The only time APC products aren't sufficient is if you need filtering for harmonic distortion, frequency monitoring, switching transients etc. Powerware Series 9 units do all this and are widely regarded as superior to the APC line. The Powerware units are also twice the price of the comparable APC.

[hightech]

AVR is something I would make sure every UPS I own has. On its own, if you lose power, the UPS kicks in. The problem is that most of the times, you experience low voltages (brownouts) and perhaps an odd surge and that is when AVR kicks in. It helps to maintain the power levels and prevents frequent battery use which keeps the UPS battery lasting longer.

[klam]

I just bought a Belkin 900VA UPS with AVR (auto voltage regulation). Everything is working great so far. I was looking specifically for a unit with AVR.

[Cyrus the Great]

So how do u know what UPS in good for you (in terms of power, VA,...)
I basically need something for my PC (Athlon64 3500+, 600 Watt PSU, 17" LCD, Laser printer), with power surge protection and a good backup battery, I need it to keep me on the track for like 90 mins without any electricity being fed to the UPS.

What would u guys recommend?

Thanks.

[klam]

http://www.apcc.com/template/size/apc/index.cfm

So how do u know what UPS in good for you (in terms of power, VA,...)
I basically need something for my PC (Athlon64 3500+, 600 Watt PSU, 17" LCD, Laser printer), with power surge protection and a good backup battery, I need it to keep me on the track for like 90 mins without any electricity being fed to the UPS.

What would u guys recommend?

Thanks.

[TotallyKiller]

So how do u know what UPS in good for you (in terms of power, VA,...)
I basically need something for my PC (Athlon64 3500+, 600 Watt PSU, 17" LCD, Laser printer), with power surge protection and a good backup battery, I need it to keep me on the track for like 90 mins without any electricity being fed to the UPS.

What would u guys recommend?

Thanks.


It's good to note that for the most part, UPS' are not meant to provide power for long sustainable periods. They are mostly meant to provide power long enough to either allow a generator to kick in, to cover a short-term brown out, or to allow for a controlled shut down of the system. 90 minutes for a home system should be fine, but for those who want one so they can keep using their computer for hours, you'd need a much more sophisticated one setup. Even most huge companies only have theirs configured to allow them to fail over to the generator power, or to sustain the systems for an hour or so (often less). If they want them to stay up for a long time, they usually have a huge battery backup room in the basement.

[Cyrus the Great]

http://www.apcc.com/template/size/apc/index.cfm

I get this message, no matter of what config. I use there:

"The APC UPS Selector was unable to find a UPS meeting all of your requirements"

[cwb27]

I get this message, no matter of what config. I use there:

"The APC UPS Selector was unable to find a UPS meeting all of your requirements"


What type of hardware do you want to have supported by the UPS?

[hamdude_1234]

tigerdirect.ca mavis location had refurb 1000va's on sale for 19.99 last week. I originally bought one for 100.00. I bought this refurb one for the home theater.. works fine..

[Cyrus the Great]

What type of hardware do you want to have supported by the UPS?

Athlon64 3500+
1GB of ram
ATA HDD
CD-R and DVD-combo drive
17" LCD
One laser printer
One AIO machine
One external HDD
Router
Modem
PSU 600W

BTW, I woud prefer a UPS that can support 220V input.

[cwb27]

Athlon64 3500+
1GB of ram
ATA HDD
CD-R and DVD-combo drive
17" LCD
One laser printer
One AIO machine
One external HDD
Router
Modem
PSU 600W

BTW, I woud prefer a UPS that can support 220V input.


Well, I can tell you right now that you're gonna need a HUGE UPS if you actually want to print via laser while on battery power. Any UPS guide will tell you NOT to connect a laser printer to the battery backup plugs, their draw is significant.

I'm also not familiar with the AIO machine bit?

How much backup time are you looking for? As someone else mentioned (and as I always mention in these sort of threads) UPSs are NOT designed to give you hours of computing time while the power is out, they're designed to give you ample time to properly save/backup and properly shut down your machine. (the exception to this could be a UPS for VOIP ATA/Router)

Additionally, all APC UPS devices come with their Shutdown software which will ether put your machine into hibernation or shut it down if you are not present when the power fails.

[Cyrus the Great]

Well, I can tell you right now that you're gonna need a HUGE UPS if you actually want to print via laser while on battery power. Any UPS guide will tell you NOT to connect a laser printer to the battery backup plugs, their draw is significant.

I'm also not familiar with the AIO machine bit?

