Backup power/surge protection

[lynspottery]

Not sure where to post this, but I need some guidance please. I purchased a CyberPower 1350VA: CP1350AVRLCD Surge protector w/battery backup for my son's pc.

Recently we have experienced brownouts in our neighborhood and as luck would have it (or not), he would be in the middle of a raid on rift when we would get that very short loss of power. For some reason my own system seems unaffected by these brownouts. I use a CyberPower surge protector for my pc and it has performed flawlessly.

So I picked up a similar unit for his only to have the same thing happen two days ago while we both were online. My system did not even blink but his just closed down. So I returned the unit and picked up the larger 1350 VA 810 Watts battery backup w/surge protection.

I had been in communication with a technician at CyberPower and when I told him what I had picked up, his answer was a bit clipped...no explanation about why or what would work best for the pc since the pc is also a CyberPower built. I had hoped for a better exchange of information to help me.

The CP1350AVRLCD is not a sine wave UPS. You may still experience crashes when this unit switches to battery."

So now I am at a loss as to what to do. My son's pc is a CyberPower Intel(K) Core(TM) i7 930@2.80GHz 2.80GHz gaming rig. The only other thing plugged into this surge protector is his monitor which is a 17" ViewSonic VG2227wm Monitor.

It is very difficult to get straight answers from the sales folks at the Fry's store but all seem to think this last unit I got will suffice. Why is it so difficult to get a straight answer? I have no idea except that dealing directly with the company of the product I had hoped for more explanation. But they seem to push the higher end equipment. While a sales person may understand what you want, they also are trying to walk a delicate line between profits and utility for their customer's needs.

I know there are a lot of options available but I have no idea what I am looking at or why one thing works when something else that seems the same doesn't. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[EXT64]

Hi lynspottery,

The problem is that some computer power supplies are more sensitive to the quality of the incoming power waveform. Your wall AC power is a pretty good sine wave (with noise of course). When you lose power, your UPS is then extracting power from a DC battery. It must then convert this power to AC. How well it converts DC to AC depends on the quality of the UPS inverter.

Cheaper UPSes will approximate sine waves with square or trapezoidal waveforms. For many power supplies this is ok, however some of the newer high efficiency power supplies don't like the squared off signal.

To stay in about the same price range as the unit you have, I would suggest trying the CyberPower CP1350PFCLCD or CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD. These units, while still not perfect sine waves, are designed to be good enough for sensitive power supplies. I have both of these units and have had no issues with a variety of high end high efficiency power supplies. That is no guarantee that it will work of course, but hopefully it will. Be sure as soon as your get the UPS to run it in test mode to ensure that the computer can run on it, so if it still fails you can return it.

Hope that helps a bit, and let me know if you have any further questions.

 

[lynspottery]

Hi lynspottery,

The problem is that some computer power supplies are more sensitive to the quality of the incoming power waveform. Your wall AC power is a pretty good sine wave (with noise of course). When you lose power, your UPS is then extracting power from a DC battery. It must then convert this power to AC. How well it converts DC to AC depends on the quality of the UPS inverter.

Cheaper UPSes will approximate sine waves with square or trapezoidal waveforms. For many power supplies this is ok, however some of the newer high efficiency power supplies don't like the squared off signal.

To stay in about the same price range as the unit you have, I would suggest trying the CyberPower CP1350PFCLCD or CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD. These units, while still not perfect sine waves, are designed to be good enough for sensitive power supplies. I have both of these units and have had no issues with a variety of high end high efficiency power supplies. That is no guarantee that it will work of course, but hopefully it will. Be sure as soon as your get the UPS to run it in test mode to ensure that the computer can run on it, so if it still fails you can return it.

Hope that helps a bit, and let me know if you have any further questions.

I actually was talking with some guild mates of mine from SWTOR and APC was mentioned as a very good alternative to the CyberPower brand. I also thought that the only way to test a unit like this was to power up the pc, then pull the plug out of the wall socket to see if the pc stayed powered on without problems. Did not know there was a better way to test these things. I looked in the manual I received with the unit I just purchased and did not see any test function listed.

I was looking at this: Back-UPS Pro APC Power-Saving Back-UPS Pro 1000 APC Back-UPS Pro, 600 Watts / 1000 VA, Input 120V / Output 120V , Interface Port USB

Would this unit work as well?

 

[EXT64]

APC and Tripp-Lite were the brands I had always heard of. I went out on a limb to try these Cyberpower Sine Wave units and have been very pleased with them. On my Cyberpower UPSes, I can use the windows program or press and hold the "Control" button for a couple seconds and it will switch to battery mode for a few seconds. Pulling the plug works too of course.

However, regardless of brand you want to look for one that advertises its quality sine wave waveform.

 

[lynspottery]

APC and Tripp-Lite were the brands I had always heard of. I went out on a limb to try these Cyberpower Sine Wave units and have been very pleased with them. On my Cyberpower UPSes, I can use the windows program or press and hold the "Control" button for a couple seconds and it will switch to battery mode for a few seconds. Pulling the plug works too of course.

However, regardless of brand you want to look for one that advertises its quality sine wave waveform.

Ok, that makes perfect sense. I may have to order directly from the company as Fry's does not seem to have the particular units I am looking to go to, in stock.

Well, at least I have a generous return option.

 

[lynspottery]

Yea...found NewEgg had this in stock and I got an instant discount which brings the price down close to what I paid for the unit I plan to replace it with. Nice..I love NewEgg

 

[lynspottery]

Best answer selected by lynspottery.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

This topic has been closed by Area51reopened