Is this a good UPS to get?

[Kenobi]

The power in my house doesn't seem to quite cut it. Whenever I have the washing machine and a heater on at the same time, more often than not power goes down. I will get the amperage increased, but I feel that it wouldn't hurt to get an UPS, just in case.

I've found this:

http://www.mustek.de/eng_/html/produkte/ups600plus.htm

for less than 40 euros, so it's relatively cheap.

What do you think?

[Scott Sherman]

Does not look to bad, how about APC. Can you get them there? I just bring them up becuase I have used them for over 15 years on servers and desktop and have had very few problems. Which is good since I have installed well over a thousand of them.

[liqnit]

the UPS looks ok what is your computer spec
remember that 600VA is not 600w .
if you also plan on hooking your monitor (is it LCD or CRT)
it will take more juice from the UPS .

i upgraded mine to 1KVA - and now it holds my computer for long time

[zachig]

It really depends on what are you going to connect to this UPS. If you want both your PC and Monitor to be connected and you have a pretty power-demanding system (and YOU DO HAVE :wink: ), I'm afraid that 600VA won't be enough, unless you won't be connecting your monitor. It also depends which monitor do you have? If it's LCD or a 17" CRT, I guess you'll be fine. But, if you have a 19" (or above) CRT monitor, 600VA won't be enough.

Please note that the UPS you've mentioned supports up to 600VA and NOT 600W. 600VA equals appoximately 424W (600 divided by square root of 2).

So, all you have to do is make a rough calculation of the MAXIMUM power consumption of your PC (and to include wattage of monitor, if you want to connect the monitor to the UPS as well). Then, multiply by 1.414 and add 10% just to be safe.

So, for example, if your machine consumes 400W and your monitor consumes 80W, then your total power consumption is 480W. So, 480x1.414x1.1=746VA. Therfore, you'll need a 750VA UPS.

You can use this Power Supply Calculator (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/) for the Wattage Calculation.

Regarding, which brand of UPS to get, APC (http://www.apcc.com/) are known as the best UPS manufactueres.

[Kenobi]

Here are my specs. I don't know which info is relevant, so please let me know if there's anything missing:

Athlon 64 3200
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
Asus N6800 GT 256 MB DDR 3
1 Gig RAM
Creative Labs Live! 5.1
Creative Labs Inspire 5100 speakers
2 hard drives, 1 cd-rom drive, 1 dvd-rom drive
several usb periphericals
LCD monitor

Basically, I just need a UPS that can keep my computer on for the time strictly necessary to shut it down properly in case I have a power failure in my house. Which means that 5 mins is more than enough.

Also - and please have patience with my noobness - does the UPS connect between the CPU and the wall outlet? That is, every power plug (from the PSU, the monitor, speakers, etc.) connect directly to the UPS instead of the wall outlet?

Thanks in advance.

[zachig]

Athlon 64 3200: 89W
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe: 25W
Asus N6800 GT 256 MB DDR 3: 65W
1 Gig RAM: 20W
Creative Labs Live! 5.1: 18W
Creative Labs Inspire 5100 speakers: 47W
2 hard drives, 1 cd-rom drive, 1 dvd-rom drive: 95W (total)
several usb periphericals: 20W (avg. 5W each)
LCD monitor: 35W
Floppy Drive, Keyboard and mouse, CPU fan: 10W

TOTAL: 424W, which means you'll need 424x1.414x1.1=660VA UPS

But, you DON'T have to connect the speakers to the UPS, then you'll have "only" 377W,
which means that 600VA, will be just fine!!!

And yeah, you were right. The UPS connects to the wall outlet and all "protected" components, such as PC Case, Monitor (and speakers) are connected to it.

Hope this helps. :wink:

GOOD LUCK. :)

[Kenobi]

Thanks for the quick replies!

I have just a couple of questions more:

what's your opinion on this model?

http://phasak.com/ph9960-uk.htm

Is it better than the Mustek one?

Also - and get ready for some major noobness of yours truly - is the UPS supposed to replace the PSU? I mean, will my PSU become useless?

[zachig]

I'm sorry, but I don't know PHASAK company. Regarding MUSTEK, It looks pretty OK, altough I personally won't recommend it. I've heard that people had problems with it. I would suggest you to make an effort, add extra money and buy a decent UPS, like the ATC I've mentioned before. You don't want to buy a cheap UPS and then regret it, don't you? :wink:

Also - and get ready for some major noobness of yours truly - is the UPS supposed to replace the PSU? I mean, will my PSU become useless?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Your PSU remains you PSU. In normal operation, your UPS is just being charged, so when a power drop/cut occurs, you'll have time (usually between 1-4 minutes ONLY, depends on how much VA you have and what is your Power Consumption) to save your files and do a proper shutdown. That's it!!!

UPS Definition: :wink:
UPS stands for Uninterruptable Power Supply, and it is a device that provides continuous, reliable power to your computer. It is a device that plugs into your outlets and you then plug your computer, monitor, and other components into. It uses a battery to make sure that the computer will stay on even if there is a power outage. These are generally used only for critical machines and servers, but they can also be useful at home if you have blackouts/brownouts or voltage irregularities. UPSs made by APS or Opti-UPS are generally good quality.