How much backup time are you looking for? As someone else mentioned (and as I always mention in these sort of threads) UPSs are NOT designed to give you hours of computing time while the power is out, they're designed to give you ample time to properly save/backup and properly shut down your machine. (the exception to this could be a UPS for VOIP ATA/Router)

Additionally, all APC UPS devices come with their Shutdown software which will ether put your machine into hibernation or shut it down if you are not present when the power fails.


Ok, soI guess I should forget about my laser printer.
AIO = All in one machine (Printer, scanner, copier)
I need an average of 90 mins run time.

[Cyrus the Great]

As someone else mentioned (and as I always mention in these sort of threads) UPSs are NOT designed to give you hours of computing time while the power is out, they're designed to give you ample time to properly save/backup and properly shut down your machine. (the exception to this could be a UPS for VOIP ATA/Router)


So what other options would I have? other than UPS?

[cwb27]

Ok, soI guess I should forget about my laser printer.
AIO = All in one machine (Printer, scanner, copier)
I need an average of 90 mins run time.

Without doing any further research you should look at at least a 1500 VA UPS. However I don't know (minute wise) what the available backup time will be.

To give you an idea of power consumption, I run a 1200VA APC UPS on a Core 2 Duo E6600, 1 SATA HD, ATI x1650, ATI TV Tuner, Dell 1907FP and a couple low power consumption USB devices. At idle it draws 148 watts (UPS total capacity is 780 watts) I will get at least 38 minutes.

Any particular reason why you'd need 90 minutes? Will your computer be on that whole 90 minutes?

[cwb27]

So what other options would I have? other than UPS?

A generator from Canadian Tire will do it (and that's not a joke) :)

[Cyrus the Great]

Any particular reason why you'd need 90 minutes? Will your computer be on that whole 90 minutes?

Well, the average time between a black out and power up is usually around an hour or so, so I'm looking for sth that could provide me with power during a black out.

[Cyrus the Great]

A generator from Canadian Tire will do it (and that's not a joke) :)

I can't put a generator in my apartment. They're extermely noisy, the managment would shoot me out!

[krs]

I think you better re-evaluate your requirements.
A UPS to run all your equipment (except the Laser printer) for 90 minutes plus requires somewhere around 3500 to 4000 VA.
That will set you back a pretty penny
http://www.frontierpc.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=202328656

If you reaaly need 90 minutes of uptime, I would just keep the computer, monitor and modem on power backup - do all my printing, faxing, burning when the main power is on.

Unless of course you run a business - then $4000+ for a UPS system is probably OK

[klam]

Aside from the portable generator idea or a massive UPS, maybe you should look into a laptop! That will give you TONS of time! :)

[ShadowVlican]

i think people have misunderstood the purpose of an UPS

[CompWizrd]

Athlon64 3500+

My P4 2.4b, 512 meg ram, dual hd's, 9600XT 22" trinitron CRT monitor lasts 31 minutes on my APC 1000va unit.. it uses two 7.2ah batteries, compared to one on most units of a similar size. i'd get quite a bit longer if i had a 19" LCD or something.

Your laser and AIO unit is what's throwing the configurator off.. sure, you could do it with say a 2200VA unit and one or two UX48BP(or whatever the model number was), but that weighs 300 lbs for each battery pack, and takes a few square feet of space on the floor and costs a few thousand bucks... this assumes you wanted to run the laser full time though.

[Jon Lai]

I just bought a Belkin 900VA UPS with AVR (auto voltage regulation). Everything is working great so far. I was looking specifically for a unit with AVR.

The one at Futureshop for $50 on Boxing? I got one too.

Although APC is the reknowned brand, I don't suspect Belkin being much worst, although I don't really like their Bulldog program compared to my old APC one (sold it since it was only 350VA vs 900VA, which was big improvement).

[sshe11]

What happens if you plug in more stuff than the UPS can support ??

Will the UPS still do voltage regulation ??

[cwb27]

What happens if you plug in more stuff than the UPS can support ??

Will the UPS still do voltage regulation ??

It'll register an overload and will not function. (not to mention beep like f'n nuts)

[CompWizrd]

What happens if you plug in more stuff than the UPS can support ??

Will the UPS still do voltage regulation ??

Depends on the UPS. The smart-ups at the office will function on battery at over 100% load, I've had it up to 105% before I was able to move stuff around.. but it's also an expensive unit.

most consumer models will drop the load as soon as the power goes out, and yeah, beep like mad at you.. a 17" CRT monitor turning on and connected to a 500VA unit is usually enough to trip the overload and make powerchute complain about an overload, making the user call me up and complain about an overload.. which eventually involves a quick trip to costco to upgrade the old ups to a new 1000va unit.

