whats the minimum wattage for a ups?

[agentK]

i have a mag 19" monitor, enermax 350w dual fan w/ 5 fans installed on the case. oh and the usual set up for the pc. will 500w work with this? i only plan to hook up my monitor and computer to the UPS, nothing more.

 

[4824guy]

Lets do the math

Your UPS 500w max output minus the 350w max for the PC leaves you 150w max for the monitor. Please check your monitor specs to see if the usage is 150watts. monitors that I ahve seen usually have the max wattage usage on the rear of them.

Some monitors that I just looked at had 100-125 w listed on the rear, yours will be different.

 

[Stealth1024]

careful, most UPS units list power rating in volt amps. Also, even though your power supply and monitor is listed as drawing so many watts, it rarely does. That is the maximum rating available that it could.

 

[John]

The 500VA will work fine.

 

[agentK]

ok. i needed to know because the shop i bought my pc from said the ups can handle my 19" and the pc. so i was wondering why the ups kept beeping saying that its overloaded when i only have both of them plugged. might be a defective ups. thanks "ever reliable" anandtech gurus!

 

[4824guy]

I am looking at a Belkin box with a 500VA backup unit and it says that a 500va unit is recommended for a average 17" monitor and a pentium 1 or 2 or celeron class PC.

The math to figure the va load out, as given by Belkin is

Mutliply your wattage by 1.4 for a VA load.

example given is: a 250watt PS times 1.4=350VA load




so your 350w PC PS is 350 times 1.4=490VA load

So your just about max'ed out with the PC without any monitor connected.

 

[MWink]

FYI, just because your PS is rated for a certain wattage does not mean it always pulls that much. My 431W is drawing just under 150W and my 17" monitor is drawing about 75W.