battery backup questions

[SirPoonga]

I am thinking of getting a battery backup for my computer.  I know nothing about these.  What does wattage have to do with a backup?  I see most of the "affordable" backups are between 100w to 200w.  I have a 450w psu in my computer.  Will that cause a problem?

[Samstag]

The power supply isn't relevant.

[ChadTower]

The wattage basically is how much sustained output you can expect to get from it... your computer doesn't actually USE 450W, it has a max capacity of 450W.  The main draw won't be your computer, it will be your monitor, if you hook the whole thing up to the UPS.

Get one with communication capability, so that when power goes out, it can shut your PC down gracefully.  You can't rely on a UPS to sustain your machine long for use, but it can shut the thing down safely rather than brown it out in a power outage.

The best benefit of a UPS is protection from brownouts.

[SirPoonga]

Right, I just need something that can run a system for about 5 minutes.  Ideally I'd like it to wait 2-3 minutes before shutting the computer down. 

You are right, all I care about is powering the computer.  The monitor, printer, speakers, etc can just shut off. 

I see an open box ups going for a great price on tigerdirect.  It's rs232 though   Wonder how well it would work with a usb to serial adaptor.
Bah, I don't need anyhting as powerful as it is just to shut the computer down.  I do have quite abit if powered devices though.  1 dvdr, 3 harddrives, 1 usb stick, 2 usb gamepads/joysticks, usb keyboard, usb mouse.  It's an amd 64 3200 with an ati 9550 graphics card.  With charts I have seen I'm guessing I need around a 500-700VA backup.

[ChadTower]

You could get away with pretty much any decent communicating UPS if you only want it to stay up long enough to shut the machine down.  Most of these units have a time setting in the drivers.

[2600]

An often overlooked thing with shutting down is the need to see the screen when shutting down.  There are ways around this like making the power button shutting down, having the UPS signal the PC, etc.  But I've seen so many softheads scratching their head because they didn't put there monitor on the UPS or didn't configure the PC to shutdown in other ways.


On a side note, if you are like me and have a lot of Cordless phones.  Having your phone on a UPS is a great feature.

[ChadTower]

The point of the UPS is to install the drivers on the PC, and then the UPS does the shutdown itself, either via serial or USB.

[2600]

The point of the UPS is to install the drivers on the PC, and then the UPS does the shutdown itself, either via serial or USB.

Not all UPS's have that feature, but your preaching to the choir.

You know to configure the UPS to shut the PC down, I know that, everyone in this thread probably knows that, but I'm telling you when the power goes out at work there is always some softhead who things they are so smart, but failed to configure there UPS.  The PC illiterate people usually have someone configure it for them.

I probably should of worded it differently, but I was just mentioning it as a reminder so that SirPoonga takes the time to configure it and enures that it is configured.  If you haven't configured it or the UPS doesn't have that feature you don't want to take the risk of saying oh I'll shut it down, then find out you are in the crapper and can't get to the PC in time, or you try to remember the keys to shutdown your PC only to have firefox prevent your PC from shutting down because it has multiple tabs open.

[ChadTower]

Heh, point taken.

I don't have my PC's UPS configured to shut it down... I was too lazy and the power almost never goes out in my town.  :  If it's that big a deal, though.  It's not like the person can't just plug their monitor into the UPS for 30 seconds to shut it down manually, if they happen to be there.

[2600]

Actually, that's what the softheads do.  Only problem with that is usually plugging in and turning on of the monitor has a lot more current draw and instantly drains the UPS.

[SirPoonga]

if they happen to be there.

Exactly why I want a UPS.  I know I need to configure it, hence what I said before, I need to keep the computer on for 2-3 incase power comes back, if not them shutdown.

This happened to me recently.  I went to pick up bread and milk form the grocery store, which is 2 minutes away.  I was gone for no more than 15 minutes.  When I got back I noticed the cable box was off, my alarm clock was flashing, and worst of all my computer was off which means there was a power outage (yeah, I need to replace the battery in my alarm clock )  My guess is the power supply to my apartment fluctuated for a minute or two.

[ChadTower]

I have a full UPS on something far more important:  My Tivo.

[SirPoonga]

Well, my pc is going to become my tivo   just need ot pick up a PVR150 and a mediamvp...

[ChadTower]

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense for DirecTV subscribers.  We get a real one for $50 if we ask for it.

[SirPoonga]

well, I could get a DVR from the cable company for $5 a month, but I want to be able to take content off and save it on DVD.  So a PC is the only way to go that is affordable.

[SOAPboy]

Right, I just need something that can run a system for about 5 minutes.

[ChadTower]

well, I could get a DVR from the cable company for $5 a month, but I want to be able to take content off and save it on DVD.