Mike Ruskai wrote:
> If you insist that your claim about UPS's being junk is not ridiculous, then
> provide some model numbers or brands/capacities that you've tried. Even the
> very inexpensive 1100VA Belkin unit I started with several years back worked
> better than you describe.
You sound like you work for a UPS company, otherwise why are you so
invested in it? Just accept that people have different experiences than
you, and move on.
Rod Speed wrote:
> Ian D wrote
>> I would be looking at your PC's power supply. There is a very
>> brief delay between the loss of power, and the UPS switchover
>> to battery power.
>
> Not with continuous UPSs, there is no delay at all with those.
>
> Essentially the PC is running off the UPS output all the time and
> the only thing that changes with the mains failure is that the UPS
> isnt being charged anymore and runs off the battery instead.
If the battery is not holding a charge anymore, then it will die right
away whether it is an online or standby PS.
>> If you insist that your claim about UPS's being junk is not
>> ridiculous, then provide some model numbers or brands/capacities
>> that you've tried. Even the very inexpensive 1100VA Belkin unit I
>> started with several years back worked better than you describe.
> You sound like you work for a UPS company,
Nope.
> otherwise why are you so invested in it?
Presumably he believes that the claim that all UPSs are junk is mindlessly silly.
> Just accept that people have different experiences than you, and move on.
Separate matter entirely to the stupid claim that all UPSs are junk.
Yousuf Khan wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> Ian D wrote
>>> I would be looking at your PC's power supply. There is a very brief delay between the loss of power, and the UPS
>>> switchover to battery power.
>> Not with continuous UPSs, there is no delay at all with those.
>> Essentially the PC is running off the UPS output all the time and
>> the only thing that changes with the mains failure is that the UPS
>> isnt being charged anymore and runs off the battery instead.
> If the battery is not holding a charge anymore, then it will die right away whether it is an online or standby PS.
Yes, but that is an entirely separate matter
to what he said about the PC power supply.
Yousuf Khan wrote:
> Igor Batinic wrote:
>> Next time you want to press the "send" button, please, re-read and
>> re-think again.
>
> I stand by my assertion, I've had different experiences than you. You
> need to get some experience and follow your own advice.
It seems that I have a lot more experience than you have. From my point
of view (ant not only mine, as it seems) you've never seen a real UPS in
life. Maybe not even a picture of it.
On or about Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:35:47 -0400 did Yousuf Khan
<bbbl67@spammenot.yahoo.com> dribble thusly:
>Mike Ruskai wrote:
>> If you insist that your claim about UPS's being junk is not ridiculous, then
>> provide some model numbers or brands/capacities that you've tried. Even the
>> very inexpensive 1100VA Belkin unit I started with several years back worked
>> better than you describe.
>
>You sound like you work for a UPS company, otherwise why are you so
>invested in it? Just accept that people have different experiences than
>you, and move on.
No, what I sound like is a person who's incredulous that someone could say
something so blatantly ignorant about uninterruptible power supplies. I guess
you've never had a file system crash, or lost an important document that
hadn't been saved.
Your reluctance to provide any detail demonstrates that you probably have
little to no actual experience with UPS's of reasonable quality. It's like
someone who's driven nothing but 20-year-old used junkers saying that all cars
are unreliable junk.
My APC UPS's have saved the day many times during brown and blackouts.
The batteries last more than 3 years but it's necessary to check them
regularly. I boot to something that will be ok if the PC stops -- a CD
would be ok. Then I pull the wall plug and see what happens. Afterwards
the software in Windows gives an estimate of run time.
Only the system unit, cable modem, and monitor are on the battery.
A bug in the software keeps entending the run time estimate, though.
Also the software doesn't let you set the shut down windows point close
to dead battery. Also, the data line protectors can impede the data. Had
to get my cable modem out of there as the cable company measured that it
was fouling it up.
Rod Speed wrote:
> David Brown wrote
>> Rod Speed wrote
>>> Ian D wrote
>>>> Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>> Ian D wrote
>>>>>> kenk <kenk@nowhere.com> wrote
>
>>>>>>> I was sitting at my desk yesterday during a storm when
>>>>>>> there was a split-second power outage. Despite the fact
>>>>>>> that my battery shows all 5 lights lit, the computer
>>>>>>> died.
>
>>>>>>> Is there a better brand to use than APC? Can the battery
>>>>>>> be sub-par even though the test lights say it is OK?
