Uninterruptible power supplies - more complicated to buy than I'd like
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Ugh, I'm looking for an uninterruptable power supply rated for my 1000W/15A PC and my ???W/???A 55" monitor because I've had a few power scares lately. I bought one without checking the ratings, and it's useless. I'm probably going to give it away just because I don't want to deal with the return. It wasn't that expensive - about as expensive as it was useful. I'm finding the difference between 1000W protection and 1500W protection is about $250 vs $550, and a huge size difference as well, and I have limited space. I'm going to use one of those $30 power consumption monitors to see what my real world draw is when I'm not banging on my video card or CPU. For the first time, I'm kind of longing for a relatively low power AMD system again, instead of my 180W TPD CPU and 320W TPD GPU. My power supply is rated @ 1000W / 15A, but I'm sure that's peak, but then again so is the rating on the UPS, unless I spend another $130 USD to get 1000W sustained output. Anyone have a power hungry system on a UPS? What did you get?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
What about a Honda (or similar) generator to supply power? Will the one you have last the 5 minutes it would take to walk to the generator and crank it up? There's probably some problem with this idea that the more electronically inclined here will use to shoot down this notion. And I'm okay with that, unabashedly ignorant of these things.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated. I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.
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What about a Honda (or similar) generator to supply power? Will the one you have last the 5 minutes it would take to walk to the generator and crank it up? There's probably some problem with this idea that the more electronically inclined here will use to shoot down this notion. And I'm okay with that, unabashedly ignorant of these things.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated. I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.
I'm not looking to keep my computer on, but to isolate it from my house's power surges.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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If you want to level up from APC you have to go to Eaton. Been using them to power server racks on several places. Been extremely reliable, but also a bit pricey. Selection starts here: Backup Power UPS[^] (Read the FAQ near the top of the page) You probably don't need to bother with a standby UPS, but rather a Line-interactive or Online If you go for standby you can just as well buy an APC.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I just contacted them for a quote, but the fact that I had to is sort of intimidating.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I just contacted them for a quote, but the fact that I had to is sort of intimidating.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
You can buy them on Newegg[^] if you'd like. Pretty sure you can find other online stores as well.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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I hate to say this, but Amazon's reviews on APC's top end products are pretty negative. A lot of people having to have units RMA'd and replaced due to defect or otherwise complaining about performance or glitches. Many of them are saying they used to rely on APC but it has went downhill. You may have lucked out by having one of their older units, but those reviews make me uncomfortable. Other brands like cyberpower aren't coming up with reviews like that as much
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Did you buy yours online? I decided to buy mine at local Best Buy (yes there is still one here where I live) because I saw so many fraudulent items on Amazon which were supposed to be from APC. If you read the reviews you will see that fraudsters can take over the sales listing and make it look like it is official product but it is not. Some people had there "APC" product explode in fire. I bought my APC at the beginning of the pandemic (ca 2020) and it is still working great. I suggest you try to buy the product locally if you can, not thru amazon. The fraudsters can make the product look just like official product but it is garbage. It was shocking to me to learn this too.
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:
I have learn that UPS is there to give you time to shut down gracefully and not to keep you running
That's exactly what I want it for. But you have to understand my PC draws about as much juice as at least half dozen laptops. I want to be able to plug in everything i spent more than $500 on into it. Why? Because when the construction going on across the street shorts the power line to my house again I don't want it to blow up my computer, or its $900 monitor. Equipment attached to a UPS is typically decoupled somewhat from the power source, using the battery as a go-between, and otherwise is more isolated than you can get with a surge suppressor. I honestly don't care about shutting down gracefully. I care about weathering about 100 current spikes in the span of a minute.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
I honestly don't care about shutting down gracefully. I care about weathering about 100 current spikes in the span of a minute.
That's exactly why I bought my APC at the local Best Buy. We were having spikes where the power would go off for 2-3 seconds every 10 minutes or something. it was so infuriating. The APC resolved the issue. PHew...
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honey the codewitch wrote:
I honestly don't care about shutting down gracefully. I care about weathering about 100 current spikes in the span of a minute.
That's exactly why I bought my APC at the local Best Buy. We were having spikes where the power would go off for 2-3 seconds every 10 minutes or something. it was so infuriating. The APC resolved the issue. PHew...
