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What UPS or surge strip?

B

BBC454

Member
I am starting to order some parts for my computer build. Right now I have a laptop so there is no need for a ups. I am going to have an Antec 430W PS in a gaming rig, should I look for a ups with at least 400W rating? I am looking at a Cyber Power unit, This One, how is it? Or this one, Another Cyber Power. I did notice a lot of people recommend APC, but I am trying to order most stuff through Newegg. I only want it so I can shutdown what I am doing. I don't want to spend any more than $100-150.

The other option is to just get a good surge protector. Do surge protectors protect against brown outs, or low voltages? The only blackouts I get are due to storms, and I usually shutdown if a storm is coming. Are any surge protectors better than others? How do I tell?
 
Get an APC they are the best UPS's I think. You can usually find them at office or computer stores. Don't buy an UPS online if shipping isn't free. Otherwise you may have to pay extra shipping because of the weight.
 
Good news for ya. I just got done buying 2 CyberPower UPC's. One was a 1100avr and the other a 825avr. I am running two 300watt PC's,1 Sony 19",router,modem,lexmark x6150 off the 1100avr and runs fine. When I hooked up the 825avr to my main system that is running a Antec 430watt PS, along with Sony 21" Crt and Klipsch, I get a overload beep unless I unplug my Klipsch speakers. So if you are only planning on using the monitor and pc on it then the 825avr will work, if you have any other equipment you want to protect then either get a larger model or get a surge protector to plug into another outlet. I am taking mine back to Best Buy and buying another 1100avr. Cool stuff being able to pull the plug and your computer doesn't skip a beat, no more brown outs for me.
 
I've been using CyberPower since 1999, and they offer a nice UPS with a 3yr no-hassle warranty. I've RMA'ed a few products over the years and not once have I had any problem or long wait time for a return product. I run a 625AVR on one of my rigs with a 350w psu & 18" LCD, and a 900AVR on my main rig. The CyberPower 1100 or 1250 AVR will be more than enough for your rig + a large CRT monitor. The voltage regulation feature is quite nice.
 
I personally recommend the CyberPower 1250. You may not need all of the juice that it can provide at the moment, but do you really want to buy another UPS when you decide to overclock, or buy a faster processor, etc?
 
I use an APC 1500. But that's just my choice. I would recommend you buy your UPS locally- these buggers are heavy and you can get a better deal through the SUnday Advertisments and not pay shipping from you r local Best Buy/CompUSA/Office store.

Secondly, If you are really interested in run time, then you only hook the absolutely needed hardware onto the UPS.... So this means only your CPU(S), Monitor, your KVM if any, and maybe your local switch. Do not plug in speakers, Printers, lights, or your cable modem.... If you lose power locally, your cable provider will also lose power to the Node you live in.... Maintaining power to your cable modem won't keep you online at that point. With DSL it may keep you up and running however.

Now... You'll want to buy a GOOD surge suppressor TOO. One that's rated for around or at least 3000 Joules clamping. Hook all the stuff you didn't plug into the UPS in to new suppressor ----> AND PLUG THE UPS INTO IT AS WELL.

Here's why..... Surge Suppressors are only good for a few years... Buy that time they have taken enough "hits" to degrade their protection to near NOTHING. You UPS will continue to be a UPS years later thanks to battery exchanges. You can potentially lengthen the life of the surge suppression built into the UPS by plugging the UPS into a good Surge suppressor.
So.... Moral of the story... change your surge protector(S) every few years if you got the dough.... I laugh when all these users on the board get blown power supplies and such and are running their systems off a $3.99 power strip from Walmart and they think they have a surge suppressor. --and they still can't figure out why stuff is blowing up on them.

Surge suppressors are over-rated to a certain degree. Some would argur that the household type suppressors and even the higher end ones from ISObar and Tripplite don't offer enough protection. To a degree they are right. While there is no absolute way to toattaly protect your equipment, you can add household filtering and suppression at the power entry.... More costly than most people would like to do. You can also buy a "line conditioner" from ISObar or Tripp-Lite among others..... THese are very expensive.

I digress....... Hope it helped.

 
WackyDan from what I have heard over the years, plugging a surge device into another surge device is a no no. Hmm, I wonder who would actually know the correct answer. You idea sounds good, if you can let the suppressor take alot of the power hits so your UPS will last longer but also most surges do not have 3000joule rating for the one slot the UPS would be plugged into, they have like 400-600joules rating. Please someone who truly knows answer if plugging a surge into a surge is actually bad to do. I know it can work and stuff can power on so all the yahoo's that run and plug two surges together please do not respond since we all know it works.

PS On my UPS on my main system only the monitor and cpu is plugged into the battery side, the Klipsch 4.1 speakers,PDA is plugged into the surge only side. But still with the speakers plugged into the surge only outlets the UPS still gives a steady beep do to overloading the UPS with the 400w Speakers.
 