>>>>>>> What have others of you chosen?
>
>>>>>> I would be looking at your PC's power supply. There is a
>>>>>> very brief delay between the loss of power, and the UPS
>>>>>> switchover to battery power.
>
>>>>> Not with continuous UPSs, there is no delay at all with
>>>>> those.
>
>>>>> Essentially the PC is running off the UPS output all the time
>>>>> and the only thing that changes with the mains failure is
>>>>> that the UPS isnt being charged anymore and runs off the
>>>>> battery instead.
>
>>>> That's correct, and those units are the ones with true sine
>>>> wave output,
>
>>> Nope, the type of output is an entirely separate issue.
>
>> Both types of UPS generate roughly sine wave outputs when the
>> inverter is active.
>
> Pity he was clearly talking about TRUE sine wave output, which only a
> small subset of UPSs produce. And it aint even the continuous/online
> UPSs that mostly do produce TRUE sine wave output.
>
I don't know exactly what you mean by "TRUE sine wave" - all UPS's
generate a sine wave of sorts when they are active (i.e., all the time
for continuous/online UPS's, or during power fail for standby devices).
The quality of the sine wave varies from fairly poor (lots of
harmonics) to pretty good (few harmonics), but is /never/ pure.
If you are restricting discussion only to those UPS's that produce good
quality sine waves, then I'll have to take your word for how standby and
online UPS prices compare. Baring the worst of the cheapo devices, the
sine quality of any UPS is going to be good enough for computer
hardware, and is typically better than you get straight from the mains.
Thus it's not a restriction that I've considered.
>> The difference is that with a standby UPS, the inverter is not
>> active unless the power fails, so the output is just a filtered
>> version of the input.
>
> Thats an entirely separate matter to TRUE sine wave output.
>
True - though again, there is no such thing as "TRUE sine wave output",
merely more or less harmonics.
>>>> and are relatively expensive.
>
>>> Not anymore with continuous or online UPSs.
>
>> Online or continuous UPSs are more expensive than standby UPS for
>> the same ratings.
>
> In theory that is correct. In practice there isnt a lot in it with
> the brand name domestic UPSs now.
>
OK. It looks to me that the difference has been getting smaller in
recent years - perhaps we are merely arguing about what sort of
percentage is a "big" difference. I also have been looking mainly at
APC, rather than a spread of suppliers - I've used them, I have found
them reliable, and they work well with Linux, so I haven't bothered
looking at many alternative manufacturers.
>> Judging by a quick check on APC's website, the difference is
>> something like 25% more expensive for "Smart UPS online" compared
>> to "Smart UPS" (standby).
>
> Thats not very much.
>
In a recent purchase, the online device I bought was actually twice the
cost of a standby device with similar ratings. But that was because I
needed it to work with a particularly hostile mains supply, thus it was
a special case.
To be honest, however, the prices I saw when I checked APC's website
surprised me slightly - I had expected a bigger difference. But one
should never let hard facts get in the way of a good argument.
>> Additionally, smaller and cheaper UPSs are mostly standby types,
>> while online ones are for more professional markets.
>
> Thats overstating it, particularly with the stuff out of china.
>
>> If you are wanting something that can give you 10 minutes at 300W,
>> standby UPSs will be half the price.
>
> Wrong.
>
Well, that's based on looking at APC's website. There is no doubt that
the cheapest APC standby device, which is perfectly good for a single
system, is less than half the price of their cheapest online device.
For their small devices, there is a huge difference in prices.
But as I say I haven't looked at other manufacturers - in particular, I
haven't looked at the low-end and unbranded devices. I simply took APC
as a familiar professional-level UPS supplier, and I expect other
professional-level suppliers to be roughly in line with them.
If what you are saying is true of the low-end devices, then that's
interesting news. I'm not sure I'd normally pick a no-name UPS - when
looking for reliability during a power failure, the supplier's
reputation is a factor. But there are certainly situations when a cheap
UPS is much better than no UPS.
>> Online UPSs are also less efficient for smaller systems - the
>> double conversion wastes at least 10% of your electricity.
>
> Utterly mangled all over again.
>
No, it's quite simple - AC to DC conversion has some loses, DC to AC
conversion has some loses. Simple passive filtering and surge
protection, as used by standby devices when they are offline, has
virtually no loss.
I'm not too concerned about this myself, but other people certainly are,
especially in larger setups.