Sorry, but what is an APC? I'd like to look into it. It may be closer to what I want. I have a journaling filesystem and don't really give a damn about shutting down gracefully. Edit: Oh you're talking about the brand. Silly me.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Ugh, I'm looking for an uninterruptable power supply rated for my 1000W/15A PC and my ???W/???A 55" monitor because I've had a few power scares lately. I bought one without checking the ratings, and it's useless. I'm probably going to give it away just because I don't want to deal with the return. It wasn't that expensive - about as expensive as it was useful. I'm finding the difference between 1000W protection and 1500W protection is about $250 vs $550, and a huge size difference as well, and I have limited space. I'm going to use one of those $30 power consumption monitors to see what my real world draw is when I'm not banging on my video card or CPU. For the first time, I'm kind of longing for a relatively low power AMD system again, instead of my 180W TPD CPU and 320W TPD GPU. My power supply is rated @ 1000W / 15A, but I'm sure that's peak, but then again so is the rating on the UPS, unless I spend another $130 USD to get 1000W sustained output. Anyone have a power hungry system on a UPS? What did you get?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
I've got my 1000W PC on an APC BackUPS 1375 and it's humming along nicely. I can't recall ever having an APC unit fail on me, though I have worn out and replaced quite a lot of batteries over the years. I'm not sure about other brands, but replacement batteries for all my APCs are readily available at local stores. They have become a bit sneaky, though, as they no longer mark the batteries with the standard markings to encourage users to buy replacements from them. Happily, it's easy to measure the battery and match it to an equivalent in the store. On a different track, if your service entrance has room for it, they make whole house surge arrestors that plug into a 2-wide breaker slot ( to cover both legs of the 240V circuit). At around $100, they're quite affordable.
Will Rogers never met me.
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I'm not looking to keep my computer on, but to isolate it from my house's power surges.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
I have Cyberpower 1000va with AVR (automatic voltage regulation without battery) similar to Mike Hanely's. Have used it for years. Gives my system up to an hour of runtime, but more important it protects the system from minor power surges and outages without blinking an eye (although my over head room light will blink). My system is desktop, monitor, router, printer, speaker system, laptop (doesn't really care as it had it's own battery) and powered network switch. Cyber power software uses serial port to give one a real time picture of status of battery, outages, etc. Estimated runtime on battery is about an hour.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
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Ugh, I'm looking for an uninterruptable power supply rated for my 1000W/15A PC and my ???W/???A 55" monitor because I've had a few power scares lately. I bought one without checking the ratings, and it's useless. I'm probably going to give it away just because I don't want to deal with the return. It wasn't that expensive - about as expensive as it was useful. I'm finding the difference between 1000W protection and 1500W protection is about $250 vs $550, and a huge size difference as well, and I have limited space. I'm going to use one of those $30 power consumption monitors to see what my real world draw is when I'm not banging on my video card or CPU. For the first time, I'm kind of longing for a relatively low power AMD system again, instead of my 180W TPD CPU and 320W TPD GPU. My power supply is rated @ 1000W / 15A, but I'm sure that's peak, but then again so is the rating on the UPS, unless I spend another $130 USD to get 1000W sustained output. Anyone have a power hungry system on a UPS? What did you get?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
and I have limited space.
That might be a showstopper for you, but I'm gonna make the suggestion anyway. Keep the UPS you want to give away as "useless" for you, and use it to power up only your monitor(s) and network gear. Get "something else" dedicated solely for your power-hungry machine. Monitors/network gear use comparatively little power, but it adds up. If you split the load for those vs your main PC between 2 UPS units, you'll probably be able to keep your PC running for a few more minutes, which can be vital. In comparison, my "older" UPS can keep my 3 monitors, modem and router going for 50+ minutes. Once your main UPS gets too old to keep your main system going for very long, it can take over the second UPS's job (and then you can retire that one). That way you only have to replace one UPS at a time.
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Ugh, I'm looking for an uninterruptable power supply rated for my 1000W/15A PC and my ???W/???A 55" monitor because I've had a few power scares lately. I bought one without checking the ratings, and it's useless. I'm probably going to give it away just because I don't want to deal with the return. It wasn't that expensive - about as expensive as it was useful. I'm finding the difference between 1000W protection and 1500W protection is about $250 vs $550, and a huge size difference as well, and I have limited space. I'm going to use one of those $30 power consumption monitors to see what my real world draw is when I'm not banging on my video card or CPU. For the first time, I'm kind of longing for a relatively low power AMD system again, instead of my 180W TPD CPU and 320W TPD GPU. My power supply is rated @ 1000W / 15A, but I'm sure that's peak, but then again so is the rating on the UPS, unless I spend another $130 USD to get 1000W sustained output. Anyone have a power hungry system on a UPS? What did you get?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
For my office and all my home electronics, I use APC UPSs. I've had bad experences with some of the cheaper brands. Change the battery every three years (or so) and you're safe. For my servers, I use the online models. At my office desk, I have a 1500 protecting 3PCs, 6Monitors, Stereo Amp. We have some UPSs that are over 20 years old still in operation, just change the battery every three years. Walmart Online was the cheapest delivered cost for the last batch of high end APC UPSs that I bought.