Originally posted by: eno
WackyDan from what I have heard over the years, plugging a surge device into another surge device is a no no. Hmm, I wonder who would actually know the correct answer. You idea sounds good, if you can let the suppressor take alot of the power hits so your UPS will last longer but also most surges do not have 3000joule rating for the one slot the UPS would be plugged into, they have like 400-600joules rating. Please someone who truly knows answer if plugging a surge into a surge is actually bad to do. I know it can work and stuff can power on so all the yahoo's that run and plug two surges together please do not respond since we all know it works.

PS On my UPS on my main system only the monitor and cpu is plugged into the battery side, the Klipsch 4.1 speakers,PDA is plugged into the surge only side. But still with the speakers plugged into the surge only outlets the UPS still gives a steady beep do to overloading the UPS with the 400w Speakers.
Click to expand...

As I said.. if you want a quality Surge suppressor you should look to ISObar or tripplite.... You are going to pay $$$ though. I'm not talking about off the shelf stuff at Best Buy, Circuit City or CompUSA. look up their spec sheets at their sites and you'll get more detailed info on their ratings.
 
Now... You'll want to buy a GOOD surge suppressor TOO. One that's rated for around or at least 3000 Joules clamping. Hook all the stuff you didn't plug into the UPS in to new suppressor ----> AND PLUG THE UPS INTO IT AS WELL.
Click to expand...
Please someone who truly knows answer if plugging a surge into a surge is actually bad to do.
Click to expand...
The User's Guide with my APC Back-UPS ES 500 says do not plug it into a surge protector or power strip; plug it directly into a wall outlet.
 
Originally posted by: dderolph
Now... You'll want to buy a GOOD surge suppressor TOO. One that's rated for around or at least 3000 Joules clamping. Hook all the stuff you didn't plug into the UPS in to new suppressor ----> AND PLUG THE UPS INTO IT AS WELL.
Click to expand...
Please someone who truly knows answer if plugging a surge into a surge is actually bad to do.
Click to expand...
The User's Guide with my APC Back-UPS ES 500 says do not plug it into a surge protector or power strip; plug it directly into a wall outlet.
Click to expand...

Hmm.... Yet no reason why....It states directly to wall and not another surge protector or Power strip...Powerstrips are just that.... power strips..... some have breakers but I've got many that do not have surge suppression... I can't see how either would interfere in any way with the UPS.
 
Aside from the irony of APC's manufacturing, they are good, and while I've never used a Cyberpower, I do know some of the larger OEMs rebadge them (I think Compaq did for awhile, IIRC--but don't quote me on that one), and just googling, they seem to have similar pricing to APC (for the larger ones, anyway).

Also, UPSes are great if you have low voltage issues. We have more low voltage than surges here when storm season comes...the PCs on the APC UPS (no surge protection before it) don't miss a beat...a couple others have had PSUs and RAM die (PC shuts off, they try to get the power back, it's too low several times...and a PC won't turn on again--needless to say all of them now get set to stay off after a power failure 🙂).
 
Originally posted by: dderolph
Now... You'll want to buy a GOOD surge suppressor TOO. One that's rated for around or at least 3000 Joules clamping. Hook all the stuff you didn't plug into the UPS in to new suppressor ----> AND PLUG THE UPS INTO IT AS WELL.
Click to expand...
Please someone who truly knows answer if plugging a surge into a surge is actually bad to do.
Click to expand...
The User's Guide with my APC Back-UPS ES 500 says do not plug it into a surge protector or power strip; plug it directly into a wall outlet.
Click to expand...

Well -I found this.... which may explain why they want you plugged directly into the wall outlet.

"Warning: never use a three prong to two prong converter when plugging in a UPS or surge protector. Doing so eliminates the ability of the unit to send surges to ground. "

I imagine they want to ensure that by plugging directly into the wall you cut out any "middle men" pieces of hardware/cabling that could cause a fault.
 
I've actually got the 1250AVR. It runs quite nicely, and it has some software to shut down the PC and configure the UPS itself. It goes through power outages well; I never notice any shimmering on my monitor either like I did with an older Tripplite UPS - but that thing was used for maybe 5+ years. And it probably used older inverter technology; don't know though.
Right now, my 1250AVR is running a pretty nice XP2100 system, a 21" CRT, and a 5.1 speaker system. According to the monitoring software, that's between a 44 and 47% load; it estimates the backup time at 23min 49s. The software even tells you the current input/output voltages, and the frequency. You can make adjustments too as to the low-battery cutoff capacity level, high/low voltages that trigger battery voltage, the actual output voltage while on battery power, and the countdown-to-shutdown after the power goes out.

Anyway, that Cyberpower thing seems like a great value - plenty of power, functional management software, and a good price for the amount of power it does put out. Sometimes, the monitoring software won't find the UPS, but it happens rarely anymore, and usually a reboot will get it going again. Don't know why it does that; it usually happens after I don't shut down the PC properly, due to a frozen program, or else a High Priority process hogging the CPU.