> And if you do care about that, you can also get replacement power
> supplys that avoid the double conversion and still have the UPS
> functionality.
>
If you are talking about DC supply buses to servers, rather than having
an AC supply to each, then I think it's a very good idea. It is quite
simply idiotic to take a high voltage AC supply, convert it to low
voltage DC for a battery, turn it back to high voltage AC to deliver to
a server's power supply, which then turns it back to a low voltage DC.
Converting AC to 24V to 48V DC for battery storage, and passing that
straight to a server's power supply would be significantly more
efficient in energy use, and much smaller and cheaper in hardware.
>> That doesn't mean that standby UPSs are a better choice for a small
>> user - just that there are different balances to consider and the
>> price difference (though less than it used to be) is significant.
>
> Not anymore.
>
>>>> I was assuming that the OP was using a regular, run of the mill
>>>> APC UPS.
>
>>> There's plenty of continuous/online consumer grade UPSs now.
>
>>>>>> The PC power supply should hold during this period. Before
>>>>>> I had a UPS, a split-second power outage would cause clocks
>>>>>> to lose their time, etc., sometimes, even my monitor would
>>>>>> blink, but the computer would hold without a glitch. If
>>>>>> you want to test your UPS, pull the power cord with a load
>>>>>> on the UPS.
>
>
David Brown wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> David Brown wrote
>>> Rod Speed wrote
>>>> Ian D wrote
>>>>> Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>> Ian D wrote
>>>>>>> kenk <kenk@nowhere.com> wrote
>>>>>>>> I was sitting at my desk yesterday during a storm when
>>>>>>>> there was a split-second power outage. Despite the fact
>>>>>>>> that my battery shows all 5 lights lit, the computer died.
>>>>>>>> Is there a better brand to use than APC? Can the battery
>>>>>>>> be sub-par even though the test lights say it is OK?
>>>>>>>> What have others of you chosen?
>>>>>>> I would be looking at your PC's power supply. There is a very brief delay between the loss of power, and the
>>>>>>> UPS switchover to battery power.
>>>>>> Not with continuous UPSs, there is no delay at all with those.
>>>>>> Essentially the PC is running off the UPS output all the time
>>>>>> and the only thing that changes with the mains failure is
>>>>>> that the UPS isnt being charged anymore and runs off the
>>>>>> battery instead.
>>>>> That's correct, and those units are the ones with true sine wave output,
>>>> Nope, the type of output is an entirely separate issue.
>>> Both types of UPS generate roughly sine wave outputs when the inverter is active.
>> Pity he was clearly talking about TRUE sine wave output, which only a
>> small subset of UPSs produce. And it aint even the continuous/online
>> UPSs that mostly do produce TRUE sine wave output.
> I don't know exactly what you mean by "TRUE sine wave"
Should be obvious to even someone as stupid as you.
> - all UPS's generate a sine wave of sorts when they are active
Wrong, as always. Plenty generate a square wave instead.
> (i.e., all the time for continuous/online UPS's, or during power fail for standby devices). The quality of the sine
> wave varies from fairly poor (lots of harmonics) to pretty good (few harmonics), but is /never/ pure.
That last is just plain wrong.
> If you are restricting discussion only to those UPS's that produce good quality sine waves,
I was JUST commenting on HIS claim about TRUE sine wave output, ****wit.
> then I'll have to take your word for how standby and online UPS prices compare. Baring the worst of the cheapo
> devices, the sine quality of any UPS is going to be good enough for computer hardware, and is typically better than
> you get straight from the mains. Thus it's not a restriction that I've considered.
Completely and utterly irrelevant to the comment I made about
his stupid pig ignorant claim about TRUE sine wave output.
>>> The difference is that with a standby UPS, the inverter is not
>>> active unless the power fails, so the output is just a filtered
>>> version of the input.
>> Thats an entirely separate matter to TRUE sine wave output.
> True - though again, there is no such thing as "TRUE sine wave output", merely more or less harmonics.
Wrong, as always. True sinewave is NO harmonics.
>>>>> and are relatively expensive.
>>>> Not anymore with continuous or online UPSs.
>>> Online or continuous UPSs are more expensive than standby UPS for the same ratings.
>> In theory that is correct. In practice there isnt a lot in it with the brand name domestic UPSs now.
> OK. It looks to me that the difference has been getting smaller in recent years - perhaps we are merely arguing about
> what sort of percentage is a "big" difference.