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For my office and all my home electronics, I use APC UPSs. I've had bad experences with some of the cheaper brands. Change the battery every three years (or so) and you're safe. For my servers, I use the online models. At my office desk, I have a 1500 protecting 3PCs, 6Monitors, Stereo Amp. We have some UPSs that are over 20 years old still in operation, just change the battery every three years. Walmart Online was the cheapest delivered cost for the last batch of high end APC UPSs that I bought.
I was thinking of going with an Eaton, since APC has had mixed reviews lately. I don't think Eaton is a bottomfeeder company. They seem to make good UPSs from what I can tell.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I was thinking of going with an Eaton, since APC has had mixed reviews lately. I don't think Eaton is a bottomfeeder company. They seem to make good UPSs from what I can tell.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Eaton is a good company. I have no skin in the game. I don't trust the amazon reviews anymore. A key point about choosing the UPS is the size of the battery and how many Joules of surge protection. The software and connection (cable) to shutdown your PC should be included. That is assuming that you leave your PC powered up and unattended. I have about 30 UPSs from very old 230va to new Online 2200s. All my remote staff have their PCs, monitors, routers plugged into UPSs. I count on the surge protection of a quality UPS as well as the backup power. One last thought thought that is sometimes left fuzzy. Unless you get into the realm of extended runtime (very-expensive), the point of the UPS is to have enough time to cleanly shutdown the attached electronics.
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Eaton is a good company. I have no skin in the game. I don't trust the amazon reviews anymore. A key point about choosing the UPS is the size of the battery and how many Joules of surge protection. The software and connection (cable) to shutdown your PC should be included. That is assuming that you leave your PC powered up and unattended. I have about 30 UPSs from very old 230va to new Online 2200s. All my remote staff have their PCs, monitors, routers plugged into UPSs. I count on the surge protection of a quality UPS as well as the backup power. One last thought thought that is sometimes left fuzzy. Unless you get into the realm of extended runtime (very-expensive), the point of the UPS is to have enough time to cleanly shutdown the attached electronics.
robertburgh wrote:
I count on the surge protection of a quality UPS as well as the backup power
The main reason I want one is I don't trust surge suppressors by themselves. I have a journaling filesystem and I am judicious about source control so I'm not that concerned about shutting down my computer properly. Recently nearby construction broke the cable vault and shorted the line to my house, so it wasn't even a blackout but massive sustained flickering all through the house. My computer clicked off a half dozen times before I got to it. I don't want that happening again. The construction is ongoing
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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robertburgh wrote:
I count on the surge protection of a quality UPS as well as the backup power
The main reason I want one is I don't trust surge suppressors by themselves. I have a journaling filesystem and I am judicious about source control so I'm not that concerned about shutting down my computer properly. Recently nearby construction broke the cable vault and shorted the line to my house, so it wasn't even a blackout but massive sustained flickering all through the house. My computer clicked off a half dozen times before I got to it. I don't want that happening again. The construction is ongoing
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
You bring up a point that thanks to advertising and horrible descriptions on eCommerce leaves people confused. Surge protection is only for very short power spikes. It does nothing for power drop outs. It also doesn't help for lightning hits - except for extremely well engineered high end systems. Not $6 power strips. A good test for any UPS, is to unplug it with everything plugged into it and powered on. ** Disclaimer - Make sure you have backups and prepared for the worse case! ** Test it like you are going to use it. Some people may disagree with this statement.
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Ugh, I'm looking for an uninterruptable power supply rated for my 1000W/15A PC and my ???W/???A 55" monitor because I've had a few power scares lately. I bought one without checking the ratings, and it's useless. I'm probably going to give it away just because I don't want to deal with the return. It wasn't that expensive - about as expensive as it was useful. I'm finding the difference between 1000W protection and 1500W protection is about $250 vs $550, and a huge size difference as well, and I have limited space. I'm going to use one of those $30 power consumption monitors to see what my real world draw is when I'm not banging on my video card or CPU. For the first time, I'm kind of longing for a relatively low power AMD system again, instead of my 180W TPD CPU and 320W TPD GPU. My power supply is rated @ 1000W / 15A, but I'm sure that's peak, but then again so is the rating on the UPS, unless I spend another $130 USD to get 1000W sustained output. Anyone have a power hungry system on a UPS? What did you get?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
