Ups

[littlewill]

Hi,

Any views on what type of UPS to use to cover a tower system.

[rajagra]

What do you want it for? There are plenty of low capacity ones that will protect you from brownouts or spikes, but if you want to cope with 1/2 hour power outages you'll need to get something much bigger/noisier(fans)/more expensive. Do you want the PC to shut down automatically when there's a power problem - if so you need one with an interface+cable+software.
A fully-loaded tower will often be too much for the cheapest UPS's to cope with at all.
If you need serious protection, avoid "standby" UPS's that only turn on battery power *after* mains power has failed, so you get a momentary loss of power that may cause a crash.

[Moby-Dick]

APc all the way.

but if you dont want any monitoring of the UPS , this will do .
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=73989

personally I think its woth the extra dough for this.
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=25766

[BUFF]

APC used to have a configurator on their website to help pick which capacity you want.

http://www.apcc.com/template/size/apc/index.cfm

[unrealrocks]

APC still have the confiurator, can't remember the link off hand though.

Your probabably looking at over 500VA ... http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=62752 not sure how good they are but there cheap

[5cupa]

APC myself.

dont get the cheap lieburts as we use them at work and they are always blowing fuses

[rajagra]

P.S. I had a low-end Belkin UPS for a long while. Every so often my lights would flicker, and digital clocks would reset, but the PC kept running. Made me feel all smug. Until I tested the UPS thoroughly one day. It was charging the battery OK, but when the mains was removed it didn't generate power to the PC. Worse than that, guess what was causing the dimming lights, etc. That's right, the damned UPS! Every time it thought the mains voltage was low, it tried to kick in and caused a brief short! I binned it, now all's well. I have another, huge UPS, but that has a noisy fan, so most of the time it is turned off.
The moral? Decide in advance exactly why you need a UPS, buy one that exceeds your needs, and test it often. Or just get a surge protector instead.

[rajagra]

APC UPS types gathered from http://www.apc.com/products/category.cfm?id=13 with my judgement in brackets...

(Crude) Standby UPS's: Back-UPS ES / Back-UPS CS

(Good) Line Interactive UPS's: Back-UPS RS / Smart-UPS / Smart-UPS XL

(Excellent) Double Conversion Online UPS's: APC Smart-UPS RT / Symmetra / Symmetra LX / Matrix-UPS / Symmetra PX

(Sophisticated) Delta Conversion On-line Technology UPS's: Smart-UPS DP / Symmetra MW / Silcon

I would go for the APC Back-UPS RS 800VA USB/SER at £125 as a minimum. If you really need a UPS, then you really need something better than a standby model.

Damn! I may have to buy one myself now!

[Butuz]

I only buy APC as they are the best.

You should too!

Butuz

[Jiff Lemon]

Again, another vote for APC.
Battery life is about 3 years and when they die, they're easily replaceable.

However..... DON'T start plugging things like printers into one... PC and at a push, the monitor. Remember, the idea is that should you lose power, the PC doesn't lose data; It's got enough time to shut down gracefully - Not work offline.