Nope.
> I also have been looking mainly at APC, rather than a spread of suppliers - I've used them, I have found them
> reliable, and they work well with Linux, so I haven't bothered looking at many alternative manufacturers.
You should when commenting on the price difference between
online/continuous and standby consumer grade UPSs.
>>> Judging by a quick check on APC's website, the difference is something like 25% more expensive for "Smart UPS
>>> online" compared to "Smart UPS" (standby).
>> Thats not very much.
> In a recent purchase, the online device I bought was actually twice the cost of a standby device with similar ratings.
The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
> But that was because I needed it to work with a particularly hostile mains supply, thus it was a special case.
> To be honest, however, the prices I saw when I checked APC's website surprised me slightly - I had expected a bigger
> difference. But one should never let hard facts get in the way of a good argument.
You'll end up completely blind if you dont watch out.
The difference is even less with non brand name consumer products.
>>> Additionally, smaller and cheaper UPSs are mostly standby types, while online ones are for more professional
>>> markets.
>> Thats overstating it, particularly with the stuff out of china.
>>> If you are wanting something that can give you 10 minutes at 300W, standby UPSs will be half the price.
>> Wrong.
> Well, that's based on looking at APC's website.
The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
> There is no doubt that the cheapest APC standby device, which is perfectly good for a single system, is less than half
> the price of their cheapest online
> device. For their small devices, there is a huge difference in prices.
The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
> But as I say I haven't looked at other manufacturers - in particular,
> I haven't looked at the low-end and unbranded devices.
And you will find egg all over your face if you do.
> I simply took APC as a familiar professional-level UPS supplier, and I expect other professional-level suppliers to be
> roughly in line with them.
More fool you.
> If what you are saying is true of the low-end devices, then that's
> interesting news. I'm not sure I'd normally pick a no-name UPS
You have always been, and always will be, completely and utterly irrelevant.
> - when looking for reliability during a power failure, the supplier's reputation is a factor.
Only for fools.
> But there are certainly situations when a
> cheap UPS is much better than no UPS.
Funny that.
>>> Online UPSs are also less efficient for smaller systems - the
>>> double conversion wastes at least 10% of your electricity.
>> Utterly mangled all over again.
> No,
Yep.
> it's quite simple - AC to DC conversion has some loses, DC to AC conversion has some loses.
Pity you utterly mangled that number that is straight from your ****.
> Simple passive filtering and surge protection, as used by standby devices when they are offline, has virtually no
> loss.
That wasnt what you utterly mangled.
> I'm not too concerned about this myself, but other people certainly are, especially in larger setups.
If you are concerned about that, the way to eliminate that
is to use a UPS that replaces the current power supply so
there is no second loss of going from AC to DC again.
>> And if you do care about that, you can also get replacement power supplys that avoid the double conversion and still
>> have the UPS functionality.
> If you are talking about DC supply buses to servers,
Nope, its just as true of desktop PCs.
> rather than having an AC supply to each, then I think it's a very good idea. It is quite simply idiotic to take a
> high voltage AC supply, convert it to low voltage DC for a battery, turn it back to high voltage AC to deliver to a
> server's power supply, which then turns it back to a low voltage DC.
It isnt idiotic, its just not as efficient. Many dont give a ****
about the efficiency with a device that isnt taking that much power.
> Converting AC to 24V to 48V DC for battery storage, and passing that straight to a server's power supply
Just as true of a desktop's power supply.
> would be significantly more efficient in energy use,
Not very significantly, actually.
> and much smaller and cheaper in hardware.
Nope, its actually more expensive, essentially because that approach
doesnt sell in the same volume that traditional UPSs do.
>>> That doesn't mean that standby UPSs are a better choice for a small user - just that there are different balances to
>>> consider and the price difference (though less than it used to be) is significant.
>> Not anymore.
>>>>> I was assuming that the OP was using a regular, run of the mill APC UPS.
>>>> There's plenty of continuous/online consumer grade UPSs now.
>>>>>>> The PC power supply should hold during this period. Before
>>>>>>> I had a UPS, a split-second power outage would cause clocks
>>>>>>> to lose their time, etc., sometimes, even my monitor would
>>>>>>> blink, but the computer would hold without a glitch. If
>>>>>>> you want to test your UPS, pull the power cord with a load
>>>>>>> on the UPS.
Re: Battery backup: problem with my APC? 
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