[TotallyKiller]

A generator from Canadian Tire will do it (and that's not a joke) :)

A generator is useless without the UPS in place for the failover. Unless hard shutdowns are not an issue.

[Pricyber]

APC, have a 10 year old UPS from them, after 10 year, its still giving me 1hour of back up battery on my desktop

[Menace]

Sure, as long as you change the battery, an APC can last forever.

[Cyrus the Great]

My P4 2.4b, 512 meg ram, dual hd's, 9600XT 22" trinitron CRT monitor lasts 31 minutes on my APC 1000va unit.. it uses two 7.2ah batteries, compared to one on most units of a similar size. i'd get quite a bit longer if i had a 19" LCD or something.

Your laser and AIO unit is what's throwing the configurator off.. sure, you could do it with say a 2200VA unit and one or two UX48BP(or whatever the model number was), but that weighs 300 lbs for each battery pack, and takes a few square feet of space on the floor and costs a few thousand bucks... this assumes you wanted to run the laser full time though.

30 mins! thats great! I have a 17" LCD and an old VGA which I guess consumes much less power. So I think if I unplug the laser and AIO, I can get it to run for an hour.

[Cyrus the Great]

... but that weighs 300 lbs for each battery pack, and takes a few square feet of space on the floor and costs a few thousand bucks...

Yea ur right. I only need sth for my Home Office, I don't want sth huge or pricey.

[IronMac]

30 mins! thats great! I have a 17" LCD and an old VGA which I guess consumes much less power. So I think if I unplug the laser and AIO, I can get it to run for an hour.

Look, you're not supposed to plug in a laser and AIO into a UPS. That will only damage the circuitry. A UPS is only meant to power your main desktop and monitor until you have a chance to save your files and shut down apps.

[Beradon]

Be sure to check what type of battery it uses. Some UPS' can easily be replaced with cheap off the shelf motocycle batteries. Other UPS' use irregular or propietary battery units and can cost as much as a new UPS. Something to consider...

[ardo]

Guys, I thought I have basic understanding of electronics, but I'm at a loss here. When I bought 3 Energizer ER-HMOF600 for $20ea from a store on e-bay, I thought I made an OK decision. Sure, 600VA is not much, but all I needed was a couple of minutes of backup time. When one of these babies didn't help my PC staying up in a 2-second blackout, I dismissed it as a dead battery problem, since I had two more units that were OK.

Well, this morning we had a 1-3second blackout, and my PC went down. I then started thinking that maybe 600VA peak power and 300W power rating of the ER-HMOF600 refer to completely different things? For DC, Power (W) = Current (A) * Voltage (V), i.e. 1W = 1A * 1V. Now, because we're dealing with AC, W = V*A/ 1.41, where 1.41 is a square root of 2, the factor in converting peak power to RMS power. So, 600VA peak is equal to 600/1.41 = 425W.

http://www.energizerups.com/product.asp?productID=3

Now, why does the spec say 600VA / 300W? Where does this 300W come from? Is it the rating of internal components of the UPS, NOT the battery?

I then went to the APC calculator site:
http://www.apcc.com/template/size/apc/index.cfm, and entered my systems requirements: Tower, 16-21inch LCD, Core Duo CPU, 3 hard drives, CD-rom, DSL modem, and DSL router. The best price recommendation I got was BE500R running at 62% of max. capacity for 11 minutes. That unit is 300W or 500VA. My ER-HMOF600 is 300W or 600VA. Even if the battery in my unit is 1-2years old, should it not still give me 5 seconds of backup power??? I was thinking of replacing the battery, but now I'm not sure if a brand-new battery will solve this problem...

Any help would be appreciated, TIA - ardo.

[klam]

Try running your computer off the UPS, and just unplug the UPS from the wall to simulate a blackout? Does your computer still stay on?

[CompWizrd]

Guys, I thought I have basic understanding of electronics, but I'm at a loss here. When I bought 3 Energizer ER-HMOF600 for $20ea from a store on e-bay,Did you connect the battery packs to the UPS? All ups's in the US have to be disconnected from the batteries to be shipped, perhaps your seller did the same.. does it pass its self test either?

[ardo]

Try running your computer off the UPS, and just unplug the UPS from the wall to simulate a blackout? Does your computer still stay on? Nope. It dies right away. The question is: dead battery or UPS cannot handle more than 300W because of its circuitry?

Did you connect the battery packs to the UPS? :D Yeah, I did, although I see your point. :D I tested it with a 200W light about 6mths ago, just to be sure. The software that came with UPS shows the load at about 48%, whatever that means...