The first link you posted doesn't seem to load any product, at least not for me; of course, Newegg seems to just do that to me sometimes - some of their product links just load a blank page. Just one of the complaints I have about them - the other being that their site seems like its main Internet hookup is a 2400 modem. Other than that, they're a great place to shop. 😉
 
Good info about the software, thanks. I just bought the 1100AVR 2 nights ago and just exchanged the 825avr for the 1500avr for the main computer. I wasn't going to use the software but heck if I can monitor all that stuff , heck ya.

So WackyDan, thats kinda what I was looking for, a non-biased opinion , rather than the company that makes them. So mainly its just a no no for lack of grounding. So I should just find a surge protector that has high joule ratings on each outlet. I get hella good deals(dirt cheap) on monster cable products, should I just get one of them?
 
I have a pair of Belkin 1000VA UPSs. They were about 100$ each, worked for me the last couple outages and accidental roommate breaker trips.
 
Originally posted by: eno
Good info about the software, thanks. I just bought the 1100AVR 2 nights ago and just exchanged the 825avr for the 1500avr for the main computer. I wasn't going to use the software but heck if I can monitor all that stuff , heck ya.

So WackyDan, thats kinda what I was looking for, a non-biased opinion , rather than the company that makes them. So mainly its just a no no for lack of grounding. So I should just find a surge protector that has high joule ratings on each outlet. I get hella good deals(dirt cheap) on monster cable products, should I just get one of them?
Click to expand...

I guess it comes down to price at the point... If after discount they are cheaper and off the same function than a good ISObar or triplite then go for it. All I know about the Monsters is that they are SUPER $$$..... I've never looked at them enough to determine if it's a branding/marketing hype thing on the name and such.

Run the software..... It's nice to see the info and it will give you an idea of how many times the UPS has helped in a power loss or brownout/over voltage even when you didn't know it.
 
Originally posted by: eno
Good info about the software, thanks. I just bought the 1100AVR 2 nights ago and just exchanged the 825avr for the 1500avr for the main computer. I wasn't going to use the software but heck if I can monitor all that stuff , heck ya.

So WackyDan, thats kinda what I was looking for, a non-biased opinion , rather than the company that makes them. So mainly its just a no no for lack of grounding. So I should just find a surge protector that has high joule ratings on each outlet. I get hella good deals(dirt cheap) on monster cable products, should I just get one of them?
Click to expand...

Oh.. and Isobar is Triplite, it's a sub brand though. Didn't know that. From what I can see they offer higher suppression than that of the monster suppressors.
 
Fair enough. Well to give you a idea, I got the HTS5100 for 279$ shipped. So thats the price point I am talkn about, might be worth to stick with Monster.


I just got done hooking my main system up to the 1500AVR. Man that thing is huge and heavy. What do you think would happen in this situation? Both desks now have the CyberPower UPS. Both also run medium quality surge protectors(costco) that have the extra 4 AC devices on each desk plugged into it. The speakers on my 2nd desk are only plugged into the surge, but are connected to the PC so if the event of a massive surge/spike that fried my speakers, couldn't the surge go through the speakers into the rest of the system totally making these higher quality UPC's useless on the protection side? Also should I run my cable internet through the UPC and the fax phone line? From what I have heard the phone line and cable is grounded and you shouldn't run those through surge protectors. Again surge companies recommend you too.

What do you think I should do? Run the UPC's through higher quality surges? Disconnect the cablemodem/router from UPC(surge only outlet) and plug speakers instead?
 
I used to have two units from CyberPower, both died after less than one year in service. My advice.. avoid them like a plague. APC is definitely better quality product, if not the best/one of the best
 
I've been using a 650ups from belkin on my home system. On my hts, I have one of the higher model monster power strips with all that clean power crap. So far, so good.
 
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a APC Back-UPS ES 500. I also have a Blackout Buster UPS from PowerKinetics. Its nearly five years old; I installed it on 4/26/99 on an old Pentium that I still have and used heavily up until about Sept '02. The battery is getting very low - near it's end, I believe - but five years is an excellent record.
 
See the link below for the APC answer to the question whether or not you can plug a UPS into a surge protector.

http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=kCxyO7fh&p_lva=2877&p_faqid=1372

Synopsis: Yes, but only if it's an APC surge protector, although they don't even recommend that. The stated reason is: "Plugging your UPS into a surge protector may cause the UPS to go to battery often when it normally should remain online. This is because other, more powerful equipment may draw necessary voltage away from the UPS which it requires to remain online."

Based on this, an experimental approach seems to be the way to go: First install the UPS without extra surge protection, monitor its performance for a period of time, and then install the extra surge protection in between the wall outlet and the UPS. If there is no notable differences in the frequency of the UPS going to battery, you are fine.
 
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