Surge Protection

badbob said:
There's a slight buzz, but only noticeable about 1-2' away. Fan kicks in when in battery or charging mode, which is quite loud.

With the feedback about Belkin gear I'd rather not touch them..
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this guy said he had bought loads of belkin 1200va ups for his servers or something like that, and there on 24/7 and theve been through thunder storms and all sorts cos the servers never got turned off,, he didnt have a single prob, and would recommend them to anyone.

The only prob I will have with mine is changing the batts when they wear out cos you have to take the thing totally apart to change them.... if anyone need new batts for a belkin 1200va ups, I think these are the batts you will need........

http://www.mdsbattery.co.uk/shop/pr...epartmentName=UPS Batteries &DepartmentID=178

I will change mine every 3yrs to keep it in tip top shape, because at the end of the day its got a important job todo.
 
Well i think i'm settled on this one now:

APC Back-UPS RS 800VA - UPS
£91 (540W)

Its got 5min battery life at full load (which it won't anywhere near), I don't need it to do anything fancy so i don't think i need to pay extra for any of the extra software and protected sockets etc that the other versions have.

Sound ok to you guys??

PS cheers for that battery site there - looks like i'll be having a good look through that
 
HyperSonic said:
If not Belkin then I have to go APC really, they don't have one at around £100 that I can see but do have these 2:

APC Smart-UPS 750VA USB & Serial - UPS ( external ) - AC 230 V - 750 VA - UPS battery Lead Acid - 6 Output Connector(s)
£132.78 (Energy Rating 340 Joules)

or a cheaper one

APC Smart-UPS SC 420VA - UPS ( external ) - AC 230 V - 420 VA - UPS battery Lead Acid - 4 Output Connector(s)
£76.38 (Energy Rating 320 Joules)

Since I don't really need it to keep my PC running for any long periods of time I was thinking the 420VA would be suitable as it has almost the same level of protection just a smaller battery life.

Would anyone like to point out a flaw in my plan? :p
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I would say you would need at leas a 640va cos my 1200va is only 670watts so, im guessing a 420va is very low wattage ups only get about 5mins of battery life. like my ups lasts for about 20mins before the batts go down to 25% of power and my pc and equipment thats connected to the ups takes up about 450watts max.
 
HyperSonic said:
Well i think i'm settled on this one now:

APC Back-UPS RS 800VA - UPS
£91 (540W)

Its got 5min battery life at full load (which it won't anywhere near), I don't need it to do anything fancy so i don't think i need to pay extra for any of the extra software and protected sockets etc that the other versions have.

Sound ok to you guys??

PS cheers for that battery site there - looks like i'll be having a good look through that
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Yeah that sounds good m8
 
VA rating is not solely for running time, it's also the maximum connected equipment, under load. So even though you might only need 5 minutes running time, a 300VA UPS isn't sufficient for a gaming rig SLI/Crossfire with monitor connected.
 
But the one i'm looking at now has 800VA / 540W surely thats enough?

Rig is only an Athlon 2400+, 1gb Ram, Geforce 6200, NF7 all connected to to a small (poss 15") samsung flat screen.

Say I was to upgrade it, how far do you think the UPS above could go? I like to buy knowing it's going to last, so if it's borderline i'll just fork out for the 1500VA and be happy about it.
 
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800VA is enough for your existing rig, but probably not enough for a quad core, 8800GTX with large monitor, under load, overclocked.


I get something like 45 minutes with 2 PC's on, 7 hard drives, 17", 20" switched on. Also over and over surge correction, which the cheaper ones don't have.
 
I might as well go the whole way and the the APC 1500 from OcUK then. I wonder if they're coming back into stock any time soon.

By the way, whats over and over surge protection? Would the APC Back-UPS's have that? I wonder as it seems the Back-UPS is the cheaper version to the Smart-UPS, but as far as i can see it's only cheaper as it has less battery life. If that is the case i'd probably go for the Back-UPS 1500 for £150 as its rated at 865 Watt / 1500 VA.
 
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I believe the Back UPS will protect against spikes/surges however the Smart will CORRECT line flucuations, say if it drops to 150v, or there's a surge to 300v, it'll raise/lower the ac outputs. So the ac line is more stable. Thse drops are rare, however you've probably experienced brown outs (lights dim) A PC PSU would be able to filter this out and provide stable power to the PC, however a brown out can damage electronic equipment (the PC PSU and monitor PSU)

Both types will switch to battery mode during total power losses, of course. The Smart also has software that communicates to other PC's on the LAN. The "server" PC can then shut down any PC on your LAN (which are connected to your UPS too) when battery level goes below 10%.

If you've just got one computer, with lower priced equipment I'd get the Back. But if the £200 of the Smart is only a small percentage of the connected equipment, and you have more than one PC that stay on 24/7 I'd get the smart.
 
Well my system is a:
opty [email protected]
x1900xt card but upgrading to a ati 3870 next week.
2gb of mem
500gb sata hdd

That uses about 150 - 200watts idle and about 350 - 400watts full load

Plus I have a 19" lcd, logi z680 speakers, printer/scanner, router, mouse, phone, 2 external drives and a media player all pluged in to my 1200va ups. With my speakers turned on and the system idel the ups is 32% loaded. Also I have had another system and crt monitor to it and it handled that easy, plus the power went off during that time and I was playing a game and the other system was backing up a hdd partition to 1 of my external drives. The ups didnt complane at all when the power went off with all that connected to it, but Im not sure how loaded the ups was tho.

So Im hopeing my ups will last quite a few system builds before needing to upgrade it, heres a pic of the belkin softwere:
image2yj5.jpg
 
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Nice.

I'm just looking at prices now and if OcUK ever get that Smart-UPS 1500 back in i'm having one of those. They're so much cheaper than anywhere else i can find, it would be worth it just for the bargin i'd be getting.
 
does that not make the back of the unit a bit of a mess?

I don't really need proper sockets as it's only the monitor and box that need to be covered anything else can just go into a straight forward sure protector strip.

Does the APC come with a bunch of kettle leads or do you need to buy them seperate?
 
My APC Smart has 8 IEC outputs. I use a 4 way UK mains block to a IEC to the UPS for my other "wall wart" type power supplies. PC's and monitors have male-female IEC cables.

No need to have UK 3 pin mains plugs for items that are 240v when plugging into UPS.

I'm just looking at prices now and if OcUK ever get that Smart-UPS
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bought elseware. Cheaper, in stock and free delivery.